Mental Freedom: on becoming one’s own person

This stren¹ addresses the emancipation of your mind to think independently, with courage, originality, self-initiation, and wisdom.  It identifies essential steps to a newer manner of thinking that will enhance your mental freedom. 

     Mental freedom is the skill of directing one’s own life’s experience to feel good and “do good.”  Each of us is born servant to two masters variously labeled as – fate and circumstance, our genes and nurturers, the potential we inherit and what our early teachers make of us.  Mental freedom is the process of adding a third master, self-mastery, to those other controllers of our destiny, master nature and master nurture.  We alone among earth’s creatures have the capability to direct and produce our life’s experience through the discipline of thought control.  A Practical Person’s Guide to Doing Good and Feeling Good  through ANWOT is a growing collection of strens that build the mental muscles required for self-mastery.  This overview of The Guide describes six basic steps that “work,” that lead to becoming one’s own person.  These simple changes in your thinking will make a significant difference in your degree of mental freedom.  If this stren makes sense to you, you may choose to invest additional time and energy to strengthen your mental freedom.  The Guide is also available on computer disk free for the asking (plus mailing/material costs, est. $3)ⁱ.             

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The following concepts and definitions are useful:
Freedom: without restraint; liberty from slavery, oppression, incarceration; choice; free will; immunity from the arbitrary exercise of authority; “pursuing our own good in our own way” J.S.Mill
Slavery: bondage to a master; being subject or addicted to a specific influence
Dependence: the state of being determined, influenced, or controlled by something else
Independence: self-support, competence; self-governing
Wisdom: understanding what is true, right, or lasting; common sense, good judgment [synonym = awareness or understanding gained through experience or study]
                        Above from: American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition

Our three controllers and examples of their influence:

1. Master nature, what we inherit: body size, appearance, color, and function; sexual gender; fight/flight emergency response, instinct and reflexes; intelligence; dependence.  What else would you add?
2. Master nurture, what we are taught: language and symbols², assumptions about how the world operates, habit, religion, guilt, resentment, how to think, good/bad, right/wrong, me/not me, us/them, win/lose, trust (faith, belief, and dependence), suspicion, identity (labels that describe and convey meaning and emotion to our self).  What else would you add?
3. Self-mastery, what is ours to acquire and/or create: mental freedom, thought control, wisdom, becoming director and producer of our life’s experience, originality, creativity, self-initiation, love, the degree we own our self.  What else would you add?

Mental awareness, a collage of three activities in our consciousness:

1. Thoughts: what passively somewhat automatically “pops” into our mind as received from the outside, usually through our five senses, and passively received from within, from our body state.  Examples: “hot,” “tastes good,” “danger,” “hungry,” “pee,” “emergency! – attack or run” (our “fight or flight response”)  
2. Thinking: our active deliberate problem-solving activity, what we do with our thoughts.  Thinking serves three masters, initially the commands we inherit through our genes, thereafter those we acquire from our nurturers, and the modifications we initiate as we acquire self-mastery.  Example: “Shall I pee in my pants, go into the woods, or wait until I can get to a bathroom?”  
3. Reflective-thinking: thinking about our thinking, i.e. consciousness of our consciousness.  Our complex cortical brain and its skill in the use of symbols are our source of mental freedom, originality, and creativity; it distinguishes us from other earth creatures and is a major source of our identity as a person.

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     Freedom is one of our most cherished goals.  Slavery is universally abhorred, certainly if one’s role is slave rather than master. Yet, each of us, yes, you and I included, serve the whims of fate and circumstance, our genes and our nurturers.  And most, although convinced of their independence, remain imperceptibly a mental servant to those masters who first create their life’s script.  What higher goal than liberating our mind “to pursue our own good in our own way”?   

     The mental activity we call “thinking” enables us to consciously choose, to act with creativity, originality, and self-initiative.  Thinking is our power to make a difference in our life’s experience.  Whereas most earth creatures follow their destiny’s course, like an arrow shot from a bow, we study the rules, challenge and modify them.  We create, dwell, and actively intervene in our own mental virtual world.  Willpower converts mental energy into physical action.  With increasing virility, our kind creates tools to change not only our self but also the world nature and our nurturers have provided.  For better and for worse, science is growing our will power exponentially, far exceeding our growth of wisdom.  Power lacking wisdom implies danger.  We may say, “I think, therefore, I am dangerous.”  The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed the muscles of slaves.  Deprived of education and opportunity to free their mind, many were initially worse off than when directed by a benevolent “master”.  Physical freedom unleashes the power of muscle.  Mental freedom stimulates wisdom and good judgment.  We require a newer manner of thinking to wisely direct our self-mastery.  

     Mental freedom is acquired through a series of skill building steps, very much like any worthwhile skill.  Consider the necessary repetitions and errors as you acquired your native language and learned to walk; and what is required in learning to type, a craft, a profession, to skillfully play a musical instrument?  Most take months or years, and perfection is to be strived for more so than attained.   I estimate it will require a half-year of energetic effort to consistently use the skills of becoming one’s own person.  Rewards that may be experienced quickly will require study, practice, review, making mistakes, and setbacks, as the newer manner of thinking gradually becomes an effortless substitute for older thinking habits that have outlasted their value.  

Here is my view of the first skills for mental freedom.  If you merely add the mental strengths here provided to your existing repertoire, you will improve your well-being.  These steps are explained in detail in this Practical Person’s Guide. 

1. Faith: The first required step towards mental freedom is the simple belief that you can make a difference in the way you feel and the way you act.  If you start with “I can’t,” you engage in the most devastating of the eight mental choices available to you, hopelessness/helplessness, the “give up” pattern.  It shuts down your energy factory.  You won’t even try.  If you are so down on your self, there are several ways to generate the necessary spark to get you started.  Think about anyone you know of or read about who has had a difficult, seemingly impossible life situation, yet changed his/her life.  There are many such examples.  I have met a number of such individuals.  See The stren stren.   Another effective technique to muster the spark to get you started is what is called “act as if.”  Imagine you were to act a part where you portrayed someone who believed they could make a difference.  Simply acting as if, as every actor has experienced, will soon lead to some feelings as if.  The as if will gradually melt away creating genuine feelings.  Other readily available ingredients to mental freedom explained in the Guide include work, patience, direction, and risk-taking.  Yes, letting go of old patterns, even “murdering” them, can be very risky, especially if they are old friends that have “worked” in the past.  
   
   
2. Self-endorsement, the building of love muscles: With the slightest bit of faith, the next and perhaps most rewarding step is strengthening the skill of becoming your own best friend.  You are your lifelong traveling companion.  Loving your-self is the pre-required skill to growing your love-making factory, i.e. producing love that you freely and willingly give to others.  Teach yourself to provide the minimum daily requirement of endorsement that you need to best function.  As you fill your own cup, it will overflow!  You will experience the gift of giving without depending on what others do.  Too many persons go through life as “love junkies.”   Do you know any?  How dependent are you on others’ approval?  Read and practice the practical skill building strens on self-endorsement provided in theGuide.  Look wherever (books/movies/etc.) for role models and examples of self-endorsement/loving skills that you can emulate.  How do you interpret “Love thy neighbor as thyself”? 
   
   
3. "Update” your thinking from the dependency words appropriate during your early years to the freedom words appropriate and attainable during maturity:  You will make a great stride from mental slavery to mental freedom by making three relatively simple changes in your use of words.  When possible substitute descriptive words for prescriptive words; substitute analog words for dichotomous words; and substitute personal responsibility words for dependency words.  Words, as with light switches, turn emotions, thoughts, and action on and off.  Once “wired” they stimulate specific identifiable patterns.  The path to mental freedom requires establishing new paths that get you where you want to go more so than where others have directed you. Too often, we overlook the immense power that words and symbols influence our life’s experience. 
        a. descriptive words (I choose, prefer, want, like, am wise when) instead of prescriptive words (I should, must, have to, am required; he/she/they/it makes me).  Descriptive words are “wired” to convey choice more so than blind obedience.
   
        b. analog³ “continuous” words (both/and, this and that, the pluses and minuses, positives and negatives) more so than dichotomous words (either/or, right or wrong, good or bad, me or you, us or them)
   
        c.personal responsibility words (I choose) more so than dependency words (he/she/they/it makes me)
   
   NOTE: Yes, sometimes these alternative words do not sensibly apply; dichotomous “either/or” is appropriate.  Make the substitutions whenever it is reasonable.  Prescriptive words are appropriate once we make our own free choice!  Examples:  “If I choose to save money, I have to cut down on my spending.”  “I want to buy clothes.  Therefore, I must deplete my savings.”  
   
   
4. Strens, literally “mental strengths,” are the collection of wisdoms that others have shown to work to our betterment.  I suggest you begin with one of my favorites, that I call the stren stren (strengthening your mental strength). 
        "To make yourself miserable, focus on what you have lost, what you don’t have, and/or what you may never
        attain.  To feel good and do good, direct your attention to what you have attained, what you have now, and/or
        what you might attain in the future.”
   The Guide is a curriculum of skill-building strens that each focus on a specific topic.  For example, early strens deal with self-endorsement.
   
   
5. Recognize and regularly apply the four (4) of the eight (8) mental response choices available to you that are easiest to learn.
   Learn to recognize and stamp out the two Blaming mental response patterns!
        a. The Blaming Out mental response pattern:  He (she/they/it) did what he (she/they/it) shouldn’t (or didn’t do what he should have done) and therefore he deserves punishment.  We more commonly punish using resentment, exclusion, shame, dominance, prejudice, social, economic, and religious sanctions since physical attack and /or running is rarely appropriate in today’s world. 
        b. The Blaming In mental response pattern: I did what I shouldn’t (didn’t do what I should) and therefore I deserve punishment.  Guilt, self-putdowns, depression, and in the extreme “murdering one’s self” is almost exclusive among humans. 
   
   Regularly practice the Problem-Solving and Self-endorsement mental response patterns.
   
        c. The Problem-Solving mental response choice:  Given this situation, what can I do to make it better for
        me and them, for now and for later?
        d. Self-endorsement: As my lifelong traveling companion, I practice becoming my own best friend. 
        e. Though giving priority to these mental choices, proceed to develop skill in addressing the remaining four (4) patterns: Avoidance (withdrawal, procrastination, substance abuse), the Hopelessness/Helplessness “give up” choice, the “What if” Worry response, and the Mind/Body response pattern (physical consequences such as muscle contraction pain, bowel irregularities, elevated blood pressure, and other stress reactions).  
   
   
   Recognize and practice the problem-solving and self-endorsement mental response patterns; recognize and learn to constantly attack the six nonproductive mental response patterns. 
   
   
6. Values ⁴: “Do to others as I would have them do to me.”  Virtually all religions preach similar values.  The Golden Rule is perhaps the most universal and therefore an easy starting point. 

To what degree do you already apply these six steps to self-mastery?  What would you add?

Do you choose to be more of a technician or an engineer?  Thought control is relatively easy to attain by simply following the what to do directions.  Like operating your T.V., you merely needed to learn to use the “off/on,” volume, and channel buttons to make your set “work.”  Why and how someone miles distant can “visit” you in your home may remain a complete mystery.  The Practical Person’s Guide to Feeling Good and Doing Good through ANWOT consists of both practical strens and practical theory strens.  To the degree you are satisfied more so as a technician, the what to do practical strens are sufficient to feel good and do good.  The theory strens explain why and how the newer way of thinking works.  They will add to your originality and creativity.  If you choose to attain engineer status, invest more of your time and mental energy in the theory strens that are here provided.
     
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1. A stren or “mental strength” is any concept that adds wisdom to your manner of thinking.