Freedom

I am realizing that the greatest gift I can ever receive comes to me only when I decide to release you, my brother or my sister, from the perceptions I have been projecting upon you.

There is a truth that is true always about you. There is a truth that is unchanged and unchanging about who you are. It is this truth, this gift above any gift, that is revealed to me as I release you from the perceptions I have held about you.

Of course, this is so regarding anything that I see. I am beginning to understand that I have not known the world. I have only known my perceptions of it. And I have learned to insist, and guard vehemently, that my chosen perceptions are right:

• My perceptions of you, what you do and say.
• My perceptions of my parents, the choices they made, the way they were toward me.
• My perception of my job, my behavior, my choices.
• My perceptions of myself.
• My perception of the world.
• My perception of God.

As I relinquish my insistence to be right about my world, I find that there is something deeper, something glimmering, something holy just beyond my perception. As I allow the world - you, others, myself, God - to be as it is, to be innocent, I am free. Free from the idea that circumstances control me. Free to see and therefore create my experience as I desire. Not by making what is out there different in itself, but by allowing myself to be changed, deeply, gently, by the choice to see only the good, the holy and the beautiful.