Freedom is the ability to respond to a situation in accord with what the situation calls for as if there is no issue. This doesn’t mean you have to have dropped your issues. It means you have to be able to separate yourself from your issues and from the identities which live within you which are fused with those issues.
Your identities exist on the level of the story, the ever-changing foreground level of reality, which is where issues, triggers, automatic responses, dramas, feelings, impulses, etc exist. The witness exists on a level beyond the story, beyond issues, triggers, automatic responses, dramas, feelings, and even impulses.
Learn to be mindful; to notice your identities and your stories and how your identities get lost in the stories. Locate yourself in the never-changing background – the “witness” – from where you can see things for what they are and can separate yourself from everything that exists in the ever-changing foreground.
Copyright © 2014 Jim Lehrman