Imagine - you are 16 years old. Sometimes you are hopeful, excited, and full of vision. At other times you are confused, afraid of the future, or pining over a special love interest. You live on a continuum that spans from breathless to boring. Your life is filled with activities and education; you don't have the time for deep reflection.  Finally you move away from home. You love your new found freedom - no rules.  Remember? How did that work out for you? I mean after that first two week emotional rush?

I married at 19 and was thrilled over the prospect of not being under my mother's supervision. I expected marriage to bring freedom, while later I anticipated freedom ensuing from getting a divorced. Each choice rested in the delusion that changing my exterior world would bring freedom. Add on a room to the house, you know, more storage space - the freedom of less clutter. I didn't understand how comfortable I was in myself constructed prison. My limits defined me and in many ways still do. As I learned to let go, I found I could open the prison windows and doors and transform the prison into a life supporting living space. There wasn't a separate prison; I was the prison. I didn't need to get out of prison; I needed to open up to freedom.

"Freedom in the future" was only a dangling carrot. I found freedom only when I was in the present. As we mature we learn how stealthy our minds can be. They are like land mines. You can be careful to avoid stepping on one, but many are under the surface. You walk carefully, but if you step on one, it can blow up in your face.

Once we discover our fragile cavernous mindscape, we hunt for techniques and strategies to navigate the treacherous terrain. The search then becomes another kind of trap. People get very serious about this search. "I am serious about my search to be open, free, and spontaneous." A thought is like a land mine, in some ways, but a thought doesn't kill us. A thought is just a thought. Having to police our minds 24/7 becomes yet another prison. It is a prison of perfectionism. How can we move beyond mind traps into metal freedoms?

This is where awareness comes in. Awareness is the gate to mental and emotional freedom. Awareness holds our thoughts and emotions, but it is not guided by them. Theologians study the sacred: mystics experience it. I'd much rather be a mystic than a theologian. Our greatest mystics were masters. They were heretics to the teachings, and cheerleaders for the simple, the pure, and the now. Okay, awareness, bring it on. Where is this awareness and how do I experience it? Awareness has a local address; it is NOW. Living in the present brings the mind to a point where it tires of being a thinking machine. The part of us that lives outside our minds gets a major rush when it actually touches reality, which is life itself.

I suggest one easy action to increase awareness and decrease limiting mental structures. There are hundreds of books on awareness and many techniques and methods, but for today I suggest only one. There are many roads that lead to New York, but if you travel them all, you yourself delay your arrival to the promised land.

In 1981 I discovered the power of the breath and subsequently became a breath worker. I have delighted in breath work and sometimes labored in it. I advise you not do strenuous breath work without a breath assistant, but this breath exercise is one you can safely do. Whenever you think of it, count your out breath. The count will probably be from about 4 to 6 counts. Do this frequently throughout the day. Never chastise yourself for forgetting. Just do this when you do remember. Put your focus on the out breath and just count (silently in your mind). There are hundreds of moments throughout the day available to watch the breath. It brings the mind into the present and it brings our minds out of the head and into the body's mind. If you do this practice, I predict your mind will feel more focused and the tendency to mind race will ebb away. Getting into the body and focusing on the breath is like the sun coming out after a long winter. Give up the idea that change is hard, and work with this a few days. If you do, you will find your life getting easier and easier.