{"id":1691,"date":"2012-07-03T03:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T07:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2012-06-28T19:48:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T23:48:27","slug":"freedom-forgetfulness-and-remembering-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/07\/freedom-forgetfulness-and-remembering-yourself.html","title":{"rendered":"Freedom, Forgetfulness, and Remembering Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems to me that the main reason we suffer, as we do &#8212; over the things we do &#8212; is not because these things, in themselves, have the &#8220;power&#8221; to punish us, but rather because we forget in these moments that who we really are cannot feel &#8220;punished&#8221; without having forgotten that God is good.<\/p>\n<p>This last idea can be stated this way: It is forgetting the truth of ourselves that keeps us in the prison of unwanted states. It&#8217;s not unlike standing outside in a raging storm because, for the moment, usually due to resisting our circumstances, something in us &#8220;forgets&#8221; that we have a home we can return to where we&#8217;ll be safe and warm. To discover the nature of this forgetfulness is the first step in reclaiming one&#8217;s right to be free.<\/p>\n<p>Freedom is not created, which means it cannot be destroyed any more than the onset of night destroys the light of the sun; and we are &#8220;nearer&#8221; this true freedom for which we hope each time we remember the truth of this fact.<\/p>\n<p>We must literally learn to shake off the forgetfulness born of allowing negative states to provide us with their memories, otherwise we have no choice but to be the captive of that limited level of mechanical consciousness. It&#8217;s imperative that we see the truth of this last idea for ourselves. When one is angry, what real choices does one have? We see and do what anger &#8220;remembers&#8221; as being good and viable. Darkness is our guide. Small wonder that we seem to see what needs to be done, and never see our undoing at its hands!<\/p>\n<p>Stop giving your life away to what amounts to unconscious &#8220;memories.&#8221; Choose instead to be present, remember yourself, and therein allow God to show you the true nature of goodness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems to me that the main reason we suffer, as we do &#8212; over the things we do &#8212; is not because these things, in themselves, have the &#8220;power&#8221; to punish us, but rather because we forget in these moments that who we really are cannot feel &#8220;punished&#8221; without having forgotten that God is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574,7],"tags":[1231,45,1232,1233,661,46,1234],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-2","category-self-remembering-awareness","tag-4th-of-july","tag-anger","tag-forgetfulness","tag-god-is-good","tag-independence","tag-negative-states-2","tag-unwanted"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Freedom, Forgetfulness, and Remembering Yourself - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/07\/freedom-forgetfulness-and-remembering-yourself.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Freedom, Forgetfulness, and Remembering Yourself - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It seems to me that the main reason we suffer, as we do &#8212; over the things we do &#8212; is not because these things, in themselves, have the &#8220;power&#8221; to punish us, but rather because we forget in these moments that who we really are cannot feel &#8220;punished&#8221; without having forgotten that God is&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/07\/freedom-forgetfulness-and-remembering-yourself.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-03T07:00:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-06-28T23:48:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@guy_finley\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Freedom, Forgetfulness, and Remembering Yourself - Letting Go with Guy Finley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/07\/freedom-forgetfulness-and-remembering-yourself.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Freedom, Forgetfulness, and Remembering Yourself - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"It seems to me that the main reason we suffer, as we do &#8212; 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Life of Learning Foundation, Guy Finley, and their life-changing messages, visit guyfinley.org. \"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential.\" -Nightingale Conant \"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives.\" -Barnes and Noble","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.guyfinley.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","https:\/\/x.com\/guy_finley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/author\/gfinley"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1695,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}