Today I Am Free
Manifesting Through Deep Inner Changes
By Richard Dotts
Table of Contents
Richard Dotts 2015
st Kindle Edition
Questions / comments? The author can be contacted at RichardDotts@gmail.com
Chapter 1 - Today I Am Free
I have been a worrywart since young.
I remember sitting in my dads car and looking out of its window at a very young age, pondering over all the problems in my life at that time. Petty concerns and worries, which to a child, seemed like the world back then Who was going to be my friend in school? How was I perceived by my peers and teachers? Was I well-liked? Will I do well?
I remember one afternoon in particular, when I wondered when my life would finally be free of these problems. In my youthful innocence, I reasoned that these problems would probably stop after I leave school, when I would finally have nothing to worry about. Then I would be able to enjoy life itself!
As I entered my teenage years and subsequent adulthood, the problems in my life did not just go away. Instead, they morphed into a different set of problems. I found myself worrying about money, about acceptance in society and about achieving something of significance in life. Different problems, but the same incessant worrying and mind chatter going on and on.
In fact, it seemed like worrying was going to be the natural way of life for me. While growing up, I was taught the value of worrying by my mother, who was a worrywart herself. She was always extolling the virtues of being prepared in advance, not realizing that in order to do so, she was running through half a dozen disaster scenarios in her mind each time. My mother was constantly on the lookout for the next thing that could go wrong so she could prevent it.
And so, not having questioned these worrying thoughts for myself, I came to accept them as normal in my life. I came to accept all the incessant mind chatter that lived inside my head for several decades. I lived with them, worked with them and went to bed at night with them. The mind chatter kept me awake for many, many nights, where my mind would just run through one possibility after another without realizing the truth behind all of them.
The truth is that none of those thoughts were real.
I would have continued to live this way if not for a few significant events in my life. First and broadly, I encountered these spiritual teachings which I would go on to write about in my books. The work of several authors, in particular Lester Levenson (Creator of The Sedona Method) and Byron Katie (The Work), made me realize that our thoughts are not real. They are just our own projections onto the external world, which can then go on to create our external reality. Byron Katie teaches that when one believes in their own thoughts, they suffer. This was certainly true for me all those years. I chose to believe in my own baseless negative worrying and fear thoughts. The end result was an extremely poor self-image and a very pessimistic view towards life. Hence the first step was for me to be free from my own thoughts.
Second, as I frequently teach, is that it is not possible to stew in negative thoughts for long periods of time without having some form of unwanted physical manifestation. For me, those unwanted manifestations came in the form of major setbacks in life which resulted from years of negative thinking. Those painful setbacks forced me to finally sit up and take notice. They forced me to take a good look at my life and to examine all the possible causes. After I was done blaming all the external circumstances for my seeming misfortune, I realized that the only cause I had not thoroughly examined was the nature of my own thoughts .
It was only after a few hard, terrible experiences that I realized I had to take full responsibility for my own personal development. I could not continue to engage in worrying, critical and judgmental thoughts while hoping that positive things would happen to me on the outside. Of course, this is easier said than done and it took me several years to do so. The second step thus was for me to be free from several negative behaviors and thought patterns.
Third, I encountered the teachings of Abraham-Hicks, Seth, Louise Hay, Neville and a whole host of wonderful inspirational teachers (too many to list here) who teach that it is possible for us to create our own reality. Once I had overcome all my negative conditioning, I began to focus on creating a new desired reality following all the principles taught by these great teachers. What followed has been a period of flourishing in my life, where each year has been progressively better than the last. As they frequently say in The Silva Method: May the rest of your life be the best of your life!
As I look back at all these teachings I encountered in my life, I realize that all of them have their unique place and value. All of them contributed to a piece of the spiritual puzzle for me, as they will for you. But the biggest piece of the puzzle was myself . This is often the most difficult piece for us to work with because we often do not have an objective view of ourselves. We are able to see and readily point out the flaws in others but we remain mostly invisible to ourselves. Until we work with this unseen portion of ourselves, until we bring our hidden beliefs and behaviors to light and work with them, our full potential will always be limited by what we cannot see.
And so this sets the intention for the book which you are now holding in your hands. In my earlier books, I have focused on the importance of giving up your negative feelings of worry and fear. I have placed special and heavy emphasis on these two types of negative feelings because they are usually major obstacles to manifestation for most people. Once someone is able to give up their need to worry, manifestations usually happen very quickly for them. In this book however, I move beyond worries and fear to talk about the importance of freeing yourself from the judgment and approval of others, and the need to judge or approve of others. Youll quickly discover (as I did) that when you free yourself of these destructive behaviors, your manifestations will flow even faster and more effectively than before. An individual compounds all the inner work which they have done as they give up more of their emotional baggage.
When you reach a point where there is very little emotional baggage holding you back, you are finally free to create. This is when you can truly harness the full power of all the spiritual teachings which you have encountered. This is when you can truly create anything you want that you consider to be of value in your life. Until and unless you do the inner work necessary to create these deep inner changes, you will always be limited in terms of what you can manifest on the outside. This is not because someone is physically limiting your progress, but because you are limiting your own progress by engaging in certain destructive behaviors or thought patterns. (I use the word destructive here to mean a destruction of your own desired manifestations.) Without becoming free of the need to judge or to gain the approval of others, one cannot be truly free to create. It is my intention to guide you through powerful tips and techniques which will allow you to create from a truly free state.
It is a surreal feeling to be writing these words today. Today I Am Free is a simple proclamation and four simple words in the English language. Yet they mean so much to me. To go from a person who was once worrying around the clock, once worrying himself sick and worrying himself to insomnia to being someone who has literally forgotten how to worry is a very liberating feeling. To go from someone who was constantly judgmental of others, who constantly criticized and sought the approval of others to someone who is finally free from the judgment of others is an amazing feeling. When I realized that I am finally free, and that I have always been I was filled with such intense unbridled joy that I had to walk up and down the length of my office just to shake off some of that excitement! The recognition of this truth still excites me today.