Introduction to Personal Freedom

Personal Freedom is the realization of who you really are and what you are capable of becoming and that only you stand in your way.

Psychologist Victor Frankl discovered this great truth while a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. He observed that those who survived developed a will to survive. He realized that no matter what was inflicted upon him, he could choose how to feel and think about it. He poignantly illustrates the depth of this discovery when, considering a guard, he says to himself, “You have more liberty than I, but I have more freedom.” Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner's psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering.[1]

Freedom of choice is the first great personal freedom.

Personal Prisons

Personal Prisons are cages of our own forging. They are the things that keep us down, that keep us in a rut, keep us in our box, prevent our growth, and weigh us down with depression, discouragement, and defeatism.

These bars and shackles are forged out of the alloy of misperceptions and bad habits. Ideas that we are victims in this world, that we are owed something, our poor self-image, laziness, complacency, addictions; ideas that “this is all there is,” or that “nothing can be done” and the like form our individual prisons.

Dr. Carter G Woodsen described it this way:

"If you can determine what a man shall think, you will never have to concern yourself with what he will do. If you can make a man feel inferior you will not have to compel him to seek an inferior status for he will seek it himself. And if you can make a man feel justly an outcast, you will never have to order him to use the back door he will go without being told, and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."

But as Frankl points out, you can choose what to think. In fact, in every circumstance you choose what to think, feel, say and do with respect to that circumstance. Many of us are accustomed to reacting, or playing off of and reflecting the circumstance back on itself. Most of us respond out of habit and without thinking and by so doing demonstrate our character or lack thereof. These habitual responses, or auto-responses, are the sum of the choices we made long ago based upon our experiences. They become reflex so we no longer consciously make a choice. The good news is that at any time, you can choose to take control of your programming. You can choose to change.

"It is not what happens to you but how you think about what happens to you that determines how you feel and react. It is not the world outside of you that dictates your circumstances or conditions. It is the world inside you that creates the conditions of your life." --Brian Tracey

"I used to say, "I sure hope things will change." Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change." --Jim Rohn

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[1] Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, October 23, 1984 Revised and Updated, Washington Square Press.

For the continuation, see Part I: Law of Cause and Effect