“Dostoevsky wrote that the best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison. Many of us live this way, not even knowing how desperately we are trapped by the stories we tell to make sense or our experience. Once these stories are in place, we choose, modify, and twist new experiences to fit our expectations. What we think of as the “truth” is actually an elaborate and deliberate fiction composed by our minds. Realizing that our story is really arbitrary, that there are infinite other stories that may be every bit as accurate, opens the prison door of your belief system, allowing you to walk out if you so choose.”
Martha Beck, The Joy Diet
What I find so intriguing about denial, the mind and the way our beliefs hold us prisoner in our own lives, is that we don’t know we are in prison, so we don’t try to escape!
This failing to escape keeps us held prisoner.
Failing to try to climb the prison walls, to challenge our unchanging lives, our unexplored and untried experiences, we sit in our lives never attempting to push out the walls.
I see this as another way to look at denial, when you can’t tell if you’re in the jail or outside.
As I go about my days, the more choices I have to say yes and to say no is a huge indicator of being in jail or out.
I am astounded that so many believe they are free when they are not.
The ultimate denial is in the fabric of your being; the upbringing and being raised in a belief system that holds you prisoner and you don’t even know it.
Denying you are a prisoner is the key.
The key that locks your life away from you.
I M Perfect lady 