For many people who refuse to take the vaccine, this is what it ultimately comes down to. Liberty or death.  That is how strongly some people feel about maintaining freedom of choice.

For many people this pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of perspective and the freedom to choose to live without fear.

What is freedom to you? To me, it is ultimately the freedom to choose my perspective and attitude. In Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ he states “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It has become increasingly obvious that we are living in a paradigm of control. I first observed this need for control in myself, when I became a parent and my 2 year old daughter said ‘NO’ to me for the first time. I felt it in my belly, a  tight, twisting feeling that made me want to shake her and MAKE her listen to me. Of course I didn’t do that but instead observed the feeling of frustration within me and remembered how my own father had struggled with this throughout his entire life and still does to some degree.

I believe that we all struggle with this need for control. We feel the need to control others all the more, especially when we are unable to control our own selves.

As a yoga instructor, I am learning to observe this tendency when it comes up and release it as best I can.  This pandemic has highlighted a global scale tendency of the need for control. It is simply an external reflection of our internal struggle.

So what do we do about it? Take a deep breath, and let it go. Again, and again, and again.