19 The giant misunderstanding about freedom and self-responsibility
Bones
19 The giant misunderstanding about freedom and self-responsibility
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Life on planet Earth is not utopia, and we aren’t perfect. This is not a tragedy.
We’ve become so afraid, though, of taking self-responsibility, our fear of it has become a large part of our abyss. We fear that if we assume self-responsibility, we will fall right in and be swallowed up whole… It seems like a huge danger to let go of our demand to always have our way… We literally fear we’ll be miserable if we have to give up our demand for Utopia…
We can never be happy because buried in our unconscious is this mistaken concept that happiness requires utter perfection in all ways. Yet none of this true. It’s all part of a grand illusion… We believe that harm can come to us through the arbitrariness of life… This fear is an illusion—it’s an abyss. And the only reason it exists is because of the way we avoid self-responsibility. For if we don’t want to be responsible for our life, someone else must be…
We are only helpless because we make ourselves so when we shift responsibility away from ourselves. When we look at things this way, we begin to see the heavy price we pay for insisting on Utopia. We pay every day with our fear… As we do this work of self-discovery, we want to find the corresponding note in ourselves that is vibrating due to provocation from another. Then we’ll stop feeling like a victim…
Part of being a grown-up and making independent decisions is that we are bound to make mistakes. The child in us who still clings to Utopia, however, believes we must always be perfect. To make a mistake is to fall into the abyss… Life on planet Earth is not Utopia, and we aren’t perfect. This is not a tragedy.
Jill Loree grew up in northern Wisconsin with parents who embraced their Norwegian, Swedish and German heritage. Foods like lutefisk, lefse and krumkaka were prepared every Christmas. And of course there was plenty of beer, bratwurst and cheese all year round.
She would go on to throw pizzas and bartend while attending college at the University of Wisconsin, and then moved into a career in technical sales and marketing. She would settle in Atlanta in 1989 and discover that the sweet spot of her career would be in marketing communications. A true Gemini, she has a degree in chemistry and a flair for writing.
One of Jill’s greatest passions in life has been her spiritual path. Raised in the Lutheran faith, she became a more deeply spiritual person in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) starting in 1989. In 1997, she was introduced to the wisdom of the Pathwork Guide, which she describes as “having walked through the doorway of a fourth step and found the whole library.”
In 2007, she completed four years of training to become a Pathwork Helper, and stepped fully into her Helpership in 2011. In addition to offering individual and group sessions, she has been a teacher in the Transformation Program offered by Mid-Atlantic Pathwork. She also led marketing activities for Sevenoaks Retreat Center in Madison, Virginia and served on their Board of Trustees.
In 2012, Jill completed four years of kabbalah training and became certified for hands-on healing using the energies embodied in the tree of life. She began dedicating her life to writing and teaching about personal self-development in 2014.
Today, Jill is the proud mom of two adult children, Charlie and Jackson, and is delighted to be married to Scott Wisler. She’s had more than one last name along the way and now happily uses her middle name as her last. It’s pronounced loh-REE. In 2022, Scott joined her full time in their mission to spread the teachings of the Pathwork Guide far and wide.
