Mental Freedom® isn't a single insight or technique. It's a way of navigating life that helps you move from emotional reactivity to clarity, choice, and personal responsibility—without blame, denial, or self-abandonment.
If you've already read What Is Mental Freedom®?, you understand the framework. This article is about how the six principles actually work together in real life.
These principles aren't steps you complete in order. They're lenses you use—again and again—as situations arise.
1. Responsibility vs. Response-ability
Mental Freedom® begins with a clear distinction between what belongs to you and what doesn't.
You are responsible for your choices, your behavior, and how you move forward once you have information. You are not responsible for other people's choices, emotions, or outcomes—even when you care deeply.
Response-ability is different. It's your ability to choose how you show up in situations that aren't your responsibility.
The guiding question is simple but powerful: **Who do I want to be in this situation?**
When your response comes from desire rather than obligation, resentment fades and satisfaction increases. This principle prevents both over-functioning for others and under-functioning in your own life.
2. The Unconditional Trust Challenge
Most people define trust as trusting someone to behave the way they want them to. That definition almost guarantees disappointment.
Mental Freedom® reframes trust more realistically: **People do their best to get what they want in the moment, with the information and ability they have.**
This doesn't excuse behavior—it explains it.
As Maya Angelou said, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time."
Mental Freedom® adds an important clarification: Trust people to be who they've shown you they are until they consistently show you something different.
Once you see behavior clearly, you regain choice. You may deepen the relationship, adjust expectations, create distance, or end the relationship altogether. And forgiveness becomes an internal release—not necessarily reconciliation.
3. Victimizing vs. Empowering Language
The language you use—internally and externally—shapes your experience more than you may realize.
Victimizing language sounds like:
- "I have to."
- "They made me feel this way."
- "I don't have a choice."
Empowering language restores agency:
- "I choose to."
- "I want to."
- "I'm deciding."
In Mental Freedom®, moving from "I have to" to "I choose to" is only halfway. The deeper shift happens when you understand your why—the benefit you're gaining or the consequence you're avoiding.
Once you know your why, you never have to do anything again. And if you can't find a meaningful why, you may want to stop doing it.
4. Rewriting the Stories in Your Head
Events don't create emotional pain on their own. The meaning we attach to them does.
We all tell ourselves stories:
- "They don't care about me."
- "I'm not important."
- "This always happens."
Mental Freedom® teaches you to notice the story, question its accuracy, and rewrite it in a way that's honest and balanced. This isn't positive thinking—it's meaning correction.
When the story changes, your emotional and physiological experience often changes with it, opening the door to new choices.
5. Signal vs. Solution
Emotions and physical sensations are signals. Pain can be emotional or physical—even without a biological cause. These signals alert you that something in your experience is out of alignment with how you want things to be.
Signals aren't consciously chosen, but they are subconsciously created. They're adaptive and useful by design. Their purpose is to get your attention so you can recognize the pain, locate the problem, and correct what isn't working.
When signals are attended to promptly, they often resolve naturally. Difficulty arises when we ignore, suppress, or postpone addressing them because it feels inconvenient, overwhelming, or too hard.
When pain is held rather than addressed, secondary benefits can emerge. At that point, pain may subconsciously serve a purpose—gaining attention, creating safety, slowing life down, avoiding responsibility, or preventing actions that feel threatening. These aren't intentional strategies. They're subconscious total behaviors that arise when the brain notices a benefit to maintaining the pain.
Mental Freedom® helps you distinguish between the original signal and the secondary solution so you can consciously decide how you want to respond going forward.
6. Appreciating the GLOW
GLOW stands for Gifts, Lessons, Opportunities, and Wisdom.
This principle isn't about pretending painful experiences were "good." It's about integrating them in ways that strengthen rather than harden you. GLOW allows insight to become resilience without minimizing pain or forcing forgiveness.
How the Six Principles Work Together
These principles aren't linear. You don't master one and move on.
In a single situation, you might:
- clarify responsibility,
- notice your language,
- challenge a story,
- decode a signal,
- re-evaluate trust,
- and extract GLOW.
That's how Mental Freedom® works in real life. It doesn't eliminate challenges—it helps you recover faster and respond with intention.
Begin Your Mental Freedom® Journey
Understanding these principles is the first step. Practicing them is where change happens.
If you're ready to apply these ideas in your own life and relationships, join the next Mental Freedom® Experience.
And if you feel called to take this work deeper—personally or professionally—you can also explore Mental Freedom® Certification.
Mental Freedom® isn't about controlling life. It's about choosing how you meet it.