Moving from Obligation to Aliveness

“The results of our lives are some level of reflection in consciousness to what we’re committed to.” – Lola Wright

Are you filling your life with external obligations? You are not on this Earth to fulfill the desires of others, you are here to actualize your own desires. Put aside the obligations of others and align your energy towards your true direction.

Most human beings are living their lives dictated by their unconscious commitments. I want to help you recognize what your commitments are and realize if they are truly where you desire your energy to be spent.

On this episode of Find Your Fierce & Loving, I ask you to shed your obligations and instead embrace your truest, most vital life. This audio is from the recent Set On Fire Retreat, when we came together to find the love that truly sets us on fire and align our energy towards purposeful commitments.

• (2:26) – Leaving obligation behind
• (7:35) – Locating your desires
• (12:16) – Expand your container for good

Do you want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created? We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle, a vibrant membership community rich in opportunities for engagement and transformation. Find out more at lolawright.com/our-circle.

You can follow Lola Wright, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com.

Chicago born and built, Lola grew up in wealth and privilege, yet always sensed something was missing. She sought out aliveness and freedom in music, immersing herself in the hip hop and house music scenes of 90s Chicago. After finding herself on her own at 23, as the mother of two young children, she became determined to create a new experience.

Lola is an ordained minister with a gift for weaving together the mystical and material, she served for many years as the CEO of Bodhi Center, an organization committed to personal transformation, collective awakening, conscious activism, and community-building. 

This podcast is produced by Quinn Rose with theme music by independent producer Trey Royal.

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[00:00:01] Personal transformation and collective awakening involve being the most alive, brilliant, inspired, creative, on-fire version of yourself, a version that is not consistent with the status quo. My name is Lola Wright and this is Find Your Fierce & Loving. This podcast is a wake-up call, a roadmap back to your holy purpose, an invitation to set fire to the box you’ve been living in, and watch it burn. 

[00:00:40] Welcome to the Find Your Fierce & Loving podcast, today’s bonus episode, you’ll hear more of the Set on Fire retreat. This was a four-day experience that I led over the New Year. There were 70 people that gathered from around the world. And you’ll get to hear from some of the retreat participants, people really dug in. And I have so much gratitude for the willingness to do that inner work. I hope that you enjoy this experience. You know, half of the participants in the retreat were from my Our Circle Membership Community, which is a powerful group that gathers weekly. I lead us in different explorations and examinations and conversations that make sense of the material and human experience. There is so much that is coming at you at every given moment. And I think, you know, we’re really in a sort of collective existential crisis. So, what’s the context that you and I are holding to make sense of this world? That’s what we get to do in our circle. So you’ll get to hear from some of those brilliant people today. 

[00:01:51] I trust that this is of great service to you and I hope you enjoy. There is no dogma here, so there is no right way of being. There is just you paying attention to the flow of life in, through, and as you and that’s how we actually begin to cultivate a kind of increased awareness of it. How could we… how could we actually deeply trust the flow of life through us? How could we begin to source our own awareness versus seeking guidance out here? So you pay attention to whatever is needing and wanting to happen in, through, and as you during this time together. A reminder that what we are gathered here in service of is to set on fire love as you. Like if in fact, it’s quite possible that you and I could live a life we love, again, that would require moving away from a context of obligation. Can you be and do what brings you alive and sustain yourself? What the world will give you feedback on is that that is not possible. What I have demonstrated and continued to demonstrate in my own life, and by the way, it doesn’t mean and I know many of us know this doesn’t mean it’s comfortable or easy. It doesn’t mean that it is without risk. It doesn’t mean that it is without rolling the dice. But if you were to say that my aliveness, my expression is of high, high value, then how would I organize my existence around that? You are a dynamic being. If life is emerging as you now, what is life wanting to do through you now? And you could say rest as a perfectly acceptable statement. This is not a big, long task list unless that’s what life is wanting to emerge as you now. So this is just an opportunity to give voice to your internal state from your… from presence, from awareness, not from your fears, not from obligation, not from the shoulds, but if you were to tap in free of having to figure it out, what is life wanting to do as and through you now? 

[00:04:32] Yes. Yes. So I don’t know. I’m just really feeling really good. I was able to purge a lot of the inner, like, false beliefs and things that I really like…  decidedly collected and list it for myself for the last month or so. And with that has come this urge to clean my space and clean my environment. And I’m very excited about, like, having the space in all aspects, even physical, mental, all of that to just allow that. 

[00:05:07] Yes. That’s really what’s on my mind. That it’s a great nudge for any… any of us that our space is a reflection of our consciousness. And so it’s an opportunity to do a reconciliation. Is that which I’m seeing in my physical space, that which I love, brings me alive. Is it the way I want to organize myself in this coming year? And it can be subtle or significant. We can always be in a sort of reconciliation of our environment and our being. So I love that Yolanda, I think that’s very powerful. 

[00:05:51] Some of you know that before I met Nathan, I got super, super intentional about this and I created the bedside of my forthcoming lover to be available. Because previously there wasn’t much room to get up inside the bed from that side. There also was no room in the closet for this forthcoming lover. And so I began to organize my space such that there was a level of receptivity to that which I was wanting. 

[00:06:25] And when you start to live like that, you begin to realize how much congestion can live in your environment and in your reality. So we continue…again, we are in a dynamic and emergent practice and we can be in a constant awareness of what needs to be released, what needs to be embraced, what needs to be released, what needs to be embraced. You know, for any of us that have a relationship with order as if order is oppressive, it actually could be the portal to your great freedom. 

[00:07:02] That’s the paradox. So we want to invoke a kind of sensory awareness of the future we’re living into. If it is conceptual, it will stay conceptual. You have been gifted your senses to create from your whole body intelligence. Your desires live in your loins. That’s a great litmus test. If you can begin to sense a kind of… quite, quite literally, kinesthetically a vibration in your pelvis. That is worth noting. You know, we will oftentimes use these words of creativity and sexual energy as synonymous because creation and sexual aliveness are the same thing when life is wanting to emerge through you. It’s hot. It’s so hot. Have you ever been attracted to a human that, like, you know, you’re like, wow, I’m so surprised. I’m… this is not usually my type, but like I am flipping turned on right now. They are embodied, they are alive, they are in their power, their self-expression. And when we each tap into that for ourselves, we become highly magnetic. So some of us are more, tend to be more located in the mind and that creates all kinds of incredible gifts and contributions on the planet. And, I tend to be, I’m like located in my pelvis. I want you to connect to your pelvis. Just like, oh, like you literally could place your hand on any time on your pelvis. What is wanting to be birthed through me? What is wanting to be birthed through me? If I begin to sense a kind of tingling in the lower regions of my body, in my loins, That is an indicator of something. And notice the tendency to collapse it with fear, you could interpret excitement and aliveness as fear. The distinction is the presence of breath. Fear is often excitement without breath. So as we bring breath to fear, we might actually determine, oh, that was just me being excited. 

[00:09:50] Oh, by the way, that’s unfamiliar. That is scary. 

[00:09:57] Hooba, set on fire, my loins for aliveness. We are living in a society that is architected by obligation, which is the killer of sexual energy and aliveness. You know, we can see this in our intimate relationships, whether it be with our parents, whether it be with our partners or our spouses when obligation sets in, it’s a complete buzzkill. It’s just it’s just and there went the aliveness. So we are ridding ourselves of obligation. Obligation being very distinct from commitment, commitment comes from the Latin word, “committere” to organize one’s energy in a particular direction. I am organizing my energy in a particular direction. 

[00:11:02] You want to be more alive. You want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created. We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in our circle. This is an affirming and radical space that will gather weekly on demand or live, whatever works best for your life. For more information on how you can engage in our circle visit lolawright.com/our-circle. I’d love to have you with us. 

[00:11:47] All right, so did you allow yourself to have an ecstatic experience in the presence of someone you likely don’t know? And how was that? 

[00:11:59] I will share, um nerve-wracking. It was nerve-wracking this entire and I’m aware of that vibration in my body and I’m accepting that that is what’s happening and I’m able to observe that. And I’m extremely proud of being able to move through it in whatever way I’m doing it. But yeah, it was uncomfortable, but I’m grateful for it. 

[00:12:26] And Sol do you have a sense of like what about it, feels what about it feels uncomfortable for you? 

[00:12:32] So this entire process has been so powerful for me because I live very much inside of me. However, as a child, I was very expressive and I come from a family of nine kids. So we would create all of these demonstrations and shows and whatnot. So, I’ve been able to kind of put my finger on areas in my life where I’ve been the light in me has been attempted to be dimmed down and the opportunity to vocalize what I’m feeling, even if you know, what I’m feeling right now and projecting into the future as the now, has been extremely liberating. Hmm. So a lot of, a lot of.. I’ve received a lot of clarity around why this is so has been so kind of jarring. 

[00:13:27] Yeah. I mean, things are great, it’s a great observation because it’s not the way most of us are organizing ourselves. And so it can be disruptive. 

[00:13:38] Yeah, very much yeah. In the best way I feel. 

[00:13:42] And sometimes you might notice as you begin to stretch into this new context for who you’re becoming, that you can experience sometimes like a hangover effect. And so I think that’s just important, there’s a process of integration, our growth, to integrate our growth, our expansion. You know, so many of you have heard me share a story. Many years ago, I was working, I was attending classes at Boatie Center and there was a man named Charles Hall there and there was so much bubbling up in my life, so much good stuff happening, that it felt really scary. It felt out of control to me, actually. And he was like, yo, how’s it going? 

[00:14:27] And I’m like, “so much good is happening over here.” 

[00:14:31] And he said, “keep breathing, keep breathing, and keep expanding your container for good.” 

[00:14:38] So my experience, specifically, with what I noticed with Kathleen, but I didn’t know,  I don’t know her, this is the first time we’ve really connected, but what I just noticed is that literally everything that she said, I was like, yeah, I totally can see that for her. And I just had the thought that I feel like that’s kind of how the universe operates, is that it just kind of like, my point is that I’m the one that creates the “yeah buts” and the “what ifs” around my life, but that the universe hears me the way that I hear Kathleen and her ability to articulate who she’s becoming in 2021 or who she was in 2021 was super powerful for me. 

[00:15:28] One of the things that you said was, “Create a network of possibility partners,” and when I was reflecting on how great 2021 was, that was what I saw, that my world is kind of shrunk a little bit. 

[00:15:45] And I have to close friends, one of whom is more of a possibility partner was more of the circle the drain partner and I need, and I love her, I need more people who see the big who help me expand my container. So thank you, I’m very excited about that. 

[00:16:07] OK, good. So let’s move on to commitments and agreements. All right. This is where all drama resides. Our lives are organized by commitment. Our energy is organized in a particular direction. Most human beings are living inside of unconscious commitments, so their energy is organized unconsciously. And it’s not a problem. We all have areas of our lives that are unconsciously committed to particular directions. The results of our lives are some level of reflection and consciousness to what we’re committed to. A distinction between commitments and agreements: Commitment, the way I organize my energy, Agreement, who’s going to do what, by when? We fail to create clear agreements, we have unaligned commitments and we create drama. So we have unconscious commitments, we’re not present to the way we’re organizing our energy. We have unclear agreements, we don’t create agreement in our life, and then we produce drama. And I want you to listen for what life is wanting to emerge as, through you. And just so that we have a little clarification, what do I mean when I say life emerging as you. Life is not some separate entity doing something to you. The premise here is that you are one with all of existence. Nothing is happening in isolation. You are a portal, an individualized manifestation of the universe. You are available for life to move through you. And when we don’t realize that life goes the way it goes and we feel dissatisfied. When we become aware of our creative capacity, our agency, we begin to realize, you know, this is where we start to be like, wow, I manifested a cup of coffee. 

[00:18:38] Wow. I manifested a parking spot. 

[00:18:42] You are capable of creating a reality on the movie screen of existence that is reflective of the commitments you value. Who is running your desires? Is it your partner? Is it your mother? Your mother could be deceased and she is still running your commitments and agreements. So, like, really, check, this is where your body becomes your friend, what do you want, not what do you think you should want. Those are very different. What do you want? There is life emerging through me, I can trust it the more I do trust it, the more reliable it is. And then I become skillful at communicating my commitments, which is a whole different ball of wax. 

[00:19:41] If you enjoyed this show and would like to receive new episodes as they’re published, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. Your review helps others find this show. You can follow me at Lola P Wright on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com. This episode was produced by Quinn Rose with theme music from independent music producer Trey Royal. 

[00:20:26] Your desires live in your loins. I think that’s a great litmus test.