Flexibility is allowing people or things to change when they need to.  This includes allowing the external world to operate as it must without having to ask your permission.  Flexibility is the opposite of rigidity.  It is the ability to feel comfortable about yielding to things you can not control, or that you don’t have the right to control.  It is the ability to respond positively by adapting to changes that happen but are outside your control.  It is being able to let things and people exist in their own way, without attempting to control and direct them.  It is allowing others to control the direction of their own lives without hindering or obstructing their choices.  Flexibility includes not being afraid of having to adapt to new or different circumstances just because they are new or different.

If you are a flexible person, you find it easy to let others control their own life’s direction.  You respond positively when people change path or direction in life, or suddenly decide to do something you consider very different.  As a flexible person, you also know that the world makes changes without asking your permission.  You understand that external circumstances (things outside your control) have the right to change in their own way, and often do.  You find it easy to “go with the flow” and readily adapt when circumstances or other things change around you, or when the external world in general decides to throw you a curve.  You adapt to change in a flexible way because you understand the obligation to let go of control when the external world makes changes in how it operates.

Flexibility comes from understanding at a deep level that it is a basic human right for every person to choose his own direction in life, and to choose when to make changes and take his life in an entirely new or different direction.  This means you have the right to choose when and how to make changes in your own life.  It includes the freedom to change your mind, change your opinions, change your attitudes, change your direction in life.  Feeling free to make changes is an empowering attitude or quality that lets you choose how and when to change anything about yourself or about your life.

To be empowered to decide your own life’s direction and choose when to make changes in your life, you must not be afraid to stand up to well meaning father figures or other figures of authority who rigidly want you to follow a course that they approve of.  Keep in mind that someone’s disapproval is not enough reason for you to change your path or direction in life.  Only you have the real power to determine where to go with your life, and it is your will that decides when it is time to change, and only you can choose the course of your own life.  Realizing you have the right to chart your own course in life makes it easier to choose the direction and the changes that are best for you.

Every human right has two sides to it, namely the right as it applies to you, and the right as you must let it apply to everyone else.  And to be fair, the right must be the same for both.  The consequence of this is that you have the right to determine your life’s direction without interference from others, and others (and the external world and circumstance in general) have the right to determine their life’s direction without interference from you.  The more you recognize this as a basic human right, the easier it will become for you to exert control over your own direction or path in life, and let go of trying to control the direction of other people’s lives, and of circumstances that end up placing you in particular situations.  Understanding the true meaning of this right will help you stand up to rigid people who try to keep you from making changes in your life, and it will also help you understand your obligation to let others choose when and how to make changes in their lives.  You will find it easier to let other people control their own life’s direction, and this will increase your own flexibility.  It will help you to “go with the flow” of circumstances that you know are outside your right to control.

Since you know you have the right to control only what is internal to you, you also know you have the obligation to let go of control when the external world makes changes in how it operates.  This understanding is what allows you to adapt to external changes in a flexible way.

If you are emotionally inflexible, or rigid, you don’t like change and you tend to have trouble allowing the outside world and the people around you to make changes.  This can make you heavy-handed, bossy and authoritarian with those around you.  You sometimes browbeat or otherwise hinder someone you care about from using his own will to operate his own life.  As an inflexible person, you are afraid of change because you are afraid of the unknown, and you will do almost anything to avoid the unfamiliar.