Ahh, FREEDOM. It drives us all.
Financial freedom. Freedom to do the work we love. Freedom from the demons of our past. Freedom from fear and self-sabotage. Freedom from the lashings of our inner critic.
We’re all seeking it, in some form or another, and to celebrate the second round of her ecourse The Freedom Project, my gorgeous friend Claire has asked me to dive deeper and share on what freedom looks like for me.
As a freedom-hungry Sagittarian soul who fled her corporate cubicle a little over a year ago on the quest for sovereignty, this is a challenge I’m more than happy to rise to!
Read on for my thoughts…
What does freedom feel like?
“When I give up my ideas of how life has to go, then there’s freedom in every moment.” – Brian Andreas
Freedom feels like release. It’s unclenching, untethering myself from an outcome. Letting go. A sense of expansiveness. Being open, and light. Being wildly, authentically me – in any given moment. Speaking my truth, with love.
A stand-out, visceral ‘freedom moment’ for me…. has to be climbing to the top of the Swiss Alps, heart thrumming, drinking it all in, wondering if just maybe, my eyes were playing tricks on me. Everything felt so stupendously over-sized, and there wasn’t a cell in my being that wasn’t pulsating. Ba-boom. Ba-BOOM.
Words don’t really do experiences like these justice – the English language doesn’t seem to be able to capture the magnitude of this feeling – but I’m not sure it’s meant to. To do so would contain it, which is, of course, the opposite of freedom.
When you feel it, you just know it. It’s intoxicating.
How do you maintain freedom with a busy lifestyle?
Freedom noun
1. The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants.
2. The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
What I’ve learnt is that freedom truly is a state of mind. True freedom means feeling radically empowered, knowing you’re responsible for the way you react, the way you feel, and the way you live your life.
There’s the external expression of freedom – jumping on the plane, escaping, making all the rules, doing whatever you please whenever you please – but there’s a caveat with that kind of freedom and it’s this: ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’
You can be surface ‘free,’ yet more mentally shackled than ever before. You can be doing the work you love, but feel trapped by the very empire you’ve built around you.
In my experience, it all comes back to choice.
And – most importantly – care and celebration and deep, deep gratitude for wherever you’re at.
I had to consciously choose freedom: yesterday. When I looked at the list of jobs to be done for my (soon-to-be-launched) program, there was a moment where my heart flipped and I sucked in my breath. Ok. The list is still pretty huge.
There were two doors in front of me. To walk into the first one would be to spiral into this:
‘I’m working on a Sunday when I should be relaxing at the beach with a good book.”
But the other glimmered with this alternate truth; a brighter, positive perspective:
‘I’m working on a Sunday, creating something I’m incredibly passionate about. And I’m answering these questions for someone I love, which brings a smile to my face. AND – I can do it at the beach.’
THAT’s freedom. Swiftly steering out of the Land of Limited Thinking, packing up my gear and planting myself on a blanket at one of my favourite beaches in the world.
Busy and free co-existing? It’s possible. It really is.
If freedom were a colour what would it be?
There’s no doubt in my mind – it’s this one. It finds me, wherever I go. Ocean, sky, wide, free. Pure magic.
If freedom were a song what would it be?
Lately, I’ve been meditating to the song I walked down the aisle to, James Vincent McMorrow’s version of ‘Higher Love’ and there’s this part that goes:
‘I could light the night up with my soul on fire,
I could make the sun shine from pure desire.
Let me feel the love come over me,
Let me feel how strong it can be.’
And – I don’t know what it is about those lyrics and the tone in his voice – but I feel totally free when those words touch my ears. Free, covered with goosebumps and absolutely grounded in the moment.
What is the opposite to freedom?
Restriction. Forcing. Feeling pressurised. Living in a state of struggle. Being a slave to a story. Losing faith in the fact that whatever the Universe has in store for me, and whatever soul contract I’m here to fulfil, is far greater than I can possibly imagine.
Just like you can FEEL freedom, the same can be said about its opposite. It’s that one step too far, that one clouded thought, the slide back into old habits.
When we’re caught up in judgement, we’re imprisoned.
When we’re frozen in fear, we’re closed.
When we’re controlling the outcome, we’re confined.
This is different for us all… but again, we know.
And now, a freedom-focused fill-in-the-blank for you…
I’d love you to answer this in the comments: I feel most free when ___________________________
And, once you’re done, don’t forget to head over to say a big hello to Claire and check out her ecourse. She’s a rare and sparkling gem and I completely stand by her work.
