We fight over and for all the ‘stuff’ that is important to us. Love, unity, financial stability, health, and success to name a few. And whilst all that stuff matters, intertwined within our dream vacation, yoga classes, stack of lottery tickets or over consumption of food and alcohol is an innate desire for freedom.
The word ‘freedom’ may hold many personal variations for each of us.
We yearn to be free from fear, sadness, and worry. Free from economic stressors, occupational burdens, societal expectations, cultural demands, and social pressures. We want to be free from being, doing, and behaving in a way others expect or demand of us. Free from judgment, boundaries, and parameters. Free from all the labels and every obligation they accompany. Fundamentally, free from internal and external resistance.
Though freedom is identified as a privilege that some may be born into, and most are required to work hard for, it is also considered a state of mind. However, true liberation is beyond privilege or a state of mind. It is a state of being.
Our freedom-seeking mind can certainly prohibit us from recognizing the freedom that dwells within us. We can be easily led to believe it is separate from us and it is something experienced in pockets. Something one could only obtain through control, manipulation, persistence, or chance.
Albeit the inner being cannot detach from the ever free-flowing energy that it is.
We are incessantly seeking a way out of this bondage and societal mumbo jumbo. We search for it throughout our endeavors and in all the corners of our detailed life.
Many believe unequivocally it is money, love, travel, and self-expression that will set their minds and hearts free. They hold faithfully to this idea that freedom is hidden within the conditions and spend a great deal of their time waiting for it to ‘happen’ or be granted to them as a tradeoff for their hard work, good behavior, and loyalty.
Financial freedom makes it to the top of the list for many freedom seekers. Almost everything we want, and need has a dollar sign attached to it. Providing for our families and keeping up with our bills while still being able to afford our dream house, vacation or fancy upgrade on our status is viewed as an almost inaccessible freedom. Whilst money can ease fundamental financial stressors buying time, elaborate material objects, and even love in trade for liberation can be short lived.
It is understandable to assume money grants freedom. Appreciation is a key element for merging with the freedom we seek and when we appreciate the time, people, places, and things money provides us with, it feels freeing. However, time is just time, the material objects are just objects and places are just places without our personal interpretations and the value we place on them.
The freedom of self-expression is another freedom we value and long for. The opportunity to think, speak, and behave authentically without being judged, or confined by our jobs, labels, partners, or societal groups. However, this can feel out of reach for many of us. And not because society blocks our individuality rather, we care too much about others’ opinions. It is the unfortunate makeup of our world. Our need for constant validation, popularity, and acceptance from others compromises our power and independence and keeps us captive in their belief systems.
We often work hard to absolve societal and cultural expectations. We rebel against specific ‘norms’ as if to break the chain that binds us to them.
Even so, while we push against ideologies and stereotypes that minimize or tame our inner extraordinaire ironically, we use the same ideologies and standards to defend our values. We advocate for our titles when it protects our cause and resist their dogmas when we feel victim to them.
However, true authenticity is not about coming to conclusions on or defining who we are. We are more than the version of our exterior, beyond our gender, above our culture and even far greater than the best idea we have of ourselves in this physical form.
Many discover freedom through travel. Exploration and discovery are great distractors from a world filled with routine and detail. Social media portrays this elaborate way of living devoid of responsibility and work; the very things we believe anchor us into our supposedly suppressed lifestyles.
And any opportunity to escape our familiar environment is always at the forefront of our priorities. We crave that which is uninfluenced, and uncontaminated with our opinions, beliefs, and negative impressions. Like a child’s many ‘firsts’, we enjoy our first encounters with various faces, places, and things. We are filled with curiosity and an eagerness to leave behind our intangible imprints on the world.
Whilst vacations offer novelty, they help release our hold on negative past events and future anxieties. They provide a grander perspective of our world and remind us of the abundance available to us.
There is a natural desire for life. Our yearning to feel invigorated and alive draws our attention to adventures and personal challenges. Some of us enjoy grand physical feats that ignite our fire. Some of us search for spiritual awakenings or meditative calm. But most of us seek to revel in the most simple and ordinary of things such as the company of a close friend, a sunrise, an ocean swim, or maybe just a moment of silence.
Regardless of our personal gaieties, they bring us into the present. They plug us back into the pure essence of our spirit.
Currently, one of the most persuasive figures in our lives is the dominant voice of our governing bodies who convince us they possess the power and know how to all our freedoms. Of course, first they must remind us of our limitations and ineptness. We then need to be stripped of our independence or the belief we can do anything for ourselves.
Naturally, our fear of losing or never experiencing the freedom these governing bodies promise to deliver converts us into devout soldiers. They compel us to protest our objections, push against anyone who disputes our values and contest those who threaten it, even our family and friends.
The belief that freedom exists outside of us ignites our freedom seeking hearts to search fervently for them and fight fiercely for our prerogatives. We can work hard to secure our freedom. We can fight to win over what we believe is our right, and whilst the conditions may at times bring us to this freedom we seek, it can be a long arduous road to it. And of course, there is no guarantee we will feel free once we get there or once we have ‘it’ because the moment our perception changes, off we go again seeking freedom in places that only serve one altering consequence. The consequence of conscious captivity.
When the ability to be curious, to explore and make decisions is taken or voluntarily given away, we experience captivity.
Many believe a person, place or thing could change their lives for the better. And while that may be temporarily true, if your mindset is not in alignment with the joy, love, and appreciation for it, it will be a disappointment.
According to our beliefs, having what we want is the only method to result in freedom. For this reason, we can carry a lot of resentment and anger when the people, places, and things around us are not how we want them to be and not how we want them to fit into our experience. We defy those who tamper with our perfect versions.
However, at what point do we stop giving to ourselves and spend our lives relying on and fighting for other people and conditions to give us what we want and need? When did it become acceptable to relinquish our ability to independently serve ourselves?
What if there is a grander person, place and thing that better fits our desire than our very limited and narrow perspective?
Freedom seekers fail to recognize that freedom is not about buying their dreams, but in the power of dreaming them. It is in creating them detail by detail.
Seeking freedom is like searching for the air you already breathe. It is not lost or withheld. It is not bound within the conditions of this physical life, nor is it an exchange for diligence.
Freedom is being flexible. It is the ability to bend and move in unison with life with little to no resistance. It is trusting that everything is always working out no matter what it may ‘look’ like or how our minds are negatively capable of interpreting it.
Freedom also means staying in your own lane. It means minding your own business, abandoning comparisons. stripping away the titles and labels and refraining from the need to appease others or the necessity to be pleased.
Freedom is balance and the unrestricted flow of positive energy. It is being connected to that which is infinite. A feeling of expansion. Ultimately, it is who we are.
As eternal energies, that which is eternal, is constantly shifting. It is only the limitations we allow that distort our perception, slow down our inner dynamo and pinch us off from our own power.
Freedom is in the fun you find in things and in the fun, you have within the things you find.
If you are not having fun, what thought are you bound to that holds you from fun? When you are not appreciating or loving yourself, what opinions about yourself are you holding onto which obstructs your love of self? If you are not content, what conditions are you relying on actualizing to be satisfied? More importantly, if you are not self-empowered, who and what do you believe acquires it or are you allowing to control your liberty and power?
Our mind follows us wherever we go. Therefore, no matter how much stuff we have, where in the world we travel, what dream job we scored on or amount of money we were able to get our hands on, our mind will be there observing, and interpreting it all. Our vulnerabilities merely expose us as the wonderful mortals we are, navigating through a life filled with incredible detail. A life gorged with infinite opportunities, and diversities.
And maybe, for a moment, we can be free enough to love the conditions we create, and appreciate the people, places, and things we are blessed to experience.
Our minds can take us anywhere we desire. We can dream the most fantastic dreams and interpret every inch of this physical life through any lens we choose. We can focus and commit to any idea or personal goal.
And subsequently, we can set ourselves free to relish every discovery, opportunity and personal creation or submit to a life turning over rocks as a freedom seeker.