To find your freedom, define it
Image: ClementM/Unsplash
It was late June 2007 when I packed up my office at a job I'd enjoyed for 6 years, packed up my townhouse, sold my property and solidified my plans to move across the country.
I'd lost most of what I owned in a house fire the previous winter, and it seemed like the right time to make a big move.With the rough outlines of a plan in place, I attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat to give myself freedom to BE as I prepared to walk into what was next for me. Those decisions sparked a revolution in and for me.
Of course, like any transformational decision-making, there was a lot that led up to that point. It wasn't simple or easy. It felt like a big leap. It felt necessary. And it changed everything.
After the retreat, I spent a couple of weeks staying with my family. I finished up side-hustle projects at the kitchen table while my parents' new puppy slept at my feet. I felt a time freedom that I hadn't felt in a while, and had craved. My job, though fun and meaningful, had also come with the stress of a big workload and limited resources. I'd also personally spent the last three years putting out fires, both real and metaphoric. I reveled in the rest.
Freedom has always been a strong value for me.
I've built a certain amount of schedule and decision-making freedom into every job I'd ever held. I've always liked to do things my own way and follow my own rules. I tend to limit clutter and debt because those things feel restrictive (and not free) to me.In wiping the slate clean, I was connecting more of the dots between my core values and what I was doing every day. Of course, I also felt the excitement and the worry that comes with leaving my very established comfort zone without necessarily knowing what would be next.
When we talk about having freedom, we often think of breaking free from something.
Freedom from restrictions on our speech or religion, for example. Breaking free from oppressive systems and situations. For me, I wanted to be free from living surrounded by reminders of a traumatic period of my personal life. Free from the stress of trying to do the job of several people by myself with a limited budget (and not just at work). Freedom from having to go into an office every day. Freedom from the mind muck that was keeping me from making big decisions.
With my clients, it's often the same. They talk about wanting freedom from the pressure of trying to juggle all the balls, all the time. Freedom from a work situation that is eating away at their energy or not allowing for their potential. They want to be free not to play by rules that don't make sense to them and aren't getting them the results they desire. Free from the critical, doubtful, fearful voices and patterns that keep them stuck.
Yet valuing personal freedom is also about the possibilities we are free to create.
Freedom to build a better life for yourself or your family. Freedom to make decisions for yourself. In my case, I wanted to be free to make big choices after several years of reacting to situations made for and around me. I wanted the freedom to be my own boss, as I'd always secretly desired to be. Freedom to work where and when I wanted, and create my own work. I craved the freedom to build more white space in my previously crazy-busy life. To travel, to try new things, to reinvent everything that needed reinventing.
Some of my clients tell me they crave these things, too. Underneath the "breaking free from" is the freedom to choose a path that lights them up instead of the one they'd always thought they should follow. Freedom to make their own rules. To follow the dream that they've been pushing to the back burner. Freedom to carve out the time and energy to fully nourish themselves and their lives, so they can fully show up in the world.
Fast-forward 12 years and I am continually checking in with what personal freedom means for me and how I want that to inform my life and work. It's different now than it was then, and still as relevant. As I grow and evolve, what I choose to be free from and what I am free to create evolves, too.
What does the idea of freedom spark in you?
How does it show up in your world? What do you need to release so that you can unleash the energy that feels stuck in you? What do you need to create for yourself to put that energy to work in service of you, your life, work, community, or vision? How is your definition of freedom evolving with you as you develop, grow and reach for what's next?
