This year’s annual freedom post means something a little different to me.  I’ve recently spent some time away from my 9-5 to work through things that have been building for a while.  I also needed some time way to redefine and evaluate what is important to me.  I mentioned last week that we recently went through a trauma in my family and that, too, has shifted my perspective.  While I’ve been doing this work of unbecoming for several years now, I see that this only scratched the surface.  In freeing ourselves, in becoming who we are meant to be, we have to be willing to let go at an unprecedented level.  We must learn surrender in a way that is so terrifying it becomes liberating. 

Life is precious and short and if we do it “right” we learn to spend that time doing things in alignment.  That alignment is the freedom we’ve been looking for.  This day commemorates a time when we sought freedom from various oppressions all while oppressing others.  It speaks to the illusion that freedom was something we needed to earn and that others have innate and total authority over us.  We are trained to give our freedom away from the time we are born.  The reality is, freedom has ALWAYS and will ALWAYS be ours to claim.  I never said it was easy, but it is available for us to take up at any time as long as we are willing to take accountability and responsibility for those decisions.

I’ve dealt with significant loss in my life and I spent my time worrying about what or who I would lose next.  This most recent close call made me question all of the time I spend working for others (even more than I normally question this), and where my focus needs to be.  That is a different kind of oppression because that comes from the weight of our own thoughts.  But what I’ve realized is that this life, in finding freedom, we have to be willing to face all that we were taught to be ashamed of.  We have to redefine what we are willing to settle for and we have to redefine the rules of who gets to play.  I don’t want to lose another person because I’m/society is confining us in a way that pushes us to be who we are not. 

If you’re feeling this way, like there is something more, then it’s time to dig deeper.  It’s time to find the freedom in doing what we love, in what matters the most to us, in prioritizing our lives differently.  This isn’t about being selfish, this is about learning new ways of doing things.  This is about taking back that accountability and giving up comfort and convenience for what works for us.  This is about breaking out of the cage we’ve put ourselves in and becoming who we are meant to be.  Freedom is taking the lessons we’ve learned and applying them to what we want to build.  Freedom is living in the love we create without fear of others tearing it down.  Freedom is loving ourselves and those around us enough to do better without the rules/constraints and without fear of retribution for being who we are.  If we need time to figure this out, I highly recommend taking it—it will be life altering.    Prioritize figuring this out because the sooner we do, the sooner we reach the goal: living how we are meant to live.  Happy 4^th.