Freedom is a mindset
Freedom is an experience, a feeling, an emotion or sensation – and the only place that experience is created, is in you. There’s absolutely nothing anyone can do in order to take that experience away from you. Even though at times it feels violently so.
But how amazing is that?!
– that you alone hold the incredible gift it is, being able to choose?
Your mindset and your thoughts are basically the absolute only thing you can control – though at times it might not seem like it.
You can’t control:
- the douchebag who decides to step right out in front of you in the bikelane.
- or your stupid colleague who keeps repeating the same stupid clichés over and over again.
- or the boss who asks you to sharpen up.
- or rain making you soaked on your way to an important meeting.
- or your children spilling milk.
- or that client, who decides not to pay, eventhough you’ve gone above and beyond for them.
- or whether that guy or that girl loves you.
– I’m sure that you by now have your own long list running in front of your internal screen.
You can decide whether or not you’ll let it define you, if it should ruin your day, week, even life or if you’ll let it slide, learn from it. You can decide HOW you choose to experience it.
– and is that not really the utmost amazing freedom?
That you completely choose whether you want to experience freedom of the feeling of being bound, tied up, choking? That you utterly and completely can release anything and all things outside of your control.
Viktor Frankl
One of my greatest inspirations when it comes to the experience of freedom is neurologist, psychiatrist AND former KZ prisoner Viktor Frankl with his book Man’s Search for Meaning
Frankl was imprisoned in the koncentrationcamp Theresienstadt in 1942 and lost almost all of his family. In his book he describes that while, yes, his guards performs in the most horrendous acts. Acts that you and I will never comprehend, none the less they CANNOT take away his dignity or his sense of freedom – because all of that is hidden in his mindset, in his thoughts and choice of perception.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
– Viktor Frankl
Here’s a man who’s been stripped of everything you and I would usually insist was necessary in order to experience freedom. Still in the complete and utter hell here on earth he chose love.
Choose a loving mindset
We, you and I, have been given the biggest freedom of all. The possibility of choosing our own experience and perception. Note, that this given freedom does not imply you HAVING to choose it to be either positive or negative. Nope, it’s all up to you whether you perceive your experience as been either good or bad, or maybe it just is – therein lies the ultimate freedom.
Question becomes, what do you choose?
Often and usually for a very long time we’ve grown up and have lived with the fearbased thought system of the Ego. Playing the part of the victim is so easy and anything and all that happens is someone else’s fault. It’s something that happens AGAINST me not FOR me. It’s everyone else’s fault, it isn’t just.
Choosing a different path. Choosing your soul’s lovebased thought system requires discipline, focus and commitment, which can sound tedious and strict – it’s not, it’s where happiness lives.
It’s where freedom feels so indescribably good, it’s where you know that everything that happens, happens for the highest potential development of everyone involved. It’s where you can release fully and completely something needing to be a certain way, knowing full well that you have absolutely no way of controlling it anyway.
It is possible
Even though you’ve been wrapped in a choking sense of imprisonment, of being stuck, maybe for years, then it IS possible for you to choose again. To experience freedom.
Take a deep breath and rest in the peace knowing you have a choice, whether or not you feel it right this moment.
How to experience more freedom in your life
First and foremost it requires an open- and willingness in looking differently at your experiences. When I first started out, I would question everything, both seemingly good, bad or just nah… I started contemplating how my life would be if I wore a different set of glasses. I made it a kind and loving game. To try out someone else’s perspective.
But most importantly, in order to attract what you want you’ve got to find the vibrational point of freedom in you, the feeling of freedom, so you can return to it over and over again in order to make it grow.
You do that by completely absorbing the feeling next time you experience freedom. Taste it, sense it, listen to it, feel it, express it. When you know the feeling, then you can recreate it anywhere, anytime, you can return to it in an instant and really soak yourself in it.
Stumbling
The part where most stumble is when they start out saying “yes, let’s do this!”
“Tasting, tasting, tasting, feeling, feeling, feeling, sensing, sensing, sensing, listening, listening, listening” – for a day or two or maybe even a week, but then all of a sudden you find yourself back in your old mindset. Without noticing it’s snuck back in, you’ve fallen back into your old ways. Without focus.
– and without dedicated focus you allow the fearbased thought system of the Ego to run your life.
So my invitation to you is; find something that works FOR YOU!
Whether it’s post-it notes around your house, an elastic band around your wrist, an alarm going off several times a day (works really well for me) or whatever you choose to remind you.
Find something that really works for you, something that in a kind and loving way brings you back to the awareness that freedom is a choice, and that that choice is yours.
Let me know how you experience freedom, share it in the comments below – maybe you’ll inspire others and thus pass on the gift.
xo,
Mariaestela
*Please note that the links marked with * in this article are affiliate links and that I may, should you choose to purchase one or more of the books, receive a commission. If you wish to avoid this, google the titles and authors rather than clicking the link.
Want more like this?
Join my Sacred Circle to receive deep, inspiring and empowering insight and wisdom delivered straight to your inbox.