What's the Price of Your Freedom?

When is the last time you experienced absolute, unabashed freedom? 

I was three  and I  had just received a new winter coat for my birthday.  It was red with white fluffy trim on the sleeves.  It was my “Santa clause” coat as I liked to call it.  The memory isn’t so much about buying the coat, but what I did with it.

As soon as we got home, I christened the coat by rolling down one of the two hills in our back yard, both of which were covered in mud.

What makes the memory stand out, was the sense of conviction,  followed by the physical momentum and speed of rolling down a hill followed by pure joy, and here is the kicker--with absolutely no thought given to the consequences.

While it’s true that my mom was not happy with me ( I know this from subsequent conversations), her reaction clearly did not register as very strong because the feeling that sticks with me, is freedom and joy. Even today this feeling is familiar. When I am happy, I am often moved to  do something, to express it through my body.

The other reason it stands out, is a sense of knowing that at some level that was my true self, and one of the last clear times I can remember asserting it defiantly with outright zeal and joy.   I know from subsequent memories and conversation that I showed up as that unabashed true self until about the age of 7. At that point my assertive self ran into more and more conflict with my mom’s desire for less conflict.  It was no longer okay to be the Tom Boy.

Like a lot of women, integrating my feminine and masculine selves, my yin and yang, and giving expression to both parts, has been a life-long journey.  I have shared before that I was drawn to being an attorney because it gave me freedom and the permission to exercise that assertive part. 

We all have a true self; it’s the self we are  born into that becomes conditioned, or influenced, over time to act in a way that is more pleasing to our caretakers.  For most of us our mission here is to find our way back to that self and to true freedom.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not asserting that at all cost we raise hell until we can do whatever it is, we  please in life.  But my experience with nearly all of my clients is that most women give up a part of themselves to accommodate others. And reconnecting with this part is integral to re-claiming our joy.

For many of us, we don’t truly realize we have given away our freedom and therefore don’t give ourselves permission to  “find ourselves”  until mid-life.  This finding is usually, but not always, prompted as a result of some external change that acts as a stimulus for a transition. 

Transitions are really just periods of time in our life where our identity evolves as we reconnect with a part of our true self,  a part of our self we separated from or left behind along the way, often at another’s behest.

When we do reconnect with the hidden or lost parts of ourselves, the result is often a sense of pure freedom unlike anything we have experienced since perhaps childhood or young adulthood.

The most recent time I recall experiencing a similar sense of deep found freedom and joy like when I rolled down the hill was shortly after I got divorced.  This is an answer that often surprises people.  Of course along with freedom and joy, I also experienced, grief and disappointment and confusion, all the typical things we expect with the end of a marriage or committed partnership. 

One reason I was able to rediscover the lost parts of myself, parts I had given away or tamped down at another’s request, is that I was very intentional about marking the ending of the relationship.  When I didn’t have my kids, that time was set aside for just being.  My healing rituals consisted of sleeping in, morning runs and walks in nature. Grieving usually came in the evenings by watching old movies and ordering lots of Thai take- out food. 

And then after about fourteen months of focusing solely on letting go of the past, I gave myself permission to move into the second stage of my transition, which was accepting the unknown.  I opened myself up to new beginnings by giving myself permission to deeply experience and honor the ending.  This is how we transform transitions into opportunities.

I recently told a girlfriend that I never felt such intense joy as I felt when I was going through divorce.  She just looked at me and said---you didn’t seem joyous.  But this was a different kind of joy from rolling down a hill.  It was the joy of possibilities. Of realizing that with every ending there is always a new beginning. And the joy that accompanies rediscovering a part of yourself that had been lost from  you.

Giving yourself freedom to be you is the key to using transitions as opportunity to transform your life.

And that’s what I did.  I shed some of the old baggage, the identities that had been projected onto me by others and gave myself to be curious about who I was in this new role.  And by doing that, I rediscovered the little girl in the red coat, full of curiosity and wonder.

What part of you is waiting to be re-discovered?

Are you ready to give yourself permission to feel more freedom than you’ve felt in a long time?

I offer free thirty minute Strategy Calls where we can discuss the possibilities for more freedom than you’ve ever imagined, and I can share with you the various ways I can help you find the lost parts of yourself and re-integrate them into your life.  To sign up and learn more, go here.