Last week we celebrated VE Day here in Europe, many people sacrificed their lives so we could live a free life. And now, 76 years later, the world we’re living in is still not equal nor truly free. Many nations and groups are still fighting for their rights and for their voices to be heard. None of us is truly free until all of us are free, there’s no real equality unless we all are equal. Sadly and truly, it will take a long time still, and our joint effort to finally achieve collective freedom.
In the meantime, most of us are also trapped in the cage we build for ourselves. It could be because of past traumas, the education system or the environment we were/are in, the “truths” we were/are taught to believe, and the patterns we’ve developed all these years.
A lot of times we are the prisoners of our own thinking, emotions and mind. We’re influenced by our traumas, attached to outcomes, controlled by fears and egos.
So how do we reach true freedom within ourselves?
Everything we experience in life has a polarity, we want the ups but not the downs. True freedom comes from the acceptance of all sides of the stories. True gratitude is not just for the things that we prefer to have in life, it is also for the harsh lessons we learn.
Inner peace and positive energies are not about bypassing the nasties and blocking out the things that are less desirable. It’s about taking in both the good and the bad.
It’s about turning the shit you’ve got into fine manures.
The biggest question we need to ask ourselves is: where are you more free than others and what are you not yet free from?
Take myself as an example, when compared to others in my social networks, I’m more free when it comes to external validations/others’ opinions and the need to conform or belong to a certain group. And what I need to work on, are in the following 7 areas:
- My attachment to outcome
- My attachment to entitlement and how I think things should go
- My attachment to the worries about the future
- My attachment to conditions. I’ll do this if I get that. I’ll be a better manager if I get a raise, or once I get a promotion, I’ll be a more engaged employee, etc.
- My attachment to pleasure in order to avoid pain. There’s no pleasure without pain and without pain, we know no pleasure
- I need to consider other people’s versions of integrity, before I judge them or jump to conclusions
- I need to stop deliberately avoid challenges or activities because of fear
I think in the end, it’s polarity that keeps us trapped, and the good thing is, through identification and mindfulness training, we will be able to stop believing immediately everything we think, about ourselves, about the ways others should act, and about how things should pan out.
Inner Orbit 