“Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” | Rumi
 
Choosing freedom (continued from here) is literally a moment to moment decision that you get to make. It doesn’t matter where you are, or what you are doing. Freedom is after all, a feeling.
 
I always ask myself, even when I don’t feel free “What would make me feel freer than this, right now?“. I listen. And do that. I nudge myself back to freedom. Little by little, choice by choice. Until freedom is breathing fresh air into my lungs, expanding my heart, breaking me open again and flooding me with love and sweet, sweet relief. Choosing freedom feels like coming home.
 
Yet, it must be said, there is another discovery that comes with the invitation of freedom. The discovery that, from this moment on, life will be lived very differently.
 
There is a cost, for freedom. At times this cost may seem almost unbearable.
 
Yearning for freedom is easy. It fills an unquenchable thirst for adventure, discovery, self-expression, choice, abundance, joy, love, creativity, generosity and expansion. Choosing freedom takes commitment, courage, strength and unwavering trust.
 
It means choosing to feel free in the ordinary moments. To see beauty, magic and miracles in the mundane. Choosing to experience freedom, right here, right now even though it feels hard, and you’d truly rather run away.
 
Choosing freedom is an art. It means opening up, and saying “yes” and “thank you” to life and lessons even when we feel most broken, most vulnerable, and most like turning our backs and closing our hearts.
 
To choose freedom, you have to believe that it is worth persevering for. Freedom, contrary to popular belief, is not all open starry skies and limitless options. Sometimes it’s trudging for miles, feeling outcast, alone and separate from the world. It’s seeing the truth all around you, and being unable to close your eyes and make it go away. And then, still choosing freedom.
 
Choosing freedom, you must have the courage to say what you feel and be who you are, despite what others might think. It means that you sometimes have to allow yourself to hurt and use that hurt to grow deeper into freedom.
 
To choose freedom means you are willing to face yourself, be present with yourself, and understand that this is an individual journey that you can only do alone. Through this journey you grow and change and learn what freedom really means.
 
Choosing freedom means listening to your intuition and knowing the difference between when she tells you to go, and when she tells you to stay. It means not running because you are afraid, and not staying because your are frozen by your fears. It’s through these phases of moving ands staying still, change and transition, beginnings and endings, connection and disconnection, that feeling free becomes your devoted companion.
 
To choose freedom is to face your fears. Allowing yourself to feel your fears, to acknowledge them and embrace them, even when it’s the last thing you want to do, means that they dissolve in the face of your innate freedom. Fears are after all, simply false beliefs that are holding you back from feeling free.
 
Choosing freedom means to let go. Letting go of what you believe. Letting go of expectations of others. Letting go of how you think your life should be. Letting go of fitting in a certain box. Letting go of stubbornness. Letting go of who you want to love you. Letting of having things a certain way. It means letting go, and trusting, and letting freedom lead.
 
 
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