What is Freedom?

Day 17 of the Unknown.

Freedom has always been a core value of mine. Freedom to make choices, freedom to be my full self, freedom to be vulnerable. The path to freedom is a tricky one. Because it's a path only you can forge for yourself.

To me, freedom is not 'having to do nothing'. Relaxing. Quite the opposite. There can be a lot of action in freedom. A lot of power, a lot of collaboration, a lot of fire. Freedom is not the eternal vacation or the 'I will be by myself for the rest of time so that nobody tells me what to do'.

To me, freedom means 'not needing anything/one external to be happy'. Having an inner locus of joy. Replenishing your own happiness well. Not making others and their actions responsible for your well-being. Still connecting, still interacting, still out there in the world - but free of expectations and 'have to's for others.

Freedom starts inside. By looking yourself deeply in the mirror and acknowledge all the holes in your heart. In your soul. All the voids that have not been filled. All the desires that have not bee met.

There can be sadness, anger coming up. We are grieving for ourselves that our needs were not met. We are angry at our environment that they did not give us what we wanted.

And then the real work starts. How do we fill the holes in our heart? How do we make our soul dance again? Sometimes it's feeling the disappointment and letting it go. Accepting what we can't change.

Sometimes, we get the gift of discovering a hidden desire. A desire for love that we can fill through self-love. A desire for belonging that we can fill through radical self-acceptance. A desire for 'more' that we can fill through setting the next step in our own growth.

And as we face our own void, we become whole. In our entire selves. Independent of the impact of others' behavior. Free. Within ourselves.