Why am I such an advocate for finding our freedom?

Because I know how good we are at putting limitations on ourselves. At playing victim.  At passing the buck. At not knowing our boundaries. At allowing ourselves to be consumed by fear. At defending ourselves without invitation. Because that’s easy.

Some of us, including myself, will engage in any of those actions without even realizing that we are doing so or without knowing why. As if we have been doing it for so long that it’s merely habitual.

This sounds absurd, and guess what?  It is.

It wasn’t until I started listening to myself that I started to bust down some walls. I also realized that all of this actually isn’t easy. It’s actually consuming. Very consuming. Life drains our energy; day-in and day-out and we wonder why we are mentally exhausted and why things aren’t going our way.

We need to find that connection to ourselves. It exists. We just need to listen.

Listening to ourselves is not encouraged in our culture. In fact, feeling is not encouraged in our culture. What is encouraged is busy-ness, one-upsmanship, passing the buck and all other things listed above: lather, rinse, repeat.

But these status-quo limitations prevent us from tapping into our pure potential.

It’s time to start finding our freedom and, with that, comes some work. Yikes. This is why many of us don’t find our freedom, because adding more work to our already busy day would be ridiculous. But once we start diving deeper into our needs and standing up for what we want and listening to ourselves, it doesn’t feel like work: it feels like a life full of freedom.

I taught a yoga retreat in Greece last year and one of my students was a life coach. She kindly gave me a free session, and I told her how I had a five year plan to leave my current full-time job. She laughed and told me that nothing gets done if you give yourself five years: Where is the fire? Where is the action?

So we talked more and, after two hours, I had a two-year action plan. This was 10 months ago. Since then, I’ve quit my full time job as an Executive Director at a preschool and have made the leap into full-time yoga.

What was in our action plan after two hours of talking? We made a list of what I didn’t want in life, because this is the best way to get really clear with what we do want.  Sometimes we don’t know what we want and that is why we take the back door approach to figure it out. Via visual process of elimination, I gained instant clarity and tapped into awareness of my purpose. Shit… two years—I better get moving, I thought to myself.

It didn’t happen overnight. But I’m relentless and a go-getter and I actually ran myself into the ground in order to find my freedom. I learned that my freedom was that space in between the busyness of my mind and whirling twirling of my life. It was there. Even though I didn’t see it, I could tap into it. I could reach for it. I could trust that it was there. I just had to stop and breathe from time to time.

I’ve learned a lot in a whirlwind of only 10 months. For one, it is not time to put my feet up. I’ve just made the leap and that doesn’t mean I am done. It means I have more time to create and inspire. I’ve continually experienced that people criticize me left and right. Why on earth would I want to leave a safe box of steady income and health insurance?  I stick to my guns. Sure, their comments invite fear into my life, but I bring myself back to the why:

Why am I taking this leap and establishing my freedom and following my heart? I answer and am reminded of my path.

When people begin to see that you are a bit lighter, happier and free, they will question you. It’s their way of projecting their own shit onto you, and it might shake you. But it’s a choice to be pulled in that direction. It’s a choice to feel how you want to feel. Be willing to continually find that reconnection to yourself. It’s a constant recalibration and freedom requires just that.

Now go live that life you were meant to live.

~

Author: Meredith Cameron

Editor: Caroline Beaton

Photo: Flickr