Growing Freedom
What does the word freedom mean to you?
Do you think you live to that level of freedom today?
These were two questions, among many others, I asked myself as I started my first business plan for Dragonspit Apothecary a couple years ago. One of my goals in this adventure was to have more freedom in my life. I knew however I had to do more than just state such a wide open goal like that. This goal needed some meat to it as I would not settle for a blanket statement when it came to this deeply important goal.
What did freedom look like to me?
What did it really mean to me?
What would it look, feel, taste and be like?
Most importantly how was I going to tangibly measure if I achieved that or not?
At first I thought these questions would be easy to answer! It would be a successful small business that allowed me to quit my career and have something fun. I would love it and it would be great. It would be profitable and I’d be living in high cotton doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. Oh yes it would be fine and I wanted it.
Once I stopped the day dreaming though I realized I was missing the point of answering those questions. I was missing the meaty center that would make that seemingly carefree lifestyle possible.
How often have you said to yourself that you wish you could just be free from something? Maybe it’s going to work on Monday morning wishing you’d won the Powerball that past weekend. Perhaps it is when the family is on your last nerve and there’s an endless supply of laundry that seems to be the only thing your family asks you about. Maybe its a boss that sucks the life out of you and you spend your day trying to avoid them at all costs. I think we all have these times in our lives where we get overwhelmed or have things just not going well for us and we want a break. Who wouldn’t want a break from laundry?
Freedom to me became a more formed statement of creating a life I didn’t need to escape from or save vacation time and money to afford. Much akin to dieting I had to make a lifestyle change to realize freedom could be more than just a temporary reprieve from something that was not fulfilling my soul every single day I woke up.
If you look further into why you are saying you want to be free you will find some really big questions and needs laying there. Is it the fact you have to work or is it really that you are not in love with your job, your boss is a jerk or you don’t like your commute? Is it that there is a load of laundry to do or is it more that you don’t have any break from chores and your constantly going from one thing to the next never seeming to catch up? Is it truly your desire to work so hard that you have nothing left in you but the desire to sleep away any vacation time you get?
Most of the time it is not that we have responsibilities, chores or even jerks in our life. Truthfully it’s not because we have laundry to get done even though that’s what we are blaming. Most of the time our angst with things and people is really stemming from the controls and constraints we feel those things have over us. They are symptoms and causes of something much bigger that is not flowing in our life. These things are getting in they way of us meeting our own needs, dreams, schedule, and even our thoughts, talents and money. Yes even our money is controlled when things are so wound against what is expected of us and how we should be living that it isn’t enjoyable anymore.
How many times have you heard of someone buying a “dream” house or car only to be just as miserable as they were before but now they have a big payment on top of that misery? They end up not enjoying the very thing they so desperately wanted in their life! Their marriage falls apart, they become depressed and stop truly living. It is just adulting right?
When this happens, it is showing us we are not living in alignment to our natural heartbeat or even close to being on our terms. When this happens it is a message from our soul that we are out of balance. It also means we are not living in freedom. Yes we are enslaved to our very lives! We are unhappy, unhealthy and unconnected. We lack the willpower to do anything different and suffer in silent misery hoping Monday was Friday and we win the Powerball.
When I realized that I was living a life that was limiting my freedom I knew something had to change. I believe too I was blaming other things and people around me as circumstances of life rather than realizing it is symptomatic of a larger problem that I didn’t want to address. We believe it is just a crappy job we hold or a boss that doesn’t know what they are doing. Our kids are out of control and we’re too tired from everything else going on to deal with it. Money is tight and we can’t do what we want or need because bills have to come first. These things are why so many of us crave these big sweeping changes we label under the umbrella of freedom but how often do we actually act on making freedom a reality?
When I said I wanted freedom as a why and eventual goal through this small business I was starting, it was a big goal for a little business. It was lofty and dreamy. It isn’t that the goal of freedom is unrealistic but for a long time it would feel the farthest thing from freedom as I build it to provide for freedom. That true grit freedom of declaring I can live on my own terms with my time, talent and money. That independence to define and carry out what is absolutely right for me. This is the stuff of our wildest dreams and can make you sound crazy! Yet it is exactly where many of us can fall victim in thinking it’s impossible or unbelievable. Then these intimidating feelings intensify when the results are slow in arriving. Trust me it is not your goal, determination, motivation, dream, desire or anything else that’s wrong. It is your belief you are not deserving of your freedom. When we think something is too hard and it’s not worth it we are saying directly we don’t deserve it!
Are you worth being free?
Every goal we set in our life no matter how well worded and intended will not always end in success. In fact most goals we forget or fail at. It is the goals we continue to push and work on and let form deeper and deeper into our being that are the most likely to survive and succeed. Freedom is an incredible goal and we are all deserving of it in our lives but if we’re not willing to rise every morning with the pursuit of what it means to have it then we won’t ever get there. The same can be true of any goal we set in our life from dieting, parenting, career and so on. What matters to you will become so important you can see nothing else and nothing will slow or stop you until it exists.
When I think of growing freedom in my life it is centered on the ability to work in something that supports my family and provides that financial security you cannot get in a regular 9 to 5 job. It is work that rewards me monetarily, mentally and spiritually making me me feel alive! Yes I said work that makes me feel alive! It is also firmly based on the belief I can live a life on my terms where I have control of my schedule and can take a lunch break instead of having meetings all day and having to skip meals. It is doing what I know is right and speaking my own truth. Yes freedom in it’s purest sense is what I truly desire and am working towards.
If you don’t have something in your life that gives you that level of desire and awakening it’s time to look at what you’re doing and how you’re living. If you feel constrained, held back, pushed down, overwhelmed, chosen over and more then it’s time to redefine your definition of freedom. Let me ask you again my friend:
What does the word freedom mean to you?
Do you think you live to that level of freedom today?
If you’re ready to explore what this can look like for you take my New Business Leader Quiz: https://forms.gle/uuvnRmiwhoQbswJw5