Freedom (on the inside)

(This is article 4 out of 5 about freedom.)

When I looked at my in-box, I saw 30 e-mails requiring answers. My phone registered 4 text messages and 2 voicemails. I knew I had on my desk 3 bills needing payment and that I had about 15 minutes of paperwork related to ROTB’s non-profit status.

I suddenly found myself overcome by an overwhelming feeling of anxiety. It felt as though I was choking.

“Suck it up,” I told myself. But what would battening down the hatches accomplish? It would suffocate me, stuffing the scared feeling down while I robotically muscled through my responsibilities. I knew from experience that ignoring my anxiety would just wreck havoc later on—in various nefarious and incalculable ways.

So, I decided to try something different.

I wrote God a prayer for help.

I didn’t write to God because I expected God to change things for me. On the contrary, I wrote it because I know that when we engage in real earnest prayer, the one who prays is changed. (There’s lots about what real prayer is in my first book, How to Find Out What (the) God (of your understanding) Wants From You. If you haven’t read it, you ought to – despite the long title, it’s pretty good.)

Five paragraphs into my stream-of-consciousness-prayer, a favorite Robert Frost quote came to mind: The best way out is usually through. And a thought occurred to me, "What if I embrace my feelings? Why not just sit with the panic . . . lean into it?"

So, I did.

I placed the fleshy part of my palm on my cheeks, my fingers covering my eyes. I bowed my head toward my chest, and I started to cry. I dove in to the feelings. I allowed my panic and fear to wash over me.

To my amazement, it didn’t last forever. In reality it lasted all of 40 seconds.

Then, looking like a two-year-old who has just finished a tantrum—with tears still damp on my cheeks—I felt my countenance lift. The feelings of panic had disappeared.

--

Do you see how this experience relates to the previous articles on freedom?

We all know that we are able to choose how we react to the external forces in our lives. How do we react when we’re at a restaurant and our salad arrives with the wrong dressing? We have choices: rage at the waiter, politely request a change, accept it and enjoy something unexpected, or other options.

Are we not able to choose how we react with regard to our internal emotional lives?

Feelings we were neither expecting nor desiring, like salads with wrong dressings on them, will come.

What will you choose?

Are you willing to feel sad when you are sad . . . to feel angry when you are angry . . . and to feel overwhelmed when you are overwhelmed?

Or will you ignore your true feelings by pretending everything is fine . . . even when it’s not?

Spiritual-religious advice: Be free to experience what it is that you experience; even if you don’t like it.

Freedom

(This is article 3 out of 5 about freedom.)

Free.

The English word "free" comes from the German frei—meaning dear or beloved. (Interestingly, the word "liberty" comes from the Latin liberi—meaning both free and children.) The idea is that if you are "dear" to those in charge (like the children of a medieval ruler), you get to have certain privileges.

This makes sense. We cut slack for people closest to us more than we do for those people – the ones we think of as far away and who we pretend we are nothing like.

Can you imagine that the universe or God (whatever you want to call it) finds you to be dear?

If your personal theology gets all mixed up in the above God language, you aren’t alone. Most adults get confused when we introduce the three letters gee-oh-dee. For the purposes of this short article, let’s think of it this way: your host for the weekend has told you to make yourself comfy—eat what you like, sleep as late as you like—relax. Oughtn’t you?

Spiritual-religious advice: contemplate your freedom.

A Passover Reflection

(This is article 2 out of 5 about freedom.)

Understand the following and you'll get an understanding of both Passover and freedom.

Passover is all about your freedom.

It's not about how you choose to restrict the carbohydrates in your diet. (Although that can be a wonderful path for realizing your freedom.) It's not really about the ancient Israelites leaving their constrictions. (Although re-telling that story can be a powerful experience.) It's about you being, reclaiming, and realizing your own freedom. (Re-read the previous sentence, please.)

At every festive Passover meal the following sentence is recited, yet so few understand it: we are not here because of what God did for our ancestors, it is because of what God has done for me. The Biblical story of freedom–the story of Exodus–is retold, but only as the backdrop for each of us to understand that we, we are the ones whom God has set free.

God has freed you. (Please don't get too hung-up by the word "God." It need mean nothing more or less than you want it to.)

And, God has freed me.

How wonderful that is.

How truly wonderful.

Spiritual-religious advice: if the word God is throwing you off, ponder that. Otherwise, think about your freedom.

Freedom on the inside

(This is article 1 out of 5 about freedom.)

The 1^st century Roman poet Virgil wrote Possunt quia posse videntur — which means, "They can because they think they can."

I want to look at the opposite—the self-imposed, yet non-existent boundaries that keep us from doing the things that we could do if only we just didn't think otherwise.

It's fear that keeps a friend of mine at a job that he hates, complete with a sub-par salary and an atrocious commute. He doesn't believe that he deserves better. He doesn’t believe that he deserves anything and everything that he wants.

It's a sense that she just shouldn't shine and be splendid that keeps another friend from shining and being splendid.

Why is this? Why do we limit ourselves so much?

The best explanation I know of is the following:

Think about a dog wearing a shock collar that activates whenever it walks past a certain boundary. Basic conditioning teaches it to stop walking past that point—and after some time, you can remove the shock-collar and the dog still won't venture pass where it had learned not to go.

The same is true with people—with you and me.

At some point in our explorations of life, someone (often a parent) zapped us and we internalized the notion that we shouldn't go there or do that. We learned to live inside a certain safety zone and not to venture outside the box.

We got conditioned—even without the external authority figure telling us that it was wrong—to limit ourselves.

Personally, I learned that I shouldn't relax and let others take care of me. (I'm not certain about the particulars of how I learned this, I just know that I did.) I felt that it was my job to take care of others.

But it's not my job. As real as that restriction feels, it's not real. I can relax and myself be taken care of.

(Similarly, I mis-learned that I shouldn't express my anger and that I shouldn't be straightforwardly honest if it might upset someone.)

What I'm proposing is that we recognize that some of the very "real" boundaries in our lives actually aren't really real at all.

What I'm proposing is some faith to try to free ourselves from our perceived limitations.

This might seem like a radical idea, but it’s true, you aren't limited!

(Of course there is gravity and the government has laws . . . but outside of those there isn't much stopping you from doing what or being who you want to be.)

True freedom, philosophers teach, is God. For the rest of us, we must learn to recognize our self-imposed limitations and be brave enough to venture out beyond where we thought we were safe.

Be brave.

You are safe.

As the late 16th century philosopher and priest Giordano Bruno said before he was burned at the stake as a heretic, "Out of this universe you cannot fall."

Or, in other words, the universe or God – if you imagine a notion of an external deity – isn't going to treat you the way that your parents might have when you violated a boundary. In fact, neither the universe nor God want you to be limited at all.

Spiritual-religious advice: reflect on the limitations you have set for yourself and consider setting yourself free.