We’re taught in the world that we need certain things in order to feel “safe”. Depending on where we live in the world, we will have a different idea of what that looks like. Where I live in America, we are taught that “security” looks like:
Marriage, home ownership, car ownership, money for food, clothes, etc.
This list will vary, but most likely have these as relatively top priorities. Often, we don’t even think about how these “ideals” are being chosen for us, spoonfed to us, and implanted into our brains that these things are what “safety”, “security”, and/or “stability” look like.
What I see happening around me, especially as I get older, is people trading in their feelings of freedom and liberty for the sake of safety and stability.
They are buying what they are being sold. They are entrenched in the programming of modern society.
What I am NOT saying here is that safety and stability aren’t necessary. What I am saying is that not only can safety and stability be synonymous with the feelings of freedom and liberty, but that they are states of mind. I am also saying that we do not have to EARN freedom and liberty by becoming slaves to a system that promises that *maybe* one day down the line, if we are in super servitude to an ever increasingly failing system, we will finally DESERVE/EARN our liberties and freedom.
Freedom is our birthright and it is ever present.
However, all too often I see people enchanted by their own shackles. They put up all of these “safety nets” and then find themselves ensnared by the very things they thought would bring them liberation.
“Oh if I just have this: marriage, house, car- if will feel safe and I will feel accomplished and I will feel free!”
Then one day they wake up encoumbered by these things and wonder how they ever let their freedom slip away.
What is freedom, anyways?
For me, it is making choices and taking on responsibilities that lend themselves toward me breaking free from the mold of society, that bring me more into alignment with my truth, move me closer into Oneness, and that simultaneously bring me the most joy. It means being malleable in my perceptions and my changing needs, desires, and beliefs. It means being willing to take leaps of faith and putting in calculated effort and action to do so. It means getting still enough that I can hear what is the best course of action not just myself, but for my brothers and sisters, so that we all feel free and all feel in alignment with joy. To me it means relinquishing the notion that because I chose something once it means that I have to choose it forever- even if my happiness is suffocated by it. I think so often we are masochists to life. We are so attached to the illusions we have created that we cannot let them go. THAT to me is when we are trapped. THAT to me is loss of freedom: when we become so attached to what was/is, that we are too afraid to step into what could be.
I think contrary to feeling like freedom cannot be used in conjunction with safety and security, that the ultimate safety and security lies within having true freedom. When we are accountable, responsible, and honest with ourselves and others, and when our thoughts, actions, words and beliefs are in alignment with our values, we step into the ultimate safety and security- one that cannot be taken away. In this lies true freedom.
When we decide to break the shackles binding us to our previous notions of what safety, security, and stability look like, it can be frightening. Generally, we will only decide to do this when the alternative (to be stagnant), becomes to painful. I often equate this to how the universe is always expanding, and how remaining stagnant or in resistance to expansion is so contrary to the natural flow of things that it causes us to feel suffering. When we feel stuck in a life of mediocrity, so staunch and stifling- when there is so little joy left in us that to get any out would be like trying to suck the last sip of a smoothie through a straw- we may throw in the towel finally, feeling like there just HAS to be something better. The saying from the Bible stands true here, though:
“Faith without works is dead.”
Things that require faith are rarely easy, I find. If it was easy, it wouldn’t require faith- maybe “elbow-grease”, but not faith. This can make it hard to break out of our routines and the the feelings of safety that they provide for us. However, on the other side is liberation and even stronger faith, which makes the scary things definitely worth the effort. Plus, in this way, our faith gets to be demonstrative, rather than empty lip-service.
When we “live in the world, but are not of it,” we feel free.
I’m going to be long winded here and also share my favorite Bible verses that I feel relate:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, & yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about your clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ Or ‘What will we drink?’ Or ‘What will we wear?’ …indeed your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:25-33
There is freedom in our trusting. There is freedom in letting go of our worry.
It DOES take responsibility and accountability to break free of the chains that bind us. I would argue that it also takes high levels of faith and courage, BUT to be truly happy, joyous and free… well… I think it is worth it.
Yours in Oneness🧡Freedom