How to Reclaim Your Freedom Instead of Feeling Trapped

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay 

I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom this week, and out of interest I asked my (soon to turn teen) niece what her definition of freedom was. She responded “the feeling of relief and the feeling that nothing is holding you back in life”.

I couldn’t have defined it better if I had tried. I have heard others define it by conditions that need to exist, rather than as a feeling. But I have read accounts of people who have lived in the absolute worst of human conditions – such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps - who still felt freer than others who would appear to be privileged and yet feel trapped.

Freedom has come up for me both on a micro and macro level, with global restrictions in place and whole swathes of people becoming polarized against one another. And I am pondering this on both levels.

When someone asked me recently about some undesirable conditions I had lived with in my life, and why I had put up with them for so long, I responded that once I became aware of my situation I had made a choice and – while staying within it for a certain amount of time – had chosen to focus on the positive aspects.

Yet, as I wrote about a few years ago in Why Does She Stay? … and What Makes You So Different?  it can so often be the case that people are unaware that they have a choice. Lack of confidence, shame, a misplaced sense of duty - all some version of fear – and all have a familiar resonance with feelings from childhood.

For me these feelings drew more experiences that led me to wonder thoughts like “perhaps what I seek is a fantasy, perhaps this is just what life is”. I wrote at the time:

“She stays because she’s rooted in fear, what is known seems safer somehow that what is unknown. The same as why the other s(he) is violent to begin with, or why you stay in that job you hate, or stick with that diet you loathe, or with that person you don’t love, it’s all rooted in fear. Life will often present you with BIG things, like near misses, disease or death, because it knows you need dislodged to get out your comfort zone and show you that you can do it…

So you can wait for the slam dunk, or you can start to see the fear for what it is. It’s a thought. And thoughts can be changed. You just need to start reaching for better feeling thoughts”

It’s fear that takes our sense of freedom.

Over the course of my life, any time I became aware that I was entrenched in circumstances that really weren’t serving me, I usually moved on. But after decades of repeating the same experiences –the same theme with variations on the story and people – I finally started seeing patterns.

This led me to look in the mirror and start to wonder who I was showing up as that kept attracting these same sorts of themes. In turn this led to a juicy and oftentimes uncomfortable perpetual journey of self reflection, awareness and growth.

And so it is I find myself in 2021 with all aspects of my life in movement. Some feel good, some feel not so good, but only in the moment; I feel strongly it’s all okay in the now and it’s all headed in the right direction. Some of it is within my control, some of it isn’t. My reaction to my changing circumstances though is completely within my control.

I was listening to the words of Abraham Hicks this week, who was speaking on Government Control (well worth a listen for anyone currently feeling somewhat constrained at the moment) but it spoke equally to me on the topic of feeling trapped in any way:

“You think nothing comes if you don’t fight for it and we say it comes in spite of your fighting for it. All individuals have the power to feel good and to be free. But when you turn your power over to anybody and say that they need to do something different before you can feel better, you are in trouble because you cannot control them. No one has the ability to take your freedom from you, and no one does when you know that. And until you do, a 2-year old can entrap you.”

Strong words.

In another response to someone, who was deliberating whether to have a vaccine, Abraham Hicks said:

“We are not saying to you that you can give away your freedoms and like it, we are saying to you that you are giving away your freedoms in ways you don’t even know.

This isn’t about what you do or don’t do. You either line up with taking it and take it, or you line up with not taking it and don’t. Just don’t decide not to take it and push against – or decide to take it and push against – because it is the pushing against that takes your freedom and your wellbeing and your joy.

Every time you push against anything you give away freedom and alignment with who you are. But there is so much more evolution and expansion than the decision you are making.”

This pondering has led me to realise that, despite some obvious disagreements over the issues of the COVID19 vaccines, on both sides of that argument people are seeking freedom.

Some, who have always placed their faith in the medical systems and never experienced anything negative as a result – or may in fact feel they owe their physical wellbeing entirely to medical interventions – have had no issues taking the recommended course of action from their governments.

Others, who have had negative experiences of pharmaceuticals and/or the medical system, are understandably wary – or in some cases downright fearful – of the recommended course of action and mandates.

I personally feel the same way about my body as I do about my levels of conscious awareness of my thoughts in recent years, in that I am far more attuned and aware of what my body wants and needs than I was in the past. It does not sit at all well with me that anyone except me should think they are qualified to tell me what my body wants and needs.

Talking with a friend of mine in another country this week about the mandates here in New Zealand for teachers and healthcare works to have had their first jab by 15 November, or not be allowed to continue in their roles, I mentioned a post I had seen which said “Kind of weird I have to explain this, but taking things away from people until they agree to do what you say isn’t giving them a choice, it’s punishing them until they concede to your demands. Normally we would refer to this type of behaviour as manipulation and abuse”.

He was telling me that – after having had a bad reaction to a flu vaccination many years ago – he personally would rather take his chances with his immune system. However, given restrictions on travel and a close family member’s deteriorating health (nothing to do with the virus), he felt he needed to go get the vaccine so he was in a position to get on a plane at a moment’s notice.

Now, while this is far from ideal in terms of “conditions” relating to personal freedoms, it’s an excellent example of what Abraham Hicks is pointing to; and indeed what my niece said so eloquently.

When faced with a choice, choose the one that gives you the most relief.

And for each person, that will result in different choices. Honour that. Some people will choose to vaccinate over losing their job, some will choose to walk away from their job. Others will choose to abstain from seeing their loved ones, while others will choose to vaccinate in order to travel or be allowed in care homes and so on.

And remember the statement from the Abraham Hicks’ excerpt on Government control “When you turn your power over to anybody and say that they need to do something different before you can feel better, you are in trouble because you cannot control them”.

I think that's the essence of our experience here perhaps, to know ourselves in this oppression so that we can come into the fullest expressions of ourselves. It seems to me, there has never before been a time when so many are governed by so few, and the desire for freedom, be it personal, social, racial, gender identity, economic, health, education or whatever, there is a rising desire for freedom world over.

Esther Hicks said, “My only hope is that ‘what is’ becomes so evident to people that it fuels their desire for freedom”. Ultimately I believe I can and will achieve freedom from the micro and macro situations in my life that oftentimes constrain me, but I’m human, and it’s fair to say I spend more time dwelling on and dissecting ‘what is’ instead of focusing on ‘what I want’ to be.

And that is okay. Even in my resistance, my fighting, ultimately what is so desired will come in spite of my fighting it.

As I was swimming up the lane on my back yesterday I looked at the cobalt blue sky and shining sun beyond the mass of grey and white clouds drifting past. And as I watched the sky I saw it as a beautiful metaphor for this thing called freedom.

Freedom is the basis of life, it is always there like the cobalt blue sky and shining sun, regardless of what is blocking it from view. I can fight against the clouds, or the tilt of the earth, but ultimately they will continue on as they always have, my situation in relation to those is only temporary.

And so that is how I choose to see any obstruction to my freedom.

“Those who feel all powerful, who think they can control the outcome of your experience and others, don’t and can’t” is the final Abraham Hicks quote I’ll share. I choose to see those people or institutions like clouds in the sky. And, just as I do in my meditation each day with my thoughts, I take my attention from those clouds and let them drift on by.

In what ways do you feel your freedom being taken right now? Are there alternative ways of looking at the situation, perhaps as clouds in the sky, which feel better to you? And in what other thoughts or decisions are you able to find relief?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy When Life Is Uncertain It Feels Good to Take a Positive Step, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good, What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? and Reclaim the Sweet Spot of Being in Your Element. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.