FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 26: “Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man’s lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one’s self.” ― Max Stirner
Freedom is a state of being…it does not depend on walls or bars or gates or boundaries of a country. I have been in jail and hell and boundless and in heaven, all in the same body.
My freedom, today, is the result of letting those burdens that limited my life be removed. I did what I needed to do here to be free. Where I had so much judgment of self and others, I let it go and began to focus on only MY breath and MY feet. When I was wrong, I worked to make things right. Where there were broken things, I worked to mend them. Where there were large spaces to span, I worked to build bridges.
I am willing to be responsible for myself. I was raised to believe that it was someone’s job to “take care” of me…an old paradigm from a past where women were believed incapable of making decisions with rational judgment, so had to be provided for. Yikes! I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to learn to be both radically independent and part of a great team.
We are both independent and other-dependent in this culture. Most of us are terribly co-dependent as well. The world needs a bit of co-dependence, but only in small measure.
Today I have walked through healing so much of the stuff that kept me from being completely free. I am well aware of the cost of my personal freedom today. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with nation or creed; but EVERYTHING to do with my personal responsibility to be the best Kelly I can be.
I used to say I was “terminally single and fatally independent”; but that changed when I got married. I really thought that being a widow would mean I could go back to being terminally single, but that is not my story.
Once I allowed that space in my heart to expand and it was broken open, it is there, waiting, I guess. Or maybe it is filled with the love I have that grows and grows for the people who have come into my life since that time. There are a lot of them. I have had another 3 or 4 lifetimes since my husband died. It has not been that many years, but SO much has come and gone! Wow!
So I do not always see what is going on with the freedom that is part of my life today. The greatest freedom I have is the ability to stop judging me, then I can quit judging you. When I do that, I am free of carrying around the burden of watching YOU so diligently so I can compare and contrast myself and measure up or down to feel okay. That is a HUGE difference…I am grateful…I am happy…I am a complete unit today, no matter what!
Dolphin Hug 