The ego's answer to that question is typically something about having the money, time, and resources to have and do everything we could possibly desire or imagine.
Which is not wrong. But this kind of Freedom is incomplete if the heart and Soul aren't also free.
So what does it mean to be free in our Soul?
One way to describe it is the feeling of unbounded joy, unlimited love, bottomless peace, ease, and clarity. A sense of meaning, value, and worthiness that isn't conditional to our circumstances.
That sense of "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh yeeeaaaahhhhh..." in our being, where it feels so good to just be inside our own skin, living this life.
It's obvious that what we really want is the Soul's idea of freedom, because if we have that, then everything else we do and experience in life is really just gravy - just reflecting and expressing the joy and peace we already feel.
So how do we get there? What's the secret to true inner Freedom?
Well, to taste Freedom we need to first get clear about what exactly is in our way. What prevents us from just feeling and knowing that all the time.
And it all comes back to this elusive and misunderstood thing called Ego.
The ego is not an enemy, it's not like this little saboteur in our heads intentionally trying to screw up our plans, though it can feel that way sometimes.
One simple definition of ego is that Ego is the identity that is created through our relationship to all the people and things we have been conditioned to glean our sense of worth and value from.
We are taught that it's what we are doing and contributing to the world that gives us our sense of value as people. Or it's how many people we have that approve of who we are and love us. Or it's the level of financial security we have, and our social status.
So all of these attachments to external people and things that are defining our sense of self-worth form this psychological network of energy cords which creates our identity.
And these energy cords act like tethers, tying us to whatever it is that we need to feel okay. And like a bird that has been chained to a weight on the ground, only able to fly in a very limited radius, we too are limited by these tethers, and will only experience a much smaller version of reality then our Soul intuits is possible. And so we crave Freedom.
Through the ego identity, we may achieve finding ourselves a longer chain, allowing for a wider radius of flight, but we will still be tethered nonetheless, and a part of us will always know that and feel unsatisfied.
So how does one un-tether themselves and release the limited view of reality we get through the ego structure?
The answer sounds overly simplistic, but I've found that often its the most simple things applied with great sincerity that are most effective.
So the opposite of getting our sense of worthiness from outside ourselves, naturally, is learning how to get our sense of worthiness from within ourselves instead. Learning to feel good about who we are, not because we said or did the right thing, or because other people like us, but just because we Are, because we exist as a perfect expression of the Divine - even in all our imperfection.
In other words, it's Self-Love that opens the door to True Freedom. Loving ourselves unconditionally and believing in our inherent goodness.
Now that's quite a leap to make if you've spent your whole life unconsciously judging yourself. It can sound too good to be true. Most of us don't even have a concept for what unconditional love actually is, as it's so rare in our culture.
The only way to begin to know unconditional self-love is just to start practicing it. You have to be willing to fumble your way through it, to feel like you're "faking it" and wasting your time, all the while staying with it, until a breakthrough happens and real, sincere love starts to flow.
It's as simple as putting your hand on your heart and saying out load "I love you."
It will feel awkward and insincere at first, but as my teacher Matt Kahn says, not feeling it is not evidence that it isn't true. It's just evidence that you haven't heard it enough times, so the mind identifies it as something foreign and wont let it in. The more you just say it, the more it starts to seep into your subconscious mind, until it can be accepted and received.
So saying "I love you" to yourself often, repeating it slowly and compassionately for long periods of time as a meditative practice, is powerful.
Another way to increase your sense of worthiness is to begin to acknowledge your own brilliance, beauty, and amazingness.
Tell yourself how beautiful you are every time you see your own reflection. Give yourself compliments as you go throughout your day like "my, you are so funny and smart! I just love your sense of humor!" and dare to feel good about yourself for all those little things that you do.
You are, truly, an incredible being after all! And there is no one else like you on this, or any other planet!
As we begin to fuel ourselves with our own self-love and affirmations of worth, we stop needing it from outside so much, and those energy tethers begin to dissolve on their own, leaving us a little more free every day.
It's a choice, to live in this new way, to practice self-love as the single most important tool for finding Freedom. And it continues to deepen and deepen, revealing more and more of our infinite nature just with our willingness to feel good about who we are, and taking it one "I love you" at a time.
Much Self-Love to you, wherever and however you are!
~Jessica
