The Meaning of Freedom

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS WEEKS SISTER: Sarah Wow we are blown away by the amazing Sarah Federman, who just so happens to be this week’s phenomenal SATURDAY SISTER!!!! Not only is she one of the most intelligent women we have ever met, but she uses her amazing skills and strengths to make a difference in the world! She loves to learn, travel (the above picture was taken by Sarah on one of her adventures) and enjoys unlocking the depths of humanity and our complex patterns. She is a PhD Candidate, a Presidential Scholar and Certified Coach just to name a few, and her blog post on Freedom will really get you thinking! We love her and so will you! Happy Reading xoxo

 

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Dear Free Spirit Girls Thank you for this invitation. I am delighted to contribute to your spirited community. Once a Free Spirit Girl and now a Free Spirit Woman, I work towards human flourishing throughout my scholarship, coaching, teaching and writing. I have come to believe that flourishing requires freedom. Free Spirit Girls already know this. Today, however, I wanted us to poke at the word “freedom.” What does it mean to you? Where did you pick up your definition? When do you feel most free?

The Meaning of Freedom
We know freedom when we feel it. We may find ourselves suddenly dancing with abandon or sharing our gifts without hesitation. In that moment we are free! We feel free from the expectations and demands of our families, institutions, and larger society. If we’re really honest, we also feel free from ourselves. For a moment we silence the voices in our heads that try to figure out how we measure up.

Your Freest Moments
Take a moment to think about your freest moments; let them roll around in your mind like a delicious caramel candy. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? How long did it last?
Some of mine;

surfing under a double rainbow in Australia,waking up on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and swimming to shore,helping paraplegic kids ride horses,unching in the West Wing of the White House,chatting with toothless townspeople near the artic circle,watching an astonishing display of the Northern Lights,meditating for 5 hours/day in Brazil,trekking through Utah’s canyons and ascending Colorado’s rocky peaks,playing with (and hugging) soul mates.

 

Freedom can also come from the simple things…
Then, I have had many simpler moments; sometimes feeling free while watching birds nibble on the seed I laid out or spending an evening with a book. Or, toenail painting parties that involve giggling while trying to figure out how the X-Men series holds together. If freedom comes in big and small moments, why don’t we feel it all the time? Where does it go? What makes it so hard to hold on to?

Why We Don’t Feel Free
We may be quick to blame ourselves; we don’t feel free because we lack some level of will or creativity. In Western Cultures, we focus on personal will power. This has many benefits, but we also can fall into the trap of making ourselves feel bad when we don’t feel good. It’s actually not all our fault that we struggle to feel free.

The Inescapable Power of Culture
We participate in many cultures and subcultures such as our country, state, city, school, group of friends and families, even the era in which we live. Each of these has prescribed ways of being telling us how to act, whom to be, and even what to love. Your world may tell you to love organic veggies or it might teach you to distrust foreigners. Social standards (societies unspoken rules of what’s right and wrong) work as a form of social control. Many times social standards work great, far better than laws. Standards help us be considerate when parking our cars, they teach us to wait patiently in line, and share resources. At their best, cultural standards can transform racism from acceptable to abhorrent. Our cultures, sadly, can also serve as our cage. And no tattoo or road trip can fully free you. Culture is so deeply embedded in us; it impacts how we form our sentences and thoughts. You can no more escape culture than you can escape your own skin.

Culture In Our Words & Buildings
Roger Barker, an environmental psychologist, claimed he could tell you about human behavior just by knowing where you were. Think about how your behavior changes when you walk into a supermarket, compared to when you walk into a doctor’s office, or a nightclub or a friend’s house. Our behavior is so often determined by where we are. You cannot run away from culture or destroy it. You can help it evolve, but you’ll have a better chance of success if you understand that culture is a large part of our identities.

Cultural Scripts & Roles
In addition to being influenced by our language and our buildings, culture also offers us “scripts.” There are lots of roles we are encouraged to play. There are scripts and rules in our culture for how to be the perfect girlfriend, wife, daughter, mother, employee and even freedom seeker. These scripts can be so inescapable and subtle we may not realize how often we read from them or push others to do so. This is how culture spreads. Over time we have developed rules (or written scripts) for how friends, family and intimate partners must behave. When they do not behave that way we often become disappointed or hurt. We do not recognize them as scripts – we think they are the truth and assume others are purposefully ruining the show. Consider what might happen if we dropped our limiting scripts and stopped expecting people to read from the script we have unconsciously given them. What might be possible then? How much freedom and spontaneity could we experience with the people already in our lives?

Culture: No Easy Foe
We must be brave, shrewd and unrelenting in our quest for freedom if we wish to shirk off the worst of our culture. Culture will ardently defend against anything that calls it into question, making sure we never really transform, only allowing us to see what makes sense within the existing frameworks. Magic and mystery surrounds us but we often cannot see it because cultural norms tell us to be rational and levelheaded.

How to Break Free?
Without waiting for the next batch of youngsters or the next technological invention, how can freedom-seeking individuals wake up to the patterns that bind us? Well, luckily philosopher Pierre Bourdieu gave us some tips before he died in 2002. He suggested that through stories, folk tales and movies we spend more time in “the imaginary.” In the imagined world, we no longer need to play by the rules. We can make pigs fly and coyotes boogie. We can for a moment forget our culture norms that try to push us into boxes. We can break all the rules. We can write new scripts. Many of us turned in our imagination at elementary school graduation. As we grew, the world around us sadly, cared less about our whimsy and more about our exam marks and results. Luckily I have a mother who retained hers—she tells her grandkids they will be having worm sandwiches for dinner and has Halloween whenever everyone wants to dress up and celebrate. They laugh and giggle together.

Take a Trip Back into the Imaginary
So Free Spirit Girls, I’m inviting us all back into the imaginary. I’ve started heading back in. To solve swimming boredom a friend and I imagined a glass bottomed swimming pool that extended between two buildings. This way, swimmers could watch the street below and the pedestrians could enjoy the sight of floating swimmers 15 stories up. Sounded crazy to my friends until they saw Richard Branson’s recent release of a glass-bottomed plane! What have you been imagining? Instead of walking along and worrying, play with your mind. The mind is so wonderfully elastic when unleashed. Your ideas might seem profane or politically incorrect. Have them anyway. If your friends offer an sideways look when you share these ideas, you’re off to a good start. They mean no offense they simply represent the culture trying to keep things under wraps, so don’t take it personally.

Other Paths to Freedom
Here are some other ways to break out of the roles and scripts:

live in another languagewander around a bookstore and take any book that jumps out at YOU!watch nature for hoursgrow somethingtry clothing you would never wear and dance around in it

I heard someone say, “From time to time, I do something I don’t believe in just in case I am wrong.” So, I’m a vegan who occasionally enjoys a delicious cheese plate.

Of course, follow what appeals to you.

Freedom Together
Remember, no need to assume that freedom has to be sought alone. One of the most rewarding spaces to experience freedom is in relation with others. Your authentic search for freedom can transform cultural beliefs and those with whom you interact. Through the seeking of your own joy you overcome your culture and lead by example, showing others how to do so as well.

Please tell me how it goes…..www.sarahfederman.com
Love sarah xoxo