Breaking Free from Limiting Beliefs and Cultivating Authenticity – Path to Individual Freedom
“Freedom discovers the man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.”–Bruce Lee
To be free … that is the desire of all men and women, isn’t it? But what freedom means to one individual may be the opposite of what it means to another. And a person may seem free in some ways while enslaved in others, as in an addiction to alcohol or drugs, for example. Each of us desire freedom and work to find that balance of freedom in our lives. We’d love to have complete freedom over our lives, yet, at some point, we realize we cannot attain absolute freedom. For example, we cannot be free from death, as everyone eventually ends up in the grave. It would be wise then to set on living a life of relative freedom while we are very much alive and well.
We recognize that others’ impressions matter little if we are to be truly free. There’s the expression that people will think what they want and it’s true. No matter how much we try, we will only please some people some of the time, and rarely, if ever, please all the people all the time. What matters most is how we feel about the impression we made because that determines what we do and how we act. If we are too concerned about how someone views us or how we’ve made them feel, we lose the freedom to move about as we wish. Instead, we’ve allowed to a greater or lesser extent someone else to determine what we do.
The environment and early life often shape our freedom and resilience. Imagine if you were born in a country where they didn’t allow personal liberty and where others dictated your place in society. What a tough existence. And if that’s all you knew, but you wanted to break free–imagine the pain in facing the obstacles to your own God given right to freedom.
I agree with the expression made by the martial artist Bruce Lee quoted above. I experienced being bound to a religious organization that diminished individual freedoms within the perceived secure boundaries of worship. Not until I was on the outside looking in did I realize the freedom lost. And in my case, had never known. Some lost from rigid parenting, others from my inability to say no.
Within organized group worship, the acceptance of the whole becomes more important than self-acceptance. People in the belief system I grew up in would praise you when you did well. When you didn’t do well, they would discipline you. And if it came to it, they would even shun you as the whole did to me.
In losing the perceived protection of the whole, I gained my own individual freedom. Gradually, as the ingrained feelings of guilt melted away, I could make better decisions. Those in which the ultimate outcome was owned by me and me alone. There came a point when the overwhelming concern over the impression I made dissolved, and I remember shifting my focus to doing better and expressing myself as authentic as possible.
Every male and female born into this world possesses the capability to become an individual contributor in some positive way. It’s up to us to realize our potential and use life up. In the United States, we can be as free as we want in the general sense of the word. Some parts of the world lack physical freedom, but many strive for freedom in other aspects.
I admire these individuals and pray they find the relative freedoms they seek in their lifetime, understanding that none of us can ever attain absolute freedom.
In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the relative freedom available to me, and I encourage you to do the same.
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