This morning the idea came to me to write about freedom.
I’d say that freedom is one of my values.
(Also – if you’ve read Danielle La Porte’s 2014 book The Desire Map (affiliate link) – one of my Core Desired Feelings is ‘free’.)
But what does that actually mean for me?
I have definitely struggled with the words ‘freedom’ and ‘free’ since becoming a mum, because clearly being a parent adds a significant responsibility to your life, which would seem to be the very opposite of being free.
Unless you think about freedom in a different way.
Think about it as mental freedom not physical freedom.
We’re all free to think whatever we like in our heads. Our thoughts are our own – nobody else is in your head but you. That’s not to say of course that our thoughts aren’t influenced by things, that they’re not conditioned by past events. But that’s for someone else to write about – that’s not where I’m going with this train of thought.
What I’m really trying to say is that even if we have physical responsibilities – doing the school run, checking your household doesn’t run out of pizza or fish fingers, looking after ageing parents, getting out of bed and changing out of your pyjamas so you can leave the house – we still have freedom to think what we like in our own heads. At any time.
That’s not to say that I’m an expert on this. And I’m still percolating some thoughts so I suspect there will be more on this topic in future.
So maybe I’ll come back to that.
And talk about the other aspect of freedom, which perhaps is more about free will or choice. As a freelancer, we are by definition ‘free’ (but please remember to pay us!). Free (within reason) to choose who we work with, what types of work we do, how we promote our services or products, how to be when we talk to people.
I’m still thinking about the first one – mental freedom – I’m not quite there with my thoughts on it yet.
But the second one – the free will and choice – is something that I have been taking a lot of action on this last week or so. I have been moving towards being more ‘me’ online, showing up as me, being honest about who I am (creative and a bit weird), and what I do (lots of things).
And towards gathering people around me that I want to work with – whether that’s people I am helping by using my skills, people who are helping me by using their skills, or even a mixture of both at once. Finding my kind of people.
My kind of people are probably a bit weird, quirky or creative, do things differently, do lots of things, like to speak up about stuff, break the business rules, help people be themselves – some or all of those things at once.
When I help them, I provide practical, grounded, logical, calmness with my own brand of creativity and expertise thrown in.
When they help me, they’re giving me the confidence to be more visible as my weird unique self and/or helping me learn about tools I can use to do that.
So those are my thoughts on freedom.
What do you think? Did anything there resonate with you? Please do comment below or on the social media post that brought you here.
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