The Responsibility of Freedom

My mentor responds to my inquiry with a question.  So typical…

“Why do you think following your heart will not keep you safe?” he asks.

Instantly I am hit with a, “Wow.  Yea…why do I believe this?”

That.  That is a REALLY good question.

Not only is this a really good question, it is a perplexing one.  To be 41 years old and to not know why following my heart has been labeled as unsafe.

“Follow the money.  Follow security.  Heck, you may even follow your hormones – to an extent,” the voices of Culture say, “but do not follow your heart.  Your heart will lead you astray.  Your heart is full of your demise.  It is ‘wicked’ and must not be trusted,” say the old Scriptures of my Christian days. “It will lead you to fake gods and to a hard life of poverty, starvation and judgment by the rest of the world.  Do you really want a life like this? Don’t you want an easy and posh life?  If so, DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR HEART.  It will only serve to lead you to do things that are not in alignment with Culture’s norms – and we cannot have that, can we?  It might…well shhh…it might lead to…to freedom,” the voice in the recesses of my mind chokes out the words as if they are filthy.

“Individual thought and challenging society?  This we CANNOT HAVE if we are to maintain control…all of which is designed to keep you safe, deary.”

The voice gets quieter, a bit harder to hear as I keep peering into the darkness at this perplexing question.

“No, no, no.  You must not follow your heart you see.  It will lead to your own demise, not yours per se – but Ours.  How are we to control, we mean keep you safe you if you think, move, act from your heart…and not from the well-constructed blueprints of what you believe you are allowed to do with your life?”

Then the voice pulls out the big guns…

“What about your responsibilities to your community?  To your Country? To your family?  To your children?  What will THEY say about you if you do not fulfill your ‘responsibilities’ as a mother?”

Ouch.

Yes.  This is the one that always stops me dead in my tracks as I balance my heart’s desires for freedom to follow Its call with the world’s demands on my life.

“You see, deary, you must stay out of your heart and in your mind.  You must stay rational, intellectual.  That is the ONLY way for you to stay safe in our world.”

But what about when “our world” no longer fits? Not like it ever did.  It has always felt like a scratchy potato bag on my smooth skin, roughing me up and never spitting me out, though I pray it would.

The thing is, deary, I have not been safe in this world.

Not in my early years from my father.  Not in my later years after my mother died.  Nor in my adult life that had me following my mind and ignoring my heart.

Sure I have had money.  Sure I have had some fun.  Sure I have created some miracles, and along with it responsibilities.

Yet, safety? Freedom?

These are only smoke and mirrors in this world that you tell me I must stay in.

Following this Cultural norm of a life has done nothing to keep me safe.

As I look back from this vantage point I can see this world has done everything to keep me in bondage.  Locked down.  Tongue-tied.  Beaten.  Abused. Confused.

As I dig deeper into this question, I start to unplug the dam that is around my heart, asking Her what she thinks of all this:

“I am Love, my dear child.  I love.  That is my job.  I move you to move towards those things, those objects, those other souls that will expand your love.  I alert you to those things, those objects, those other souls that will…shall we say put a damper on my fire of love with their ‘intellectual rational thinking’…

Yet, out of the very beingness of Who I Am – this energy called love – I let you chose which path to follow.  Because that is also love. Honestly, nothing is outside of my beingness.  It is all Me.  It is all Love.  Even the absence of Love is really Love.

If I am Love, if this is my very essence and my work – to be and let the energy of love flow through your entire being – then how or why would I lead you astray?  Why would I EVER lead you to do something that is not in alignment with our very beingness…that is LOVE?  Why would I EVER lead you to something that is unsafe for you, my child?

See, I cannot do this.  This idea is preposterous!!!…because it is against my very nature.  Nothing is outside of my reach, of my essence – which is love.  If you learn to follow Me, your heart of Love, you will always be kept safe.  Because when you act from the heart of Love, in the light and energy of Love, I will always lead you to what will bring you the most Love, the most energy, the most light, the most freedom.

And OF COURSE, I KNOW that in order to be free – you must be safe.

So you see, I will not tell you to go right or left, east or west, north or south, high or low if it wasn’t safe for you dear child.

Even from this place, fear becomes love.

How?  Why?

Because the feeling of fear is really rooted in the responsibility of freedom.  Freedom’s first act is to LET GO of the parental home and take 100% ownership of one’s own life.  One’s own choices, behaviors and actions.  Freedom to be and act from the heart. Not from some pre-constructed belief system meant to serve you in the early years of life.

Feeling this fear – this fear of 100% ownership – this is waking up to the reality that there IS life after the ‘family home’.

Only when you realize that Mother/Father Culture has given you all It can give you, only when you feel this fear of moving away of your well-meaning Parents, of stepping out of the nest on your own…

…can you truly learn the freedom of flying you already have embedded in your DNA.

Agh, so you see, my dear child…even your Cultural Parents are not wrong.  They are not outside of Me, of Love.  They – in all the manifestations they have shown up as – were there to ‘raise you up’ so you could eventually step out, let go and learn to fly…

And yes this can be scary as hell.  This can feel unsafe as you free fall into the Pregnant Void of Everythingness that appears as Nothingness.

Yet…it is an adventure you are ready for when you decide to let go.”

I raise my head, open my eyes and look around me as I stand atop the precipice.  I look back at all those figures in my life who have played their roles so well, so well I didn’t even realize we were playing in this Play of Life.

Their faces are stern.  With warning that I must not take this next step…or else.

I will be disowned.  I will be cast out.  I will be…all alone.

Yet, I look deeper.  I look deeper behind the masks and facades.

There, there I see something that shocks the hell out of me.

I see a mixture of pride and angst.

Pride in their faces and in their stances.

Angst to not lose me …and angst to be where I am.

Then, as if in a dream – I see them ALL winking ever so slightly at me, as if to say “You’ve got this.  Just TRUST.”

I turn around, away from them and look over the nest’s edge.  It sure is a long way down…

To be continued…

Come join us at our next dance.

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