I’m present to the principle of Freedom today: without limitation, able to do and be in the way that naturally rises up intrinsically. Freedom isn't in a thing outside of you. It resides within you.
Swipe 👉🏽 for how to embody freedom.
Keep reading👇🏽 for how this has expressed for me.
I think back to when I first picked up a gun…not the Super Soakers we had in the 90s, but a real firearm with bullets.
Which was nuts, because I grew up as a pacifist Mennonite! No one I knew had a gun or wanted anything to do with a gun. The topic felt hot and off-limits; definitely wrong.
When something is hot, off-limits, and perceived as wrong it is often blanketed in FEAR.
The topic of firearms and guns were definitely cloaked in fear for me. I was quick to judge anyone that supported the NRA, had bumper stickers about 2nd Amendment rights, or carried, concealed or not. Those people were a way that I did not want to be associated with. I shook my head at stories about children setting off a loaded gun. So sad, yes, but more than concern for any injury caused were the heaps of judgment I easily dumped on the adults who allowed the scenario to even exist. Arguments about gun rights and mass shootings felt black and white to me: GUNS = BAD. So keep them as far from me as possible and, ideally, get rid of them altogether. Period.
Except...That doesn't actually get to the root of anything. It is like a bandaid on the stump of an appendage that got blown off. Bad analogy? Perhaps.
As long as we relate in the surface, we will stay in the surface. Without presence, knowledge and experience, it is very difficult to be anywhere other than the surface. Without presence, knowledge and experience, it is very difficult to be anywhere other than in fear and judgement.
While part of me wanted to keep guns away from me at all costs, another part knew that it was fear powering that push. That part knew FREEDOM was on the other side of FEAR.
I decided to face my fear of firearms: consciously, with wise others who had knowledge, experience and understood how to safely use them.
They taught me the components, how it works; they let me go at my own pace. I realized I was at choice for how I related to the object itself, ideas about guns and my physical and emotional proximity to them.
I wore the snazzy safety ear muff/head phone things.
I had a fabulous old box to aim at.
I felt sweaty and chilled, novice and gangly.
I giggled awkwardly AND stayed very present with the tool in my hands.
I aimed.
I fired.
I even hit the target (at least once).
I also realized there is much I can learn about firearms AND it doesn't have to happen all at once. The shooting experience didn't suddenly change my views, but it did soften my heart and mind and increased my willingness to be with this thing that carried so much heat, fear and wrongness for all of my life. I noticed that my capacity to talk with people who have a different view and experience from me also increased, not from a place of needing to convince them of anything, but authentic desire to better understand their own experience. I am at choice, and am self-responsible, for how I show up. There is no heat in that. THAT is where freedom lives!
I realized that I do not need to be bound by fear but can embrace and embody the freedom that is at the center of my being.
It goes for firearms, an ex, a difficult conversation or anything where I feel a sense of limitation. It goes for me, it goes for you.
The truth, under all the chaos on the surface, under the fear, is that we are as Free as we have the capacity to embody, right where we are.
So HOW CAN YOU embody freedom?
{I’m so glad you asked}
Turn towards what freaks you out, scares or intimidates you.
Face the thing, idea, person, belief that makes your legs feel wobbly.
And just see it.
Notice it.
Acknowledge how you feel in your heart, mind, your body.
Without DOING anything.
And then notice that even though your legs may feel wobbly or your heart tender, you are still standing right where you are.
Notice that you have a choice about what happens next.
You can move towards it or away from it.
You can speak.
You can ask a question or not.
You can listen.
You can wait.
You can simply BE with it, yourself, right there, in your own solidity.
That is where freedom has always resided: within YOU.
To that,
Rachel
Rachel Sartori is a Transformational Coach + Facilitator. She is kick-ass and heart-
centered whether she is showing up as a workshop/retreat facilitator, a private coach, a writer or a speaker. Rachel invites you to exercise your soul, and participate in the healing of your own heart and the world around you. With Rachel, all is welcome, all the time.
Read: Exercise Your Soul: Ignite Healing and Wholeness in your Life and Live from the Inside Out
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Live the Life You Are Worthy Of, a 2-day New Year Retreat
December 31, 2022 + January 1, 2023 | 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. each day | Phoenix, AZ
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