Self-Care Tip – Tell your true story to feel freedom.
Nobody ever asked me how I feel about what I do. And it wasn’t until I told the truth that I started to feel freedom.
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My husband surprised me with a spontaneous date today after work. (I almost wrote after school.) We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. What do Middles like us do with ourselves on a date?
Middles is a name I just thought of for those of us in our middle of life time with; middle-level debt, middle place in careers, middle waistlines growing and all that we find in our middle years. Middles.
Anyhow, we found ourselves at the theater because I guess that’s about as creative as we could manage. There was only one movie showing at 3:30 pm on a Tuesday; The Help.
Score! Wow! Blowing my nose and sharing germs, we had no idea it would be this great. We’ve seen a lot of bang ’em up movies lately for some reason and we were more ready than we knew just to hear someone’s story. The Help, told a good tale anyone could relate to. Of all the ah-ha moments however, watching Aibileen Clark walk away from getting fired was my favorite.
Nobody ever asked me how I feel about what I do. And it wasn’t until I told the truth that I started to feel freedom.
I remembered us of course. What we have and are fighting for: Being our own friend. The freedom to feel. Courage to love ourselves enough to love ourselves in our communities. Accountability for ourselves even when victimized.
So I ask us all again, “How do you feel? Please tell us your story. When, in your narrative, did you start feeling freedom?
Related articles
- You Are Free To Feel. Emotional Freedom. (friendtoyourself.com)
- Freedom Needs the Truth (beginningtopray.blogspot.com)
- What’s the price of your freedom? (relationshipvoice.wordpress.com)
I began feeling freedom when I made a decision, not based on what others would think or feel, but I was true to my feelings and followed my heart. I literally felt a freedom in my spirit because I didn’t fall prey to someone’s coercion, or guilt, or anger. I made a life altering decision for me, and it felt good. Now, this freedom did come at a cost, because I disappointed thise in authority over me, including my spouse. I felt the brunt of anger and hostility for a long time. Now, months later, I look back, and although questioning my decision many times, have found a place of peace and happiness. I would not trade it for the world. And I want to feel it more. This is a new found courage:)
great news, Determined. courage. we stand w u.
Glad you had a nice time, Doc.
nice times r peppered in for survival i guess 🙂
I read The Help and loved it. Couldn’t wait for the movie but still haven’t taken the time to see it. I think all of those women in the book/movie felt the same way. Telling their story made them feel free. However, having told my story (finally!! after “stuffing” it for 52 years!) over and over again, I didn’t really feel free until I believed my story myself. It’s so often so difficult, when you’re going through Hell, to admit that you are because it’s too terrifying to accept the life you are living. It’s easier to look in another direction (like the women in The Help looked to loving the children for whom they were caring) than it is to look at who you are in your own story. For me, though, it was even more difficult, once I understood and finally told my story, to accept that it all actually happened. It took me years of therapy to say “Okay, they did what they did. They really did and itt’s really true.”, but, once I could say that, it was like I started floating. The weight was gone, at at last. And, maybe most important, I could look at them and realize why they did what they did and feel a measure of forgiveness replace fear and pain. That’s freedom!! And, yes, I am very much a practicing Christian, and know what Christian forgiveness is, but the kind of forgiveness I have found for those who hurt me is, if possible, even deeper…or maybe it actually just touched my soul in such a way as to make it feel like something I never imagined I would feel.
Haven’t seen the movie yet, and have plans to go with friends! Can’t wait. From reading your story it sounds like we have much in common.
What I have learned from years of journeying is the following: what people did, they did, and that is my truth and sounds like its yours as well. This journey is amazing and I love your story. Thank you for sharing.
I completely agree about the forgiveness of our transgressors. I too am a Christian and people ask me (non Christians) how I can forgive. I think that the reason your forgiveness and mine for our transgressors is so profound is because it is Grace. It is the supernatural Grace of God that creates that forgiveness and enables us to move forward. I love how you word “the weight was gone” and “forgiveness replaces fear and pain”. That is freedom!
Your soul being touched, well it really was and is each day because of Grace. Thank you for sharing today. Love and Blessings – Col
Thanks, Col. Blessings to you, too. I’ll keep you in my prayers.
nice nance. God has everything to do w good in life. yay forgiveness. i agree that taking care of ourselves helps us not worry about other peoples junk, which just has to come from Him.
I started feeling freedom when I started to like myself. It is a concept that I have struggled with all my life. I am (and probably always will be) a people pleaser. But I used to take it to an unhealthy extreme. I lost my sense of self in trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be. It wasn’t until I learned to take a little for myself, that I started to like myself. I am still someone who gives a lot, the word “no” is something that does not come easily for me, but I am changing, accepting and loving myself one baby step at a time. The more I learn to love myself, the more freedom I feel in my life and the better care I take of myself.
pattyann, speak it. i struggle too. i think we r all together on this at some level. even those w/o insight 😉 r on equal plane in truth in this regard. celebrating our togetherness even in this regard! yay.
Hubby and I have a date night tonight to see The Help…loved the book. I started feeling freedom after I began writing again after many years of not writing. In writing my truths down I found myself, the real me and it felt almost like a second chance at life.
how was the date? ooh la la.
i’m going to steal the book soon from someone close to get me the real experience. hear it’s even better than the movie. wow. i luv surrounding myself w excellence. take care suzicate. miss connecting w u. will try more.
When did I start to feel emotional freedom? Recently I had my first energy work session with an acquaintance. I was asking about the constant pain in my lower back, which I have had every form of treatment for and is slightly getting better however, there is something still missing. I recently found out about being restrained when I was a baby in my crib, and I knew the Feldenkrais practice was really helping but, still something was missing. She walked me through a series of steps “grounding” my body while standing, coming from a place of supporting myself while standing, and helping me to create a place of support to come from.
This has really helped to enable me to feel a freedom begin to develop. When I feel like I cannot speak my mind, or have “those” thoughts I can catch my body beginning to seize up and create in my body my freedom.
It doesn’t mean I always now speak out, or ask for what I need, still working on the grounding, what I am finding is that I don’t always feel the need to. It becomes small stuff that has no affect on me. I like that!
We too are middles, and I am feeling lost about that. Where do we fit, what do we do. I feel vibrant and alive and ready to jump with both feet, living in a vanilla world. I love vanilla, but, sometimes I just need some other flavors.
My freedom right now I think relies more on how can I achieve my own flavors, supporting myself for sure. But, going out and living in this amazing world I live in. My husband has recently had surgery and was more chair bound before that, and its made for being very house bound. He’s been depressed (I think) for many years and his world has become very small,now its even smaller, and I can’t live in that tiny world. I need to get out and live my life and I feel its flying past me.
So I guess my freedom today is how to balance having a life full of adventure (trust me my adventures don’t need to be big, a walk on the beach at sunset will do!) and to balance living with a person who has no need for that at all.
I am lonely, and in my loneliness don’t feel very free. I guess I can ponder that for a while!
i am lonely too col. thank u for the courage to share. what has your pondering on this “freedom” brought u since u wrote this?
I guess my pondering’s lead me to this. I recently heard someone speaking about the labels we put on things. He was speaking about a loved one who died. He said that he put the importance on the dates of special occasions of the person who had passed. Their day of passing, dates when they did things together, or the persons birthday.
When he realized what he was doing, he realized how he was limiting his experience around this person. He was the one putting the labels on the day. The day is just a day, the experience is the experience, and we chose to put our own connotation on it. And as long as he was putting his spin on it instead of celebrating all the wonder each day, he was very limited. When he stopped doing this, each day and his experience around this person became something so unaffected, so real. He was living an authentic life because he allowed it.
THAT REALLY HELPED ME! I need to get out of my own way. I know this I have realized this in the past. Just learning the lesson again.
How does this help me in my loneliness?
I am doing what I want. When I want it, and how I want it. It may not be exactly how I want it because certain parties won’t play with me! Okay, then I will move my way around it. Accept what is is and move along. Stop looking for perfection in myself and others (trust me I am not perfect) but, just allowing the space to breath around me.
That doesn’t mean allowing things to happen that I don’t agree with etc. It just means more of a flow. I speak my mind.
I realize that I have been praying for God’s will, (which I agree with and want) but, I also ask to be open to receive. What I haven’t been DOING is taking. I haven’t been reaching out with both hands and taking. I haven’t been speaking my mind and demanding that certain things be done that I expect to be done. Example, kids and our home and certain chores etc. Do this because you have been asked. It is what we do as a family. Straight up done!
This claiming my voice has made me feel less isolated. I am really good at isolating. There is the loneliness. Normally when I speak my peace I am out of here, not wanting to wait for the fall out, not I just speak it and oh well. Not always pretty but that is okay. My family knows I love them.
“allowing the space to breath around me” – nice words about presence. thank u for your narrative comment. your courage shows and inspires. your children r blessed by u. keep on.
The 12 Steps strongly suggest that we must share the worst of ourselves in that first moral inventory and then one on one with another person. Then you are supposed to feel this great cleansing wave of relief and elation and freedom from the past. Well I never felt any of that nor the promised sense of liberation and freedom. The experience intensified self loathing and self disappointment. On the other hand using the steps to stay sober and drug free 9+ years has presented freedom beyond my most optimistic expectations.
who-ah! 9+ years echo echo echo. we can all feel freedom with u because of our generosity. thank u carl.
I too have used the 12 Steps to stay clean. I found the inventory devastating. Every flaw became enormous. I felt so hopeless and like such a loser. It almost became debilitating and I came into a holding pattern quite difficult to see past. I too used the Steps to remain clean, and for this I am very grateful. I love how you expressed the freedom of being sober and clean. So true, and I have explained to my children (2 whom do not know my back ground) that freedom is not using drugs and alcohol. Once using your choices are completely gone. So if you like free will stay away from them and think it through. I have been clean almost 20 years. I am so grateful for all of us who are clean and wish blessings for those struggling to become clean and stay that way.
“freedom is not using drugs and alcohol. Once using your choices are completely gone. So if you like free will stay away from them and think it through.” rocks. thank u and congratulations on your 20yrs. way!
I found freedom when I begun to accept the fact that “I am” mentally ill, it is a part of my life that I am not able to change, so I accept it as being part of my reality.
I am learning to work with what I have left; I still have some more work to do to reach complete freedom, but it gets better with time.
“I am mentally ill” = freedom. now there’s something for headlines in our culture. shake us up Marie. this is great.
I don’t have time to tell my story right now.
(What it was like, what happened, what it’s like now).
I can say that life is still a daily struggle, even after 13 years of sobriety. In fact, I just made my first appointment with a psychiatrist after all these years. I’m tired of being disgusted with life when I should have an attitude of gratitude.
If you want a ready made story of what it was like, go here (part of my story): http://blog.tomeubanks.com/2011/01/04/contributor-week—no-2.aspx
BTW, my real name is Tracy Phillips, just so you know that I’m the guy that wrote the story I linked to.
Thanks.
dear kansas, aka tracy phillips, 🙂 the guy who writes,
this 13+ years and counting of struggle is not so unheard of. u r not alone in your “life-ers.” i’m so happy for u in your ongoing steps of courage. can’t wait to hear more about what they bring u. please tell.
I have learnt to love the word freedom i adore that word but here the weridest of things when i was in hospital one of the crisis teams siad i wansnt a normal boyfirend i so love the freedom in that i really started to feel a lot more freedom as well when i started talking to many other that suffor the same as me and understand me i did try to fit in down south at a bar but it wasnt me i wasnt free to be me
we celebrate your awareness of your freedoms kevin. thank u for telling us. glad the bar scene dropped off. take care.
I have seen the movie and I loved it! I admired most the courage it took in the face of those monstrous, selfish people – literally risking changing your whole life for standing up for what you believe is right. Then accepting the consequences “like a man” despite the hurt and the rejection. That is courage! It was very inspiring.
This is quite a thought provoking question… Freedom has taken on a few meanings in my life along the way but I think it starts with liking and accepting myself in the face of the opinions of those around me. To have the courage to be me even if someone doesn’t approve of it all together, not for the sake of being right or wrong but for standing my ground rather than flip flopping to please another, I think. Most of my life I had tried to please people so they would accept me. I also thought that every time someone didn’t it must be me who did something wrong, or failing in pleasing them just right, or maybe simply not being good enough. So not only did I take the blame for my short coming but their behaviour was my fault too. So I had spent most of my life trying to figure out what is wrong with me and how I can fix it so that the world can be a better place. Finally I am starting to accept that people are who they choose to be, not who I choose them to be. And I am claiming the freedom for myself to be who I want to be even if someone doesn’t like that. I used to feel very lonely – kind of ironic considering how hard I tried to please others all the time; I must have either failed miserably or people simply cannot be pleased – but the freedom of being who I want to be – liking it, enjoying it – made it ok somehow. I still struggle with guilt and a sense of being cold and harsh when I won’t accept responsibility for someone else’s attitudes/choices but I try to push those aside and focus on the victory of not having succumb to doing it. I was only lonely till I learnt to be my own best friend. I still don’t have lots of friends, but I feel lonely no more. I still have to resist it everyday that I will not be controlled by others but stand up and counted for who I am. Many around me don’t seem to like that much… But every time I take a stand I feel like I’m taking another little piece of me back; I feel a little more freedom.