What does it mean to be “free”?

I awoke last week Saturday morning to the joyous news that Aung San Suu Kyi, the Opposition Leader of Myanmar, was free!  She had spent the last 10 years of her life in isolation in her own home, with only 2 servants for company.  Her husband suffered with cancer and died and she was unable to be with him and denied even the opportunity to say her final goodbyes.  She had not seen her children for 6 years – had not been able to hold them, hug them, comfort them as they grieved not just for their father, but their mother too.  She was definitely not free.  Yet, as I watched the fuzzy video clip of her emerging from her home-prison, so serene, I thought, “Oh these people may have imprisoned her body, but her soul is free”.

We all yearn for freedom!  It is a natural human desire.  But what is it?  Wide-open vistas, clean fresh air, blue skies, and space – all of these come to mind when we visualise freedom.  We may think of freedom as the absence or release from something that would prevent us from experiencing such things.  Someone is in prison, behind bars, locked up in a home – they are not free; they are physically restrained.

People may also be restrained emotionally and mentally – in a controlling relationship for example.  Just this morning, my friend was sharing a story with me about her high school classmate who had recently admitted that she had endured 30 years of emotional, mental and physical abuse by her husband.  This lady was “free” to come and go physically, but deep inside she was in chains.

So what is freedom?  Is it simply the absence of something?  Surely something as powerful, as fundamental to our human beingness, must be more than the absence of something?  To my mind, freedom is the presence of choice – the recognition of the power and the willingness to choose, to decide what is good and right for us.  Being free means one simple thing – exercising our power to choose.

That sounds simple enough so why is it so difficult to be free?  One simple reason – because we BELIEVE that we have no choice!  When we deeply accept this as our truth, we are in binds.  Who chained my friend’s friend?  Who kept her freedom from her?  Her husband?  NO.  The biggest enslaver is her own mind – her belief that she has no choice but to be in this relationship; that there is some virtue to enduring it; that somehow, this is what she deserves.  Marcus Mosiah Garvey said it so well: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our mind”.

But true freedom is not just making any choice – it is making a choice that is in the present moment – not the past nor the future.  Ahhh – that phrase – “present moment”.  It is so bandied about nowadays.  “Be present” we are told, and all will be well.  Be present, and we will be free.  Easier said than done, for there are many things that have conspired to keep us from recognizing and claiming our power to choose; our power to be present.  Here are a few of the most common barriers to our living in the present:

• Our family mantras – what we have been told repeatedly that is “right” and “true” by our usually well-meaning parents and family
• Societal mores – what is right and good as defined by the society in which we live
• Religious theology – the scriptures, or strictures within which we have been raised

Over time we have absorbed these as our TRUTH.  Yet they have become the shackles of our mind telling us what we can and cannot do, what we must and must not be, and what we should and should not choose.   Deep down, as we go about our daily activities living out these “truths” we feel deep within ourselves that they are not OUR truth.  We do not feel free.

One of the most powerful moments in my life was when I realized that I always, always, always have a choice.   Further, when I realized that “doing nothing” is a conscious, active choice, my whole life opened up to true freedom!  At that moment in January 2003, I resolved that I would eliminate “I have to ….” from my vocabulary and instead say “I choose to ….”  That has brought immense power and freedom to my life and my being.  That was the beginning of my waking up to my magnificence – or as Oprah would say “My best life”

Today, make the decision to be free!  Make the conscious choice to wake up to your magnificence!  Choose freedom!  Be grateful!  Laugh! And always remember, as I wrote in my book “Free and Laughing: Spiritual Insights in Everyday Moments”:

“We are born in freedom.  We are meant to be free.  Life is joyous and joyful when we are free”