Best Self Living: The Freedom to Be Who You Are
As we move into the Independence Day holiday, I have been examining the many freedoms we have and what this really means. Freedom is something everyone values. It is defined as the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. Each of us, so unique and gifted in our own ways, has opportunities to operate emotionally from a place of freedom or a place of oppression. Your mindset on any given situation can nurture freedom or contribute to constraint.
Let’s focus a bit on emotional freedom — specifically the freedom to be who you are. This does not come with anger, resentment, agenda or entitlement. No, it comes with helpful energy, optimism and meaningfulness that encourages individuality and invites cooperation with others. When you are at odds with others, you lack freedom. Fighting to fight an agenda is not freedom. Fighting to gain collaboration and collective freedom is productive.
Here is an acronym that you can use to help you nurture your own emotional freedom that builds relationships and helps in the acceptance of what belongs to you and respecting that which belongs to others:
ACT IN LOVE
Accountability: Choose to focus on how your behavior affects others rather than how their actions affect you. It is easy to get stuck in what you perceive as others doing wrong rather than what you can do right. “I choose _____” is healthier than “You should do this _____.” By focusing on your accountability, you strive to be congruent with your best self, rather than focus on the behavior of others.
Compassion: Recognizing that you don’t know everything about others is a key to compassionate living. This is concern for and understanding of others — not placing your limited view on what others are doing but rather asking questions from a place of genuine concern. This breaking down of ego is hard to teach but necessary to healthy relationships.
Trustworthiness: Trust is earned with consistency over time. It is not an intrinsic right. Trust is built on honesty and reliability. If someone does not demonstrate this in your life, you can still be kind without being naive or being taken advantage of by his or her deficit.
Integrity: When I worked with young kids years ago, I used to tell them that integrity is “doing the right thing when nobody's watching.” This phrase permeated our work together in their emotional development. The same goes for you. Integrity is keeping your alignment with your ethics and morals, but doing so in a way that demonstrates healthy character. This is felt internally when your thoughts, feelings and actions all move in the same direction.
Nourished: Emotional nourishment is essentially a self-care contract where you consistently take care of your own needs, nurturing your body, mind and spirit through behaviors that help you move through emotion skillfully rather than blocking it or circling negativity repeatedly.
Letting go: Being able to shift forward after a difficult moment, event or period of time is key to a growth mindset. Life is not easy; it is supposed to be challenging so that you learn lessons and make an impact on the lives of others. Learning to let go of the small, medium and big things that paralyze your growth is key. You do this by saying to yourself, “I choose to let this go. I choose to be free from this pain.”
Openness: Vulnerability in sharing your difficulties and differences is crucial to healthy relationships. If you have to hide or fake your way through the problems of life, you will end up in an emotional prison, distant from others around you. The one thing we all have in common is that none of us is better or worse than anyone else. We all have different roles and purposes, struggling with unique flaws. Keeping this straight in the moment of a frustration is life-changing emotional security.
Validation: This acceptance comes from yourself, not others. It is free from comparison and free from needing to please others. This is not to say that receiving validation is negative. It’s not. But depending on the validation from others is a trap that leads to no longer feeling free.
Executing quickly: Being able to lean in quickly to what needs to be done both internally and with others is a requisite for success. Freedom to trust yourself lies in believing you can do something that is challenging. It also lies in believing that you can fail forward after mistakes, confident that you are wise enough to manage the difficulties along the road to success. Self-doubt steals your freedom. Knowing that you can find your way back to alignment and peace directs it.
So as this holiday approaches and you celebrate the freedoms we often take for granted, think about your freedom from an additional perspective: emotional freedom. Be who you are without self-deprecation or entitlement. Be curious with the strengths of others while openly sharing who you are and why you do what you do. This freedom brings new joy to the many other freedoms you are so blessed to enjoy.
Be your best self, both in your head and with others. You have that freedom.
Happy Independence Day!