Freedom

Freedom is something that many people long for, but when I recently found some from work, my reactions were interesting, and I began to dissect these.

Freedom from

In my longing for freedom and in my first taste of it, my focus was on freedom from. We may desire freedom from the systemic sources of work stress and the seemingly mundane tasks that become part of everyday over-accountability. We may want freedom from being bullied or harassed, or from dealing with less than appreciative clients. There may be other things in our personal lives that we would like to be freed up from.

Feeling Directionless

When I finally had some freedom from work, I began to feel directionless, after initially savouring the sense of "freedom from". I did not know how to deal with this until I used the Magic Wand that is suggested in Stephanie Dowrick's "Changing your life: Intimacy and Solitude Self-Therapy Book". When I applied my magic wand to the word "directionless", it dissolved into "less direction", which to me is a definition of "freedom". Now I had something to use to process the feeling.

Freedom to

By re-focussing from "freedom from" to "freedom to" a whole world of possibilities and choices opens up, based on the freedom to choose how to spend each day and moment of each day.

The challenge of finding "freedom to" when still constricted by lack of "freedom from"

Now this is the real challenge! Despite all the demands of our work days, there is often the opportunity to choose:

• how and when we will undertake tasks
• when to balance work with breaks in the work day
• how to implement work/ life balance
• what other activities we become involved in apart from our core business of work with clients.

 In my work with women living with domestic violence I have often been amazed at their ability to find little pockets of freedom despite the control they are living under, and helping them to increase that freedom becomes very therapeutic for them. Using choice is a major tool here.

What ways can you exercise "freedom to" in your life?