We so often beg for our freedom and then when we are faced with it we fight for our own captivity.
I am amazed by how unfamiliar freedom is to us and how unaware we are about it.
We work with a lot of people and most of them would express wanting more time, love, money, connection, power, more freedom in their lives. When we suggest that they can choose more of any of these things for themselves and it’s not dependent on anyone else they often start to list all the reasons that they can’t. They often start talking about things in the ”real” world as if I don’t live on the same planet as they do.
What I think is happening is that we are suffering from a lack of imagination. If we can’t even imagine the possibility it’s not a possibility. We have lost heart. In The Thought of the Heart & the Soul of the World James Hillman writes, “The heart is not so much the place of personal feelings as it is the place of true imagining." He goes on to say, "feeling stir as images move. Hence one has recourse to the heart-not because is where the truth of feelings resides or where one feels one's personal soul. No. One turns to the heart because here is where the essences of reality represented by the imaginal to the imagination."
Of course the heart is where freedom stirs. First in the imagination and then in desire, the feelings for sometime more.
Quanita
It's true that while I have been desiring "freedom" for a long time, it has been something "out there" and more aspirational than imaginal. Recently, I've had a taste of it, what it feels like in my body, what it's like to claim freedom from ... and imagine freedom to ...
It's not yet the thing that comes up first in my responding to a situation. But when I hear myself arguing for my own captivity, I am recognizing in the moment that I have another choice available to me. I can opt for freedom. I can choose liberation. Just noticing is enough, because there is no way I am choosing to remain in captivity. I've tasted freedom, and nothing…