Put Yourself Back on the List – Celebrating Personal Freedom

For many people, the month of July is a time to celebrate personal freedom.  You’ll hear many liberation stories about personal journeys toward emotional freedom and healthier living. It can be quite surprising to learn someone close to you has made a radical change to their regime, relationships or habits but change is necessary for growth. 

Sometimes the change is a pruning time, where the person cuts away the things that are dead or contaminated.  Sometimes the change is a healing time, where the things are restored to their optimum, glorious state. It doesn’t matter what type of change is taking place in the people around you or within yourself, it’s happening now because it’s time for a change.

Whether we are the agents of the change or a change is being forced upon us, there’s a certain about of fear that we must deal with before we can embrace a new reality. And like my grandfather use to say, “It’s easy to go through 'the difficult', than around it.” Facing fears matures us and gives us wisdom.

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Remember the first time you cared for a crying baby? You felt inadequate as you tried to figure out what the little one needed. Nothing you did seemed to work.  He or she was on the verge of making themselves sick with separation anxiety and give you a pounding stress headache in the interim. 

But somewhere along the way you figured out talking calmly and walking them around a lot made the crying spells become intermittent. Then a bottle feeding or a diaper change given with patience, caring hands made the baby realize you were capable of meeting some of his or her needs.  Soon less wailing was heard and before you realize it, you were playing with the baby and smiles were on both of your faces.  You’re over the fear of caring for an infant alone and now have the skills to face that challenge again.

Walking through the fear of the unknown is how change happens. You can give your fear a fancy label like ‘introverted ’, ‘hesitant’, ‘incompetent’,‘amateur’ or ‘inexperienced’ but it’s still fear. Point blank. Period.  Change cannot happen as
long as you hold onto your history with a white-knuckled grip and not embrace
the dream of your future.  

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All around you are people that have blaze the trail you want to walk.  You don’t
have to reinvent the wheel, the roadmaps are there. Make the change that has
been nagging at you for weeks, months, or even years.  You are on the verge of your breakthrough and you won’t be a peace until you take action.

Now is the time to put yourself back on the priority list.  You take care of many people because you are a compassionate, responsible person but you must take the time to reevaluate your needs and make the changes necessary for your growth and health.  There’s a certain amount of freedom you feel when you can be your authentic self; when the person you are when you’re alone is the exact same person you show to the world. Enjoy your life, it’s too short to have it ruled by what others may think, do, or say.

And congratulate anyone that makes a personal change that grants them freedom to smile bigger than they have in a long, long time.