Both sides now

I think my guards are down less. One surprises self everyday.

'I'm sure that if we took a poll right now we would all come up with different ideas about what freedom means to each of us. Everyone wants to be free. Free to feel how we want to feel; to express ourselves however we want to express ourselves; to "Live free or die," as New Hampshirites say. Some of us want to break the chains of an oppressive relationship. Some want financial freedom. Some of us just want to be free from the tight belt around our waistlines.

But becoming free -- whether in body, mind or spirit -- means making changes, moving into a new way of being and stepping into a more expansive image of ourselves. And most often, we don't know how to do that. It's like in the movies, when the old guy that's been serving years in prison for a crime he didn't commit finally gets released. We watch him walk outside the prison gate for the first time. You can tell that he's thinking: "Ah, freedom! Ah, now what do I do?"

If the only way of life we have ever known is slavery, so to speak -- being imprisoned by our thoughts, beliefs, or outward circumstances and situations -- how then do we learn to live in freedom?' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-bright/egypt-freedom_b_823675.html

We feel so free yet we restrict ourselves without even realising. One can feel happy given a situation, action, moment, breath. At the time it may seem like being, but is it really experiencing the true worth of its value? Our happiness waves and flows by our mental capacity to allow such action, moment, being to a feeling that could be greater of its current worth. To allow such to happen isn't always a conscious decision but will come over time. The realisation of it all is such a great sense to follow. To let it be really is the way. When we are ready will be unique to any individuals time.

'The first is that it's in our interior life that our experience of freedom really begins -- where, in our dreams and imagination, we can be whatever and whoever we want to be, do whatever we want and have whatever we desire.

Secondly, true freedom necessitates letting go of the past. Don't let yourself entertain thoughts of repression, oppression or suppression in any way, shape or form. Keep your eyes only on the road to freedom before you. You don't need a rear view mirror because you're not going back. The past? Forget about it! Slavery? What's that? Don't even go there.

No, I've never toppled a dictatorship or torn down a divisive wall, but I do know that even the smallest steps to freedom can be frightening and somewhat intimidating. So, just like nervous parents sending their child off on a cross-country trip, we watch as the Egyptian people set out on a new adventure. We're pulling for them because on the world stage they're playing out our own desires for freedom. Let's raise a glass of sweet tea to freedom -- theirs and ours.'

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