You’re free to fly
I’ll never forget being in grad school for psychology and having my own therapist ask me, “Tamara, when was the last time you made a conscious choice for you? When was the last time you felt truly free to choose for yourself?”
I was stunned. You see, I’ve always prided myself on being a very independent person (the kind my parents and Dr. James Dobson called a “strong willed child”). It had never occurred to me that I wasn’t making decisions from a place of choice. And I think that’s the issue for so many of my fellow humans, and certainly my clients.
There’s an insidious danger in DEFAULT.
All too often, before we’re out of elementary school even, we’ve “learned” what others expect of us. Our brains being the efficient machines that they are starts to make our responses to them automatic so to speak. In other words, it stops checking in with us as the conscious being driving this human meat suit and allows our choices to become default; they’re now subconscious (as is 95% of our thinking, a staggering amount really!).
This is why you find yourself doing things you wish you hadn’t and not doing the things you wish you would. Many call this self-sabotage but it’s not something the real you, aka the metacognitive or “soul” (English translation of psyche) would do. It’s the conditioned brain running the show. Good news is that’s fixable.
“Karma” by Korean artist Do Ho Suh
Recently, I was listening to The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy on Audible and was struck by a phrase he mentioned in chapter 2 - “I’m free to fly.” While he was talking about the empowerment of conscious choices and consistently making good ones, I felt a sense of relief was over me as I connected with the energy of that phrase. Even if (and they tend to), others decide to remain in a victimhood mentality, and thus keeping themselves “stuck” or worse, moving backwards, I do not have to. I already knew this cognitively of course, but my body FELT it differently this morning.
For me it’s about letting go of false guilt related to codependency; allowing myself to feel as responsible for others as they would like me to feel, whether on purpose or not. I AM FREE TO FLY.
And it’s about letting go of false guilt for not living the lifestyle my parents think I should or not playing by the rules culture would like to dictate for me as a woman, mother, businesswoman, therapist, and public figure (… and let’s not forget, you can’t have culture without the word CULT in it, just sayin’). I AM FREE TO FLY.
And it’s about dropping the bullshit limiting mentality handed to me by all of the above… things like, “It’s hard to run your own business. It’s hard to make money. It’s hard to lose weight. Your genetics work against you. You’re a mother so you have to ___, You’re a therapist so you have to _____,”and so on and so forth. Fuck all of that noise. I AM FREE TO FLY.
It’s also about dropping the trapped anger, bitterness, and resentment at feeling the self-imposed or accepted restrictions of other’s projections. What if I just let it all go? What if I no longer accepted it in? I AM FREE TO FLY.
What if I stayed in my own lane, in my own happy and contented energy, grateful for what I have and excited about the future? What if I allowed myself to feel strong and capable of achieving every good thing and took consistent action daily in pursuit of such? After all, I AM FREE TO FLY.
So I’m deciding today that my lane is the best lane for me and I’m going to proudly, and without reservation, unapologetically, love and enjoy the shit out of it!
How about YOU? Are you ready to accept the fact that you are FREE TO FLY today?
“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
―Toni Morrison,Song of Solomon
