Six Steps to Creating Inner Freedom
When I used to think about the concept of freedom, it was in a literal sense. Freedom being the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. Freedom being the power to choose what’s right for us — to speak or act without hindrance or restraint. Freedom was something I thought I already had.
So with that definition in mind, I was surprised when my first meditation teachers explained that freedom was the ultimate goal of the ancient yogis and their spiritual practices.
What I didn’t consider was how true freedom refers to our inner state. Inner freedom is our ability to find peace and contentment regardless of our external circumstances. This can be a really difficult mental exercise at first. How can we feel content when we can’t pay our bills or when our relationships aren’t going well?
In the mid 1960s, Robin “Hurricane” Carter was wrongly accused of triple homicide and given a life sentence in prison. Carter spent nearly four decades of his life incarcerated. Instead of breaking down, as many would have done, he was quoted as saying, “They can incarcerate my body but never my mind.”
Freedom is a choice. It is a mindset — unrelated to our current conditions. Inner freedom also refers to shedding the stories and beliefs that we’ve used to reinforce our personal realities. For instance, because I was picked on in elementary school, I developed a subconscious belief that people in life would always reject me. When I became conscious of that belief, I was able to reexamine my mental filters and see that, while this story was no longer true, I was still walking through life expecting people to treat me badly.
We carry these emotional habits, limiting beliefs, and unconscious stories that cause us to relive the same scenarios over and over through different people and circumstances in our lives. We can see this in how our relationships sometimes mirror the way a parent treated us, or how we develop patterns of being treated badly throughout our careers or in our friendships. While it’s tempting to blame others for their actions, we actually empower ourselves so much more when we acknowledge our own patterns and potential projections.
When we remember that our egos are actually constantly projecting a past story onto our present, we free ourselves from a lot of pain. If we can recognize that our anger, disappointment, fear, and sadness are emotional patterns created by our egos, we deactivate their power.
There are a few ways I’ve found to release the ego’s stories and experience true inner freedom:
Working with “polarities” in Yoga Nidra meditation. In this practice, we experience polarities (pairs of opposite sensations, emotions or beliefs), one at a time. In a simplified example, we might bring up the feeling of sadness, and then experience the feeling of happiness. We do this from the alpha or theta brainwave state (deeper states of consciousness) where we can access the receptivity of our subconscious programming. As a result, 1) we get to experience our power over our own emotional state; 2) we begin to lessen our identification with one side of the polarity, as we experience our ability to feel its opposite (and in the process, rewire our brains to strengthen neural pathways to experience those pleasant emotions more often); and 3) we get to experience ourselves as the space in which our emotions pass through. We get to feel how we are not defined by any one emotional state; we are actually just holding a temporary experience as it moves through our awareness. This helps us develop more inner stability, or freedom.
Manifestation, affirmations, and Sankalpa. When we work with an affirmation or Sankalpa statement, for instance, “I am enough” or “I am lovable,” we begin to shift the way we perceive our own reality. I work with a Sankalpa as guided through the practice of Yoga Nidra, and I also use it while manifestation journaling (i.e. writing out my vision for my life). In both practices, the key is to feel what it would be like if your Sankalpa or affirmation were already true. By really experiencing and practicing this emotional state repeatedly, we teach our minds and bodies how to feel this way in our daily lives.
Experiencing a deeper sense of presence. When we are truly present in our lives, we experience the inner freedom of recognizing that our worries, anxieties, and fears have not actually come to be. We get to remember how we are safe in this moment, and how we actually have everything we need. When we tune in at an even more subtle level, we can feel Divine energy buzzing in our cells and through the energy around us. While our physical reality seems solid and material, it is actually made up of 99.99999% space and only 0.00001% matter. We are part of a malleable reality, which is constantly shifting and changing and reforming itself into something new based on the energy we place on it. By placing gratitude, love, and other high-elevation emotions onto the reality around us, it begins to respond to and match that higher frequency. We each have the freedom and power to play with the energy around us, co-creating the reality we want to see.
Inner child healing. Through deep subconscious healing methods like Yoga Nidra, Transformational Breathwork, and plant medicine, it’s possible to return to memories of our inner child or younger self in moments we were hurt, disappointed, afraid, or ashamed. By visiting ourselves in those moments and giving ourselves deep love and forgiveness, we heal a part of us that has been kept separate, frozen in trauma. We get the opportunity to love ourselves back into our inherent wholeness. In the process, we reclaim lost parts of ourselves and release the stories and emotions that have kept us stuck. (For some inner child healing practices, check out “Healing the Past,” “Yoga Nidra to Heal Insecurity,” and “Yoga Nidra for Self-Worth” in the Yoga Nidra section of the app.)
Remembering the illusion. The great illusion of our world is that we are all separate. In fact, the primary goal of the ego is to keep us feeling individualized, identified with our own bodies and personalities, and separate from our “oneness.” When we remember and feel how we are actually connected through an infinite field of energy that creates our world, it becomes easier to drop our projections and treat each other with love and compassion. We can make the daily choice to experience this web of energy as our connection to ourselves, each other, our planet, and the Divine.
Practices of inner listening. When we meditate or do practices like Yoga Nidra or Transformational Breathwork, we start to gain more and more access to our intuition. As this inner voice becomes clear, we unlock a new sense of freedom. We get to truly trust ourselves. We release self-doubt and the need for others’ opinions and validation in deciding what’s right for us. We get to access the information that helps us in our unique soul’s journey and purpose. Armed with our own inner wisdom, we feel free to pursue the lives we really want.
The truth is, we are so much more powerful than many of us realize. We can create new realities by holding their energetic, emotional frequency. We can access infinite wisdom through our intuition and inner listening. We can experience freedom from the trappings of our mind and circumstances, and we can heal our wounds. We can choose our next thought and transform our old belief systems. With some effort, we can feel like gods and goddesses shape-shifting our lives — creating our experience, recognizing our potential, and knowing we have everything we need within us. This is true liberation.