a love letter to freedom

Dear freedom,

May I never again be so quick to compromise you.  May I, in this new season of endless possibilities, seek to understand the deep place behind my feeling trapped or squished, less me.  May I call on discernment and love to tease out the buried fear and bring it into the light.  May I gently loosen the tangled ball of threads – all of those hurts, expectations, hopes, desires, simmering secrets, unattended wrath, scars, and still open sores.  May I follow each string to its origen and, with tenderness, shake each tie free.

May I never again convince myself that by tamping down some aspect of me, or by dumbing down my spark, that I might become more acceptable to someone else.  No one that I could create a deep, loving connection with would ever ask this of me.  May I recognize quickly my tendency to make myself smaller, for that could only happen in a relationship that has no meaningful future.  May I say a gentle, “no thanks,” or a roaring, “I’m outta here,” whatever it takes, and move along on my journey.  May I never again trade my freedom for some perceived benefit, for an imagined safety, or for a misplaced fantasy of who someone is. 

For in my freedom lies my safety, my benefits, my future. In my freedom lies my ability to connect and to hold – myself and others.  Held in freedom, this is safety.  This is where love lives.

* “tangle ball of threads” -JenS