The Search for Freedom
“Letting go gives us freedom and letting go is the only condition for happiness””
I was feeling trapped again and yearned for the freedom I felt back when I sold all my possessions and went travelling to Nepal.
I’d daydream about giving up everything to go exploring, so after a lot of deliberation, I decided it was time to do what’s been pulling at me for a while.
I talked it over with my children and even worked through the conflict I was feeling about not being around my granddaughters while I travelled.
The idea was that I would start in China then travel to Thailand, Vietnam and just see how it goes. I wanted to visit spiritual places, in particular the monastery where Thich Nhat Hanh was now living.
So I put my fears aside, gave up my job, sold my belongings, handed in my notice on the apartment I was renting and prepared to take this journey. I was excited, scared but excited!
But then something nobody could have predicted happened, the world shut down. First China, then Thailand and on and on it went. Until eventually the UK closed down!
So instead of going on an adventure I found myself stuck in the UK, without a job, car, furniture and about to be homeless! Then the fear set in.
I had a little bit of money to cover me for a while but with the huge rents here in the UK it wasn’t going to last long. I’d budgeted living in low cost countries and teaching English to support myself.
Now I had to find a job in the UK smack bang in the middle of a pandemic!
Panic was taking over, how would I pay for rent?
So I did what I always do, I sat with it all and after a while I knew what I had to do.
And then I wrote this short piece
PS: I don’t aim for perfection, so it is what it is:
All She Ever Wanted Was To Be Free
She went to faraway places, she left behind all that was familiar, she left her place of comfort.
She explored, experimented but she couldn’t escape.
She searched for freedom through the eyes of others, she thought someone else might be holding the key.
She felt that empty space and thought it needed to be filled by another.
She dulled the pain by chasing the thrill.
She chased the next distraction in the form of a new person, a new place or a new gadget!
Like a drug that kept drawing her in, searching for the next high but never truly fulfilled. The Buddha said chasing our addictions only causes more suffering, but an addict doesn’t want to hear that.
Then one day the world shut down and the universe took over.
There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.
She was forced to stop and listen, to pay attention.
Right there is when she began the work that needed to be done.
As she sat in the stillness, the silence began to speak - “surrender” it pleaded with her.
And in that space of nothing, the words of her teachers came to her.
Those words that she tried so many times to push away because she knew that path was not an easy one to take.
But there was no escape, no running away this time.
So did the only thing she could.
She raised her hands in complete acceptance and shouted,
“I give up, I surrender!”
And at that moment came the freedom she had sought, finally, she let herself be free.
She realised that freedom can’t be found in the eyes of another, she was holding the key all along.
Now she knew it was time to stop chasing, and grasping at temporary pleasures because no amount of distraction was going to change the truth.
Then she became deeply grateful for all her teachers, especially those that came disguised as lovers or friends, for they taught her the greatest lessons of all.
Love begins with loving you.
And in the silence and surrender, she finally realised she was always home.
As soon as I let go of the panic, things fell into place, as they always do.
A friend helped me find a teaching job nearby, the flat I was living in was still available and luckily I still had my bed.
What I learned from this experience is that freedom isn’t always about the physical conditions, in fact it is more about attitude.
Lockdown taught me that there was nowhere to go and nothing to run away from because as Jon Kabat Zinn says
“Wherever you go, there you are”