FREEDOM... Freedom To Choose!

You Get To Choose

I've been thinking about freedom lately. Not the kind that comes after. Not the kind that arrives once the situation resolves, once the house is cleared out, once things settle down. The kind that's available right now, inside whatever is actually happening.

The Universe, I'm learning, has a very specific way of teaching this.

Sometimes, it gives you the opposite.

The Room

This past week, Thursday, I finished clearing out a room that had been a long time coming. The day I could finally see the empty taking shape I felt something shift - a quiet excitement about what that space could become. Something for Jimmy and me. Room to breathe. Room to be.

That night our daughter called. Her house burned down. Completely. She and her family needed somewhere to go right now!

By Saturday the room that was becoming ours was becoming theirs.

When I could really see the empty of that room and knew what I was about to hand over - I felt sorrow. Just for a moment. Just for me. Not guilt, not resentment, just a quiet oh. A small grief for the thing I'd been looking forward to that was now going in a different direction.

I went to Spirit. What is this for me?

Freedom. They said. Will you continue to feel free in this?

And I thought - yes. Of course. This is the right thing. This is what you do for your daughter when her house burns down. I can be free and also do this. I can hold both.

And then I did the very human thing of deciding exactly what that would look like. Two weeks, I thought. Maybe until the insurance pays out. Then they can move to their other house that's been on the market to sell while they figure out next steps. Freedom in two weeks. Freedom on the other side of the insurance check.

I had it all worked out.

Surrender Time

Sunday morning I came to my room to meditate and pull cards. I pulled Surrender.

That felt a little uncomfortable so I went to Spirit. How do I surrender and also have freedom?

Surrender time.

Oh.

Not surrender the situation. Not surrender my needs or my peace or my practice. Surrender the timeline I had constructed in my head. The two weeks. The insurance check. The neat little endpoint I had decided freedom lived behind.

Because freedom isn't in two weeks. Freedom is now. Inside the loud house with five extra people and a dog the size of a small pony and a mess I didn't make and didn't know how to not notice.

That's where freedom lives. Right here. In this.

Which led me to the only question that matters now, in every moment to moment:

Would I do this if they weren't here? Does this feel like freedom?

Choose Your Own Adventure

Sunday I needed groceries. The house was a mess. I also wanted to work out.

Freedom felt like working out first.

Freedom felt like making the dinner I actually wanted when I got home instead of the one I had planned.

Freedom felt like continuing my meditation practice while kids played loudly and dogs barked and life happened all around me.

Freedom felt like saying no when I didn't want to help and yes when I did.

None of that required the house to be quiet. None of it required the situation to be resolved. None of it required two weeks to pass or insurance money to arrive.

Here's what I've come to understand about how Spirit works with us on the things we want most:

When you declare you want something - freedom, peace, purpose, love -

Freedom inside the chaos.

Spirit doesn't hand it to you in a neat package. Spirit gives you the opposite experience and says, okay. Now choose.

Are you free or are you trapped?

Because you're a human. And humans have freedom...freedom to choose.

I've thought for years that life is a choose your own adventure story. I believe that more than ever now. The Universe isn't being cruel when it puts five people and a large dog in your newly cleared out room. It isn't testing you to see if you'll break.

It's handing you the exact circumstance inside which you get to practice the thing you said you wanted.

You said you wanted freedom.

Here it is. Loud and messy and inconvenient and completely, entirely available.

Choose.