This time of year always brings a wave of nostalgia for me. Every 4th of July we’d gather up our things, load the car, and head on the road for 6 hours from my childhood home in northern Illinois to my dad’s best friend’s house in Traverse City, Michigan.
He lived right on the bay in an old a-frame house built by his father, tucked away on one of those private dirt roads that looked like it led to nowhere but as you turned opened up to so much magic. The air always smelled of a mix of pine, sand, and lake Michigan, always clean and fresh.
His neighbors were the most loving WWII veterans and were like another set of grandparents for me as I’d run the secret path through the pine trees to see what Alice had cooked up for us. When their grandkids would visit, who were also my age, we would have so many adventures and tease my dad as he set off fireworks that he was proud of, but definitely weren’t as awe-inspiring as what we could see across the bay into the town.
When I look back now, I always felt so free here.
Completely independent but surrounded and cared for by a loving community. I always called him uncle, because although not related, he was more of an uncle to me than most of my relatives. He was just always there and in his big kid way, challenging me, helping me dream and set sight on goals while showing me the value of hard work.
When was the last time you felt free?
We shackle ourselves to so many things that we put on a higher pedestal than our happiness, dreams, health, inner wisdom, families, and our friends.
We feel bad when we take off from work to see the doctor, or say no to a friend’s invite who hasn’t really been there for us, or when we spend a little extra money to invest in ourselves and the support we need. Or we work so many hours in a career we’ve forgotten who we are, or we’ve let debt creep up without acting on it so we feel we lack choice.
That’s not independence. It’s enmeshment – with our work, money, our old ways of being. It’s likely programming from our upbringing that hasn’t been brought into our awareness, and I’ve learned that some of us are afraid of what we’ll do when we’re free, so we keep our own shackles on.
During this month of independence allow yourself to feel what free feels like for you and commit to taking one action step that empowers you. I’d love to help [email protected].
