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How to Feel Free · Remember Why You Are Here

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  Hello, dear one, and welcome back to Remember Why You Are Here,
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  a podcast for seekers and sensitives where you can relax, receive,
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  reconnect to your own self, and remember the most important thing of all:
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  why you're here.
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  I am Asia Suler Earth intuitive, teacher,
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  author of Mirrors in the Earth, and for this episode today,
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  I wanted to revisit the audio of a video that I
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  made several years ago now called How to Be Free.
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  As I record this,
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  I'm sitting at my desk and I'm watching the snow flurry down
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  outside, on this... what is, right now,
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  late February day.
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  And we are having one of the last snows of the season.
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  We had all the childcare cancellations.
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  Yeah, just a total change of plans today,
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  which is just a theme often in the wintertime.
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  And I have been thinking about this video that I made and the three
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  tips that I share in it of how to feel free,
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  and thinking specifically about how I still use those three things all the
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  time to create a sense of freedom in my life.
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  I remember a mentor of mine saying once that
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  people think the highest octave
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  of spiritual being is love,
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  but actually it's not.
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  That there's a state of being in the realm of spirit that's even higher than
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  love, and it's freedom.
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  And there's something about that that really stuck with me because
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  it's almost like love can always be a part of
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  freedom. It's like freedom includes love,
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  because freedom is this essential aspect of our being,
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  of who we are at our core,
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  and it's such an important thing to be able to
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  feel and access in your life.
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  And it was interesting for me to revisit this episode
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  as I had filmed it before I had had a child,
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  and I had filmed it... I think it was very,
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  very early on in the pandemic, if not right, immediately before it.
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  And so a lot of things changed in my just physical
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  experience of freedom since I recorded it. And yet,
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  I was really blown away by the reality that
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  what I shared is still real and are still my primary
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  tools for creating a sense of freedom when I don't feel free.
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  And one of the things that I have found in life is that no matter what is going
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  on or how hard things feel,
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  if I can access a sense of freedom,
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  then I'm always able to open up to the possibility of healing,
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  the possibility of newness,
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  the possibility of a shift in change or state.
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  So if you're someone who is wanting to feel free in
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  your life right now, wanting to tap into that feeling,
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  then keep listening for a replay
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  of this episode I made years ago.
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  So this is called How to Be Free.
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  One of the greatest feelings on earth is freedom:
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  the feeling that you have, all the space that you need to be yourself,
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  to grow, and be at peace.
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  Many of us experience this sense of freedom as kids,
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  and then the older we get and the more responsibilities we have,
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  we start to feel much less free.
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  Freedom can start being something that we only experience on vacation,
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  or for brief moments in the morning before we start our day.
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  But it doesn't have to be like that.
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  Freedom is our natural state of being.
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  This is why it feels so good when we feel free.
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  Every other being on earth has that sense and that feeling of freedom inside
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  of themselves.
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  This is why it can feel so healing to be in nature or spend time with an animal
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  companion.
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  It's heartening for me to remember that freedom is the natural
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  state of the world and a natural state of being,
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  because it means that for as weighed down as we can feel,
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  that sense of freedom is just a step away.
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  Even though we've "grown up," we still have the ability to
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  be a child in this world. We are the earth's children.
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  And so there are some simple things you can do to feel that freedom again,
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  of being young at heart.
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  The very first thing is to spend unstructured
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  time in nature. Now,
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  many of us like things like hiking or wildcrafting herbs,
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  and that's beautiful,
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  but it tends to be going out in nature with a purpose.
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  It's just another way to have a checklist sometimes.
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  So if you really want to feel free,
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  get yourself out in nature without any plan whatsoever.
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  I like to call this "the medicine of rambling." I am a
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  notorious rambler.
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  It can be hard sometimes for people to hike with me because I get sidetracked.
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  I want to veer off, go off the path,
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  look at a certain tree, sit with a certain rock. But if you think about it,
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  this is how you operated as a kid.
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  You weren't trying to go from point A to point B.
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  You were just trying to experience the world,
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  and you let yourself slow down enough to see the delights that are
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  there.
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  As an adult now one of the things that you can do is schedule this time for
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  yourself to take time in nature. And then once you're there, just let go,
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  explore, see what calls you in.
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  It's amazing how much our sense of time can change when we let
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  go of our agendas. Notice when you're in nature too,
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  how all the other beings feel around you.
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  Literally hug a tree, or put your feet in a cool stream,
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  or hold a rock. What is their sense of freedom?
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  How do they feel about existence?
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  I promise you that there's so much medicine in just tuning into the freedom that
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  is all around you.
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  The second tip to feel free again in your life is to turn off
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  all clocks. So that includes computers and phones,
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  as well as watches. So time as we know it,
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  it's a construct, right? Time is always shifting.
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  The length of the day is shifting.
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  Our experience of a minute can be really different.
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  Think about how long a minute feels when you are doing pushups or holding a
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  plank, versus how long a minute feels when you're scrolling on social media.
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  Totally different, right?
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  So when we take the factor out of being able to see time,
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  we actually unchain ourselves from time.
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  We unchain ourselves from the to-do list,
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  and we instead can just experience reality
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  as our body is perceiving it.
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  So one of my closest friends observes an orthodox Shabbat every single
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  week,
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  and she has really inspired me to try this by starting to turn
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  off my clocks at sundown on one day and leaving them off until sundown the
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  next.
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  I often do this on one of the weekend days when I'm a little bit more free with
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  my time, and I can let go of my work.
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  And it's amazing to see how much my perspective of reality
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  shifts when I don't have a clock to look at to know what time it is.
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  All I can go off is my body's time,
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  my body's rhythms and the rhythms of the world around me.
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  Not only does it make moments so much richer,
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  but it slows me down into this sense of complete spaciousness.
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  So if you're feeling any sense of being constricted by life right now,
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  if you're sensing that you need more freedom,
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  try turning off your clocks for a day,
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  and it can be incredible how much will shift.
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  The last freedom practice is to learn about one wild
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  edible that's growing near you.
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  I think part of why we struggle with feeling freedom is because we live in a
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  capitalistic society, where our time literally means money,
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  and where we need money to take care of our basic needs. That's stressful.
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  That's something that inherently heaps upon us a sense of being
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  constricted.
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  So when you learn something like one wild edible or one medicine that's
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  growing in your garden or growing as a weed in your neighborhood,
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  you start to unchain yourself from the shackles of
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  capitalism and materialism,
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  to see that truly everything we need to survive is
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  here around us.
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  True freedom is knowing that you're taken care of,
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  that you have the space to be yourself,
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  and that the elements that make our life possible don't require
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  us to fit ourselves into a box or deny our
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  body's natural way of functioning or taking pleasure in existence.
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  It's amazing how just finding one herb to interact with-knowing that
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  you can nibble on that herb when you're hungry,
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  or collect it when you need medicine-how that can really help us create this
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  sense of being so free. Human beings are meant to feel free,
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  and the natural world is here to help us remember just how free we truly are.
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  I know when I first started studying herbalism,
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  one of the most incredible side effects was realizing that I am so much
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  more free than I think.
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  And it's been so amazing to see how that sense of freedom has
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  only grown the more I've learned.
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  So if you're interested in deepening your herbal knowledge,
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  definitely check out my online catalog of classes.
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  Each class is a deep dive into a particular topic and the plants that can help
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  support you along the way.
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  Plants are so good at helping us to connect into this essential state of
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  freedom. They know exactly what it means to be free in this world,
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  and they will show you. Once you're on my website,
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  you can also sign up to become a part of the inner circle. Once there,
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  I will send these videos directly to your inbox as well as bi-monthly missives
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  that can help you open the portal to connecting to the world around you and to
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  the nature that surrounds you and your home.
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  And so now I'd love to hear from you.
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  What is it that's helping you feel free right now in your life?
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  I think when we take a moment to share with each other,
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  we can often realize that the freedom that feels so far away is so much closer
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  than we think.