On emotional freedom
Contents:
1. On emotional freedom
2. An exercise to find the feeling of emotional freedom
3. Herbs to help you find your inner compass
1. On emotional freedom
When I was growing up in Scotland, freedom was a concept we learned about in relation to England. My Indian friends, also learned a concept of freedom that was in relation to Englishness. When I moved to the US, I learned about freedom in relation, once again to England. And while it might sound like this is an email about how terrible England* is, alas, for all my Scottish readers, it is not. It is, in fact, an email about freedom.
Everything I ever learned about freedom was in relationship to the idea of the oppressor. Freedom FROM a person, a place, a belief system, a religion, a societal structure. I think that, because we learn about freedom as being relative to an oppressor in history, we tend to apply the same concepts to our emotional growth. When people talk about personal and emotional freedom, its usually in the sense of what they are free from: freedom from an emotional state; freedom from a relationship; freedom from ourselves; freedom from a pattern. So so many of us want to do things, but feel as if we come up against our own personal bars, over and over and over again. Our own personalities, our own fears, our own limitations, our own inability to change despite wanting to. But always, we look at the thing that stands between us and where we want to be: we are focused on the walls of our own personal prisons.
And, when we start to feel trapped, there is no end to the things we want freedom from. Anything and everything that we are connected to could in certain perspectives be viewed as a cage. The only way to be totally free when we think about freedom from certain things is to be connection-less, bill-less, child-less, relationship-less, mortgage-less, family-less… you see where I’m going here? Freedom from does not end well.
When freedom is about freedom from something, our attention and energy remains pointed towards that which we don’t want. Be it our own limitations, or our fears, or our own perception of our capabilities, or our beliefs about ourselves, freedom from keeps us engaged with whatever we feel trapped by, giving power to whatever we want to be free from. We keep our attention on that thing, instead of what we truly want, which lies outside the bars of our cages.
Instead of freedom from, I like to think about freedom to.
Freedom to exist without judgment. Freedom to change. Freedom to be entirely ourselves. Freedom to is a feeling, one that starts in the deepest parts of ourselves, where we are already, and have always been, free.
Its not that the roadblocks magically go away when we change our focus, or that any of this is particularly easy to do. But when we stop giving the parts of ourselves that stand in our way power, there is a massive shift in perspective that changes how we feel about ourselves. Because freedom to is empowering to the deepest parts of us. The thing-in-the-way (whatever it is) stops mattering so much, because we’ve stopped feeding it our energy and attention.
In looking at freedom to, you are drawn deep inside yourself. Its a position that is inherently grounded in reality and the present, because the starting point when you ask 'where to?' is HERE. In changing the focus, you naturally have to accept what currently is. And this is a really beautiful, empowering place. Because we might not necessarily like what is, but it is absolutely impossible to change, or move from it without knowing where you are. It's sorta like if you're in a national park, and are looking at the map trying to figure out how to get to a certain place, and the 'you are here' arrow is on the map but you don't want to figure out directions from that arrow because you don't like where it is pointing to. Silly, right? But if you see where the arrow is, and say 'ok I'm here' then you have your starting point. And from 'you are here', you can go anywhere.
* I am being sarcastic and making fun of England but this is a joke. I was born in London (though moved to Scotland so young that I remember nothing of my time in England), my husband and in-laws are all English. I do not actually have anything against England… unless they are playing Scotland in football :P.
2. Herbs that help to create a feeling of spaciousness.
In many ways, the feeling of emotional freedom is one of spaciousness. We all have different stressors in our lives that create pressure, and some are avoidable, and some are not. But to find spaciousness, we need to draw our attention to, and strengthen the deepest core parts of ourselves. The herbal allies I like to use for this, are herbs that touch on and strengthen the heart, and the core of who we are. They work gently and subtly over time, returning our attention to our hearts, over and over again, drawing us to notice the parts of ourselves that are vast and unrestricted and entirely themselves. Its not an immediate thing, like the end of Shawshank Redemption, or a Braveheart-esque battle. Instead, its a subtle shift, a gentle, long-term release of all the parts of us that stand in our own way. You’d think that all this inward focus might start to feel self-centered but it actually has the opposite effect: the deeper we focus on our own unrestricted selves, the less of our own crap we project onto the world around us, the less time we spend in our heads. As a result of connecting to our hearts, we are actually able to give more attention and energy to the world outside ourselves.
Here are a few of my favourites.
Ocimum sanctum // Tulsi
While tulsi has [most likely] about a million medicinal uses, the vast majority of them owe themselves to tulsi's ability to boost our ability to handle stressors. These stressors can occur in different systems, be it the immune system, digestive, nervous or in the overall metabolism, and these stressors can come in many forms, be it chemical, metabolic, psychological or bacterial.
In the immune system, stressors come in the form of pathogens, but at its most basic, the immune system differentiates 'self' from 'not self'. Tulsi helps the body's immune response and is at the same time antimicrobial, helping the body to fight 'not self' both from the inside (by helping the response itself) and also by directly fighting pathogens.
In the nervous system, tulsi helps to increase our stress tolerance, not by turning us into super humans, but by once again working on that 'self' and 'not self' axis. I'd say, from my own perspective, that tulsi strengthens the innate sense of 'self' which then makes 'not self' that much easier to deal with. When it comes to mental stressors this is incredibly important: think of how much mental stress actually has to do with us thinking we don't have the capacity to handle something. Think of how much more stressful life is when we feel overtired and that our resources are too meager to actually be effective. If 'self' is small, and 'not self' is huge, then the entire world feels overwhelming and like it's too much to handle. This is an incredibly stressful place to live, and most of us who suffer from anxiety issues live here full time! Think on the other hand of how the world looks when you feel calm, centered and *big* enough. Like you have enough resources (energetic, financial, whatever) to handle what life throws at you. That is a place where the world can't swallow you whole, and it comes from knowing that you are enough to handle it. Tulsi, in my opinion, helps to strengthen that sense of self. It's not that it by itself is a stress relieving herb, but the effect of that strengthening is that you can handle more by default. Psychologically it calms the mind because the mind doesn't need to be as agitated if you're not about to be swallowed by the world around you. And your nervous system doesn't need to be on high alert because you feel safe.
Another side effect of this 'safe' feeling is that, since your nervous system is no longer freaking out over every minor thing, your view of the world is no longer clouded by fear or panic. As a result, people tend to see the world with more clarity when taking tulsi. In a way, it's incredibly expansive in the brain, because our perspective narrows intensely when we're feeling threatened, and when we feel safe, our perspective expands. Our worlds quite literally get bigger to us as a result of taking it. Tulsi's effect on mental activity as a result of this is incredibly interesting: it helps with retention of information, and also with clarity of thought.
This calming, centering, grounding extends to the digestive system,
where tulsi's aromatics help calm agitation in the gut. Once again, this same action: where some foods can feel like 'too much' for us, causing indigestion or gas or bloating, tulsi draws our attention into our guts and the centre of our bodies, calming, grounding, and assisting with the digestion of foods.
And when it comes to finding a feeling of spaciousness, I love tulsi's ability to draw our attention, over and over again, to the depth of our own resilience. The stressors of the world don't disappear, but they become less crushing as you start to feel more capable.
Found in: Tulsi + Pinon syrup, Tulsi + Ashwadangha chai, tulsi & pinyon body oil, tulsi & pinyon digestive bitters, smoky bramble tulsi tea
Oplopanax horridus // devil's club
I feel a bit strange writing about devil's club as it's not a plant I live near or gather myself. I've never even seen it in the wild. And yet, I use it (sent to me fresh by herbalist friends in the Pacific Northwest), and have had some amazing experiences with it, and feel it would be a shame to leave it out here simply because it's not one that I personally interact with in the wild.
Oplopanax is one of those plants that draws reverence from herbalists-- a 'power' plant, if you will.
One of the reasons I think oplopanax is so incredibly powerful is that it's connection in our energy is to our deepest sense of who we are-- the part of ourself that has no words to describe it, but just *is*. It's the us when we were born, the us that is free of constraint and 'shoulds' and trauma and fear. It's our past and our potential, all wrapped into one. That part of ourselves is always there, but for most people it's buried quite deeply. It's an energy that exists deep at our core, and emerges from our ancestry and our blood, and it blossoms in our chests, driving us forward even if we can no longer feel or hear it speaking to us. Devil's club connects us to that part of ourselves.
One of the nice side effects of this connection is that things can no longer hurt us as much. When it comes to finding a feeling of spaciousness, this connection is really important, because we feel bigger, stronger and more capable as a result of being more deeply connected to ourselves.
On a more physical level, oplopanax is used to balance blood sugar levels, to treat infections, to help raise energy levels over time in exhaustion. Among many other things. It's an amazing, powerful plant, and one I feel very grateful to receive boxes of in the mail.
Read more: Ryan Drum's article
Found in: Root + Heart, Forest soak, Thorn & Bramble body oil, Oplopanax & Douglas fir mist
Crataegus spp. // Hawthorn
Protector of the heart, protector of the faerie realm, which in our own psyches is the tender young part of ourselves that still sees the world with innocence and possibility. Hawthorn wraps itself around this like a protective shield allowing it to blossom again. Hawthorn's thorns are hard and sharp, sticking out at (at least what feels like) random angles to catch you unawares. It's interesting to me that these plants that are so so easy to love are the ones that protect themselves so well-- my first instinct with all of them is to fling myself on them and hug them, and yet you can't do that at all. I have tried it with a big pile of hawthorn twigs and leaves and flowers, and, well it hurts. One of the things you learn is that you can experience something just by hanging with it, being near it-- you don't need to fling yourself on it and try to hug the daylights out of it. For those of us who sometimes lack boundaries, this is an important lesson, and it's a lesson that hawthorn especially can teach us well: to experience something deeply you don't need to lose yourself, but actually to inhabit yourself more fully.
How does hawthorn help us soften? It does so by strengthening the parts that burn brightly through the darkness. That is, hawthorn affects the core of who we are, our hearts, not just physical but that little spark of awareness that was you before you knew what an 'I' was. Hawthorn wraps itself around it like a protective shield, whispering things like 'you've got this' and 'you can fall apart now I'll hold you up' and 'a little restructuring is ok but we'll hold it together here' and for those of us who are afraid to soften, afraid that to let go a little bit means the entire world will cave in or fall down, or rush in like a deluge, hawthorn is the beacon in the storm.
Read more about hawthorn: Sean Donahue's article
Found in: Root + Heart, reishi, schizandra & hawthorn elixir, Deep forest tea, Ocotillo & Rose heart center elixir,
Rose // Rosa spp.
Rose, quite simply, softens us. The world is full of people who try to make themselves harder, tougher, faster, more driven, focused, and direct. All of this trying comes from a sort of tension— we tense ourselves as if to do battle daily, and to protect our soft hearts from the onslaughts of the world around us. Rose softens the tension that we hold to protect ourselves, but because its clever, it doesn’t leave us without our own thorns of defence.
Its astringency tightens tissues, and it does this on a tissue-based level, but it also does so on a grand scale, to our *energy* as a whole, which means that as we’re softening, we’re also tightening up, starting to be able to tell where we end and the world around us begins. It’s not a hard wall of a boundary, but astringency leads to better filtration. We become much more capable of knowing who we are and as a result, where our boundaries are. Softening and strengthening, relaxing and tightening, the most beautiful soft petals and sensual scent, and those thorns that will cut you without second thought.
When it comes to finding freedom, there is no herb I prefer to rose. Because rose helps us to soften the barriers that we put up to protect ourselves from the world, and the world from us. When we feel bound by our own protective mechanisms, like we WANT to connect but don't know how to, rose is a gentle, kind and wise ally to guide us back outside our own walls.
Read more: Kiva's article
Found in: Wild rose elixir, Ocotillo + Wild rose incense, wild rose & sandalwood body oil, wild rose & sandalwood bath soak
3. A fun exercise to find a feeling of spaciousness and freedom within yourself.
Sit or lie down somewhere calm and quiet, and take a few deep breaths to settle into your body.
Now, scan your body and look for areas of tension— it could be your chest, or your belly, or your shoulders, or jaw. It could be behind your knees, or in your lower back. Find them, and just observe them, without judgement or trying to change them.
And now, focus on these areas of tension, and pick the one that feels the strongest.
And start to tense it more. Keep breathing, but keep tensing this tense area more, and more and more.
And when its so tense that you can’t really tense it anymore, open your eyes and look at the world around you. How does it look? Does it look wide and expansive or scary?
Feel inside yourself, around this tension, and is this emotional *flavour* that comes with this tension pattern familiar to you? Have you felt this way before? Does the world FEEL open and free to you, when you feel like this?
And now, drop it. Drop the tension and drop the emotion, and breathe, allowing energy and breath to return to the areas that were blocked off with tension.
Now look at the world, and feel the world. Does it look open and spacious? More than before?
Find that new feeling of open, spaciousness inside yourself— it might only be a tiny spark right now— and concentrate on it. Breathe into it, and allow it to grow, and each time you come up against areas of tension that block its expansion throughout your body, tense them a little, and then release them (if its hard to release, tense it more, and explore it more, like you did the first time). And keep focusing on, and following this feeling of spaciousness as you breathe and allow it to spread throughout your body.
When it has filled you up, take an energetic ‘snapshot’ of sorts. Remember how this feels. And take 3 deep, full breaths, here. Thank yourself for doing this, and then carry on about your day.
Try this twice a day for a week, and see how different you feel :).