This is my own contribution to the blog parade What I have learned about myself on my spiritual path. With this blog parade I invite you to tell your own story until September 1, 2024. Maybe you can also find yourself somewhere in my experiences?

Of course, every learning process starts with the realization that there is something you can or do not do or embody. What I certainly didn't embody? Freedom. I didn't feel free to be myself. To express myself. To say what I wanted. To do what I wanted. To be who I wanted to be. Who I really am. However, back then, I did not realize this at all.

Today I know that freedom is part of the essence that defines me and the feeling that can move mountains in my life. But that wasn't always the case.

I was not aware of all this because on the surface nothing really restricted me - I wasn't in prison. Nobody held me prisoner or controlled me in any way. So why shouldn't I have been free?

How do you express yourself when harmony is paramount?

Funnily enough, I partly grew up in a country where there are limits to free self-expression - at least in the original culture and from a Western perspective. Japan is a collectivist culture, which means that the good of the group takes precedence over that of the individual. You cannot just go and disturb the harmony of the group for the sake of individual self-expression. This means that for the sake of the group an individual need may sometimes fall by the wayside.

For example, a Japanese friend once told me about her difficulties in swallowing her anger about an injustice that had happened to her in her company. Her anger was absolutely justified from a Western and Japanese point of view, but she was clearly advised not to express it - so as not to disturb the harmony of the team.

This has also happened to me: I had to swallow my anger at a friend because we were traveling in a group in Thailand and a Thai woman clearly pointed out to me that I should not show my anger in the interest of the group. That felt terrible. And, of course, it didn't allow me to openly solve anything with my friend.

Especially as back then I absolutely had not been the type of person who would freely express her feelings: I had been the complete opposite to a walking powder keg that simply hurled my moods at others unfiltered - in my opinion, I was really at my limit that I felt so much anger at all. And I damn well wanted to express it at that moment!

By the way, I'm not saying that being a loose cannon is somehow desirable. Throwing your moods at others unfiltered is not really freedom for me either. But I'll come to that later.

The point of my story is that regardless of whether it would have been right or wrong to express my anger at that moment, it wasn't wanted. And that felt terrible.

Adapting and belonging

Now I never worked in a Japanese company. But the German school abroad that I attended during my time in Japan also had its own culture. It was a bit like in American high school movies with the "cool kids", the "losers", and the things that were important. Sportiness and good looks for example, inner values not so much. Pressure and eating disorders were so widespread that experts on the subject were even flown in from Germany to hold workshops with all the classes. In such a small community, where everyone knew everyone else and, above all, knew what their parents were doing, there was a lot of pressure to conform and perform. Not a place where you learn to express yourself freely. Or find out who you really are.

Of course, this time shaped me. As a result of this and other influences in my childhood and youth, I somehow forgot how to be free. And to be honest, I don't know many people who really feel free inside. Free from having to meet certain expectations, achieve certain things in life, look a certain way or have a certain bank account. Having to achieve some kind of security on the outside, or what you think it is. A position perhaps, your own apartment, a relationship. The list is endless.

And again, I don't want to say that this is all wrong or that you are only free if you no longer need or want any of it. Or if you are completely independent of what anyone else wants. But how much do we let these things limit us to the point where we lose ourselves? Where do we not just compromise, but give up on ourselves completely? And worse still, how much do we not even realize it because we have completely forgotten who we are and what we actually want?

Who am I and what does that feel like?

For me, this self-abandonment always felt unfree. But I couldn't have put it into words. There was just a feeling of unease. A feeling of being frozen. Not having good access to my feelings, let alone being able to express them. When someone asked me how I was feeling when I was studying psychology, I wasn't really able to answer. And psychologists are really serious about this question! 😉 Perhaps fortunately - I only noticed it at the time because friends really wanted to know.

So I couldn't express myself, nor did I know who I was or what was important to me. It felt like being trapped in a perpetual state of freeze, like the proverbial donkey starving and dying of thirst between the water and food troughs because it doesn't know which way to run.

People who are familiar with working with the nervous system will probably recognize immediately that this feeling has a lot to do with the nervous system and with how safe you feel in general. I didn't feel safe enough to be myself and - God forbid! - to show that to everyone.

No freedom without (the feeling of) safety

So without me knowing it at the time, creating safety was very important to me. For many years, I gradually brought healing for myself into ancestral issues and traumas that acted as inner limitations (most recently, for example, at a retreat in March 2024, about which I wrote a blog post here ). These things have given me the feeling of more inner security. And at some point I realized that this inner security is a prerequisite for being able to even deal with freedom.

It's interesting that it wasn't until many years later that I understood that my path was about freedom. Not because I woke up at some point and thought to myself, oh, I have this feeling that I am unfree. But because I gradually built up the security inside that I needed to take small steps towards my freedom. So in these small steps, I have repeatedly left my comfort zone and experienced that it feels indescribably liberating to simply let out how I feel or what I really want to say.

Maybe that's why I enjoyed acting at school and university. Being allowed to slip into other roles gives you a kind of "safe framework" in which you can try out these roles. For one role, I was allowed to go into a kind of nervous breakdown and then verbally smash everything to bits. So much fun!

After a rehearsal in which I was once again allowed to let off steam, one of my fellow actors said to me, slightly shocked: "Doro, the word "cunt" from your mouth!" The contrast to my everyday self was obvious, of course. Incidentally, I don't like the word at all and would never use it in real life. 

So I was always doing things that were outside my comfort zone - acting, for example, giving talks, leading groups, taking part in a business case contest in Canada without a business background, taking part in rugby training, starting my own business, showing my spirituality, wanting to learn ballet or horse riding as an adult. But also to show my flaws. Not wanting to be perfect. Or to admit when I really, really need to get help with something. And, of course, this blog is part of that, too.

Psychologists would perhaps say that I did a perfect confrontation therapy - with myself. I confronted my own fears. Not because I'm somehow masochistic and think pain and fear are great. But simply because I hate limitations. I always wanted to feel free. And it worked.

The path within

My somewhat more "serious" spiritual path then began around 2012. You can read about what that felt like for me here . In any case, it was the way out of what was ultimately a self-imposed prison. And the only way out for me was the way inwards, the way via the heart. What do I mean by that? I didn't know what I wanted because I was so preoccupied with the outside and with fulfilling a certain idea of a happy life that I had forgotten to check in with my heart and find out how I really felt, what I actually really wanted.

This included trying out a lot of things - starting another new project, a new topic, a new course of study (you can read about what that looked like in concrete terms here ). The trial and error strategy wasn't the worst for me, because it helped me to try out and feel into how something feels like in real life - like trying out if a new pair of shoes fit or not.

Not only did I gain valuable experience, but I also gained time to bring healing to my own system and develop myself further. To create the inner security that I needed to ultimately be able to say, for example, that I am now doing my own thing. That I no longer need another degree, a new training course, a certificate or external security in order to fulfill my role here and, for example, to be able to work in a transformative way with my clients. However, it certainly wasn't the path of least resistance!

No unicorn glitter, but a genuine initiation

I have also started to work with spiritual teachers on my path, who certainly don't just tell me what I want to hear, but continue to challenge me and hold a mirror up to me to this day. A spiritual path certainly doesn't (only) consist of unicorn glitter and rainbow clouds. I was able to experience this at the end of 2022 when I started to have real health problems. During that time, I was so physically restricted that I had to redefine freedom for myself. At the same time, the need to be able to move freely without restrictions and to be free from any health fears, pain, examinations, doctor's visits and findings was my greatest motivator - and my greatest teacher.

My spiritual teacher said to me at one point, "there is an initiation of the mind, and there is an initiation of the body." Apparently, it was now time to go through an initiation of the body. It was an absolute crisis of faith. And I was able to develop this faith in my soul plan during this time, as well as the stamina to get to the bottom of the causes. Miraculously, in the end, none of the many serious illnesses that were on the horizon were diagnosed, even though I had to develop some discipline to get some of the symptoms under control. What has come out of it, however, is an absolute enthusiasm for my own fitness and my needs and even more commitment to my journey. My motivator? Freedom, of course.

At the same time, however, the opposite is still my greatest teacher today. Because I am also allowed to learn patience and trust when I am confronted with smaller or larger external and internal limitations - with a delayed train, for example, or when someone doesn't behave the way I had imagined or something else doesn't go as planned. But also when I am confronted with my own fears, beliefs or addictions.

There is a saying that you can only be truly free when you are ready to give up control. To whom, you may be asking. In my opinion: to my expanded consciousness, my soul, spirit. So a big learning for me is still to look at where I am still a bit of a control freak. And how much this stands in the way of any real freedom or growth.

For me, however, freedom is not a selfish end in itself, not an "I'll do what I want now and not care about anybody else", but it has a purpose. Namely, that I use this freedom to give something back. In my case, to those who work with me and also want to achieve inner and outer freedom. Talking freely about my path here on this blog is definitely not within my comfort zone and I don't do it primarily because I want to feel free. But because I want to reach out to those of you who may be going through similar processes and who need courage and the idea of not being alone on your path.

When am I truly free?

How can I tell today when I am really free? I can tell when I can act and speak spontaneously, not strategically. Not, for example, to trigger a reaction in someone, to be liked or to achieve something else. But simply out of the flow of my expanded consciousness. Without the inner censorship of my ego, which then asks itself: how will this come across, what might my counterpart think or do, how will I come across?

Does that mean that I'm going to give everyone my uncensored "truth" regardless of the consequences? No. To me, it's not that either. But instead of going through my ego filter ("what might the other person think?"), what I say today tends to go through my "heart filter". And that tends to focus on questions such as "Is what I have to say helpful? Is it kind? Is it necessary?"

Do things still sometimes come out of my mouth that make me feel sorry afterwards or cross a line? Of course! But I become aware of it and: I own it! (most of the time 😉) Mistakes are part of free self-expression. And every freedom always involves responsibility. Otherwise, in my opinion, it's not real freedom, as it restricts someone else's. And since we're all connected, that couldn't possibly mean I am truly free either.

If I'm not free and therefore talk and act too strategically, so many opportunities are lost. For example, I've noticed that the best ideas come to me when I can just talk freely and spontaneously - that's how I sometimes come up with a solution in the first place. So I don't just talk when I've already found the perfect solution. This means that I have to let go of the fear that what I'm saying might not sound clever or sensible, could be half-baked or lead to a dead end.

From freedom into flow - and why this is an opportunity

It also often happens to me that I spontaneously say something unplanned in the flow. And this unplanned thing is sometimes exactly what helps the other person. I often only know afterwards what might be a helpful impulse for someone or what they really need. My ego cannot foresee this and calculate everything beforehand, but my expanded consciousness or Spirit can.

Or it happens to me that I come into contact with someone in a completely different way. Because I spontaneously show unexpected sides of myself or spontaneous humor comes through in the flow, which you often cannot plan like this. Spontaneity is generally more emotional and less cerebral and controlled. This makes life much more fun for me when the flow is not "stifled" by too much strategy and control - and ultimately the authentic self is allowed to "come through".

Incidentally, the idea of experiencing flow has been pretty well researched in psychology. For example, we know that it has many highly beneficial effects, but that the whole thing also has very little to do with control. I think that flow is even a kind of altered state of consciousness, as we know, for example, that the experience of time can change completely. Maybe you've experienced this when you've been so absorbed in an activity that you've completely forgotten about time and everything around you - and suddenly it's already dark outside and you haven't even eaten anything all day. That is flow. And a sign that you have come into contact with your true self.

Freedom, not control!

I think most people think freedom means just doing what you want, when you want to do it, regardless of the consequences. I think freedom is much more about not letting your ego take control and instead expressing your true self. To be who I really am with my rough edges. And I have learned that I am not free as soon as something interferes with my natural flow: when a thought stops me from saying something that I actually really want to say. When I act too strategically. When I can no longer allow spontaneity because some ego filter gets in the way, telling me some bullsh*** about why I shouldn't do or say this or that.

And my learning on my spiritual path was that this freedom is one of my greatest driving forces. It motivates me so much not to feel trapped that it makes me do things that would actually scare me or cost me a lot of effort. Even today, because this journey is not "finished" at some point. I also believe that this - inner! - freedom is part of every spiritual path. Perhaps even its purpose. What have you perhaps already freed yourself from in your life? When or where do you have this feeling of freedom in your life? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments - or take part in my blog parade about this subject here !