How I gained freedom, identity, and purpose and I will never live life in fear, rejection, and insecurity anymore
I want to be free to be myself and to be able to express my true identity without others dictating what I should do.
I want to be free to be loved, free to love and serve others without restriction or criticalness, free from continuous control, manipulation and striving, free from competition and constant looking over my shoulder, free to rest and enjoy life, and free to be childlike (not childish) and to be who I am called or created to be without apology and condemnation.
Being free and secure is about living in a state of liberty rather than slavery.
Living in brokenness rather than in freedom
There are so many people living in brokenness that they are pretty good at faking it. I do not want to fake it anymore but be able to create and own my own personal story.
So, let me ask you these questions.
Are you …
(1) Trying hard to strive, achieve, compete, and always wanting to earn everything in life?
(2) Currently living a life of anxiety, fear, and frustration?
(3) Feeling sell-oriented, lonely, and inwardly isolated?
(4) Living without any affirmation, peace, comfort, belonging, or affection?
If you have answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you are most likely living a life of slavery.
Being true to ourselves can feel daunting. It may cause other people to think less of us and give them the opportunity to take advantage of us.
Why do we want to hurt ourselves?
We sometimes forget that having an exaggerated view of ourselves leaves us vulnerable, stressful, and ultimately insecure. We end up hurting ourselves, with bitterness and resentment.
But when we exercise humility and freedom to create and own my own personal story, we will gain many allies in addition to personal freedom and security. These are the people you really want to be with – true and faithful friends who sincerely love you for who you are.
For me, I have consciously decided not to live in any state of bondage.
But, I was living a life of slavery from a very young age, from my university days. My life then was about striving, achieving, competing, and trying to earn everything in life. This is not uncommon as society has preconditioned us into bondage.
Here’s the thing.
Understanding that what I have gained by control, manipulation, or striving will have to be kept by continuous control, manipulation and striving. It’s a vicious cycle of fear, insecurity, and slavery.
Like many people who are slaves onto themselves, it will never feel like I am where I like to be because I am constantly manipulating my way in, needing to continue maintaining that lifestyle of slavery. I couldn’t rest and serve others. I couldn’t be myself.
Various things and crisis happened in my life that caused me to change the direction of my life. Like many of us, I was doing the rat race, neglecting my family and wife. It was such a busy life, striving to climb the elusive corporate ladder.
Stop chasing hurts
Then one day, I wanted to stop chasing success because I had enough.
So, I asked myself these questions:
“What’s the real motivation for me to live a life of slavery?”
“Why do I need to continue living in fear, rejection, and insecurity?”
“Instead, how can I be living in freedom and in real significance?”
I realised that I no longer wanted to live a life of fear and insecurity. I feared people, criticism, religiousness, and confrontation. There was a constant need to be right, in competition with others, being jealous with everyone and everything, and vying for position and status.
Taking a hard look at myself, I asked myself, “How can I be better?”
Success is something you will attract by the person you become
In answering this question, the starting point for my journey to freedom is captured by this saying by Hal Elrod, “success is something you attract by the person you become.”
People, wealth, and success will naturally be attracted to us because of who we really are and have become.
Our true identity attracts genuine success.
If we are handed $10 million dollars right now, it would probably destroy us. We are not ready to handle it. We don’t have the necessary foundation to cope with it. That’s why many lottery winners revert back to their original position within a few years.
Instead, to be responsible for $10 million dollars, we need to build up our discipline and character first.
If we wanted a lot of money, success, followers, or influence, we must consciously train ourselves to be a better person with the right foundations in place for success.
To be a better person, I made a conscious decision to embark on a journey of freedom to acquire security, significance, identity, patience, basic trust, faithfulness, loyalty, humility, and being others-oriented.
I am still on this journey. But I know that I will be in a better place when I finish.
It has been an awesome journey for me. I know more about my identity and my life’s purpose than ever before.
So, do you know your true identity? Do you know your life’s purpose?
I am going to walk through with you some areas of focus for living a life of freedom which I have found useful.
These areas could also be used to develop your personal philosophy that will enable you to be a better person and even a high-performing employee at work.
Personal vision statements
You could also think about doing up a personal vision statement. For example, “to have fun in my journey through life, to inspire others to reach their full potential, to spend quality time with my family and friends, all while living a balanced life.”
Your personal vision statement gives you permission to say no to the things that are distractions and yes to the things that are part of your personal vision.
Expression of love
We can sometimes be guarded and conditional in the way we express love towards others, in the way we talk, in the things we do, and in our thinking.
The release of love (or even service) is, therefore, conditional on the performance of others towards us as we seek to get our own needs met by others.
It’s this question, what’s in it for me?
Sadly, people are not free to love unconditionally. There are always strings attached to relationships.
We can be friends with someone as long as everything goes my way or that I am benefiting more from the relationship.
We can stay as friends as long as they make me look good, feel good, and always complying without confrontation with my wishes and expectations.
As a result, life becomes all about survival rather than true love and loving in community.
This should not be the way if I want to live in freedom. I really didn’t want to be a slave to myself anymore.
To begin with, I needed to love others without any strings attached or unconditionally. It’s about being able to lay down my life, time, and agenda for those who can give me nothing in return. It’s a different shift in perspective and mindset.
Living by the law of love is my ultimate goal where I am constantly extending and receiving grace to and for others. There is a real joy when others are blessed with my efforts and seasoned with words of encouragement, strengthening, and comfort.
Cultivate a positive mindset through love
Love is the most powerful positive emotion we can ever have. When you make a daily habit of utilising this very powerful emotion, like a muscle, it strengthens our positive mental outlook. Express love as often and as frequently as possible. The more you “love” the more positive you will become and the less negative you become.
Why is this important? Why is being positive important?
How destructive negative thoughts are
When negative thoughts dominate our thinking, we shut down or stifle the amazing powers of our prefrontal cortex. This is our brain’s highly evolved and very powerful executive command and control centre that connects to the limbic system and the brain stem.
Because of this master connection, the prefrontal cortex has access to the treasure trove of information that exists throughout the entire brain.
Negativity shuts down or interferes with this master, brain-wide connection.
When you are in a negative mindset, the amygdala, that is part of the limbic system, overpowers the prefrontal cortex.
When we are in survival mode, we eliminate the need to ponder what to do in emergency situations. The amygdala takes the prefrontal cortex offline and automates what you do in emergency situations. It is the seat of our fight or flight control system that keeps us away from danger.
A negative mindset does the same thing in a watered-down sense. It allows the amygdala to subordinate the prefrontal cortex, effectively cutting off or short-circuiting prefrontal cortex access to other parts of the brain.
This is where negativity hands over control of our brain from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala, thus muting or disabling your prefrontal cortex. When your prefrontal cortex is disabled, you are operating without the most powerful, most evolved part of our brain.
Success is impossible when your prefrontal cortex has been disabled by negativity.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that so many self-made millionaires are often described as having a very upbeat, optimistic, positive mental outlook.
Positivity through love unleashes the incredible powers of the prefrontal cortex, thus increasing your odds of success.
Apart from love, you can cultivate positivity through meditation, positive affirmations, and personal vision.
Relationships with other people
We may know of people who are very competitive and often engage in rivalry, deceit, and even jealousy toward other peoples’ character, successes, and positions.
Being jealous and envious of others is just their way of life. This is how they value relationships with people.
However, to live in total freedom, I must be humble, to unconditionally value and serve people for who they are, and to be able to celebrate in their successes and failures because we are only human, each uniquely and wonderfully created.
There is no need to artificially strive for affection and self-worth. There’s no competition because there’s now unconditional love in abundance.
In fact, I really want other people to excel and succeed because there’s enough love to go around.
Rather than having a scarcity mindset, I want to cultivate an abundance mindset that will make me a better person.
Humility is the key to unlocking success
To have deep, meaningful relationships with my friends and family, I must make or take the first move. If I can help the relationship grow and mature, then I will do it first. I will initiate action first because I find that people are generally reactive.
Most people have strained and superficial relationships with family and friends because they have always waited for the other person to “make the first move” – to say hello, to organise a hangout or dinner, or even to apologise.
This is where pride comes in. This is something I wanted to get rid of from my life if I wanted the freedom to be a better person.
Pride is one of the main killers of marriages, friendships, and even families.
To live in freedom, we cannot be a slave to pride.