Free Your Spirit
What does it mean when I say free your spirit? It means putting down all your burdens, baggage and negative energy which have been occupying your spirit for a long time.
What is burden?
Burden means something oppressive or worrisome according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. It gives us a heavy feeling which prevents us from moving forward in life.
Where does this burden come from?
We do not come with any burden to this world. But we start to gather all these burdens from our early childhood. It comes from our parent’s behavior and educational system, society, school, peers etc…
Examples:
- You should not waste your money!(Parents)
- Your grades must not be less than your cousins!(parents)
- Do not speak loudly or laugh …! (parents, Teachers)
- Do not speak when others are talking! (Parents, Teachers, society)
- Do not play with….(Parents, Sibling)
- You must win! (Peers, Parents)
- You should do… You shouldn’t do…(Peers, Parent, teachers, society)
- You should wear… You should not wear…
- This is good or that is bad, this right or that is wrong!
There are thousands of musts, shoulds, mustn’ts and shouldn’ts, which come from our parents, siblings, friends, peers, teachers, schools, society etc… All these forces, limit our full being and freedom to live our life fully.
Every time when we want to make decisions; to do or not to do some thing, to enjoy our moments, to stand for our rights; basically wanting to be ourselves, this inner voice comes to our mind and stops us from being ourselves.
Super-ego
Freud said, our super-ego is being shaped by modeling our father/parental figure’s and society’s ideals. Super-ego plays a critical and moralizing role in our life. It aims for perfection and it is mainly unconscious. It includes ideals, spiritual goals and limits for our drives, fantasies, feelings and actions.
The super-ego can be thought of as type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with a feeling of guilt; for example, the guilt associated with having extra marital affairs.
However, if the super-ego has been shaped within a very strict and rigid environment like an authoritarian parent or dictatorial society, the large amount of guilt that has been created makes us uncomfortable. It limits our capacity for enjoyment and our drive for creativity due to fear of punishment either by our own super-ago or a cultural super- ego.
What can we do to free our spirit from limitations imposed by a strict super-ego?
Mature your super-ego
One of the very first things we need to do is to separate our super-ego from our dictatorial society or authoritarian parents. By re-evaluating our moral values we can build a new and fresh value system based on our era, environment and more importantly based on our wisdom.
Mindfulness
After building our matured super-ego, we can teach ourselves new morals and values by being mindful about our inner-voice. It might not be easy to catch this inner-voice immediately. But we can observe our feelings and the thoughts behind these feelings. Then evaluate these thoughts according to our new and matured moral system to be able to make better decisions based on a mature super-ego.
Re-evaluating our thoughts and beliefs from a fresh perspective will free us from unnecessary burden which comes from guilt and may push us to punishing ourselves. If we do not find freedom from negative thoughts, we may punish ourselves to get rid of guilty feelings through different self-destructive behaviors like: inflicting physical or psychological pain to ourselves , drinking heavily, eating badly, smoking, blaming ourselves etc…
“Stop” technique
Whenever, you hear your inner-voice blaming you on what you did or what you want to do, then ask yourself these questions:
- What is this voice? Where does it come from?
- Is it something known to you or it is unfamiliar to you?
- Is it your father who is stopping you from doing something, especially if he is unreasonable to you?
- Is it a fear of being punished by your internal parents or grandparents for doing something which feels totally right to you?
- Is it your fear of being teased by your peers, friends or teachers for doing something different, even though it is a creative idea?
If that is the case, tell your inner-voice loudly, if possible, or just repeat to yourself; “STOP Influencing Me!”
How does the brain function when we learn?
When we learn things, our brain makes connections between its neurons. By learning new things the previous memories will not disappear, but new synapses will be made and it seems that the old connections will be covered with new ones.
The brain also will be conditioned by the “Stop” technique. After repeating positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts, the brain will learn to automatically choose to think more positively.
Developing and enjoying a Free Spirit
Of course, the process of freeing our spirit does not happen overnight. Our spirit may have been suffering from the burden of limitations, feelings of guilt, punishment, fear of being judged or being rejected by the society, loved ones etc…for a long time; whether or not we are aware of it.
However, we can reshape our super-ego and re-evaluate our moral system by being mindful about our feelings, thoughts and behaviors. We can re-evaluate them according to our matured super-ego which comes from our wisdom and knowledge about ourselves and the world.
By continually keeping your spirit free, more space will be opened up to fully experience the freedom of being unique individuals.
We can re-evaluate our moral system while we are growing and gaining wisdom. This is how you can develop a free spirit and enjoy your life.