Feel Free to Meditate / Meditate to Feel Free
By Kyle Schauenberg
I meditate for freedom’s sake. This is a constant undertone of all my meditations.
I crave freedom.
I crave freedom from my inhibitions. I crave freedom from the subtle fears that stand in my way like invisible boulders keeping me from living fully. And I crave freedom to be completely authentic…through and through, all the time, no matter what.
And it’s working. Little by little. Steadily. Consistently. Usually in subtle ways that I don’t even notice for a while, it’s working. And when I look back on where I was before I began a meditation practice, the evidence of my earned freedom so far is obvious.
Even in times when I meditate in the hopes of feeling a deep connection - the joy of bonding with a particular energy like wonder or joy - I’m still meditating for freedom. I want to be free from anything that gets in my way of feeling those connections all the time.
But, how? How do we meditate ourselves toward more freedom?
Well first, it’s useful to define freedom. In meditation, (as in life) all things exist in a relationship to their equal opposite. And so freedom is actually a sensation that comes from the combination of being both held and uncontrolled at once. We don’t really crave floating off into the abyss with no tether at all. And we don’t want to be so short-leashed that the entire experience is a restriction.
Freedom is an interchange of both security and autonomy. I like to think of it as entering into a playground and being totally at liberty to play my heart out. I’m free, but I’m safe inside the fence.
Great relationships are this way. The relationship itself is the safety container within which one can explore themselves and express themselves freely.
And this is what meditation is: it’s a safe freedom. You enter meditation as a secure container in which to experience all the wildness of your life. Your mantra creates the parameters of your playground. You’re held in the love and safety of your mantra, and there you can allow all of your senses to come alive - free to process your experiences, your feelings, your memories, your heartaches, your hopes and your ideas.
Meditation flows in a rhythm like this. And it does so automatically, of its own volition. Because meditation, as a physiological process of healing, is an innate function that operates in this way. The same way that breathing is designed to move in and out rhythmically. Meditation is designed to flow your awareness between the safety of a mantra and the wildness of processing your life experience. So from this perspective, anyone meditating is always practicing freedom.
And there are ways to get skillful and creative about meditating for freedom’s sake. Here are a couple of ideas:
The Skill of Curiosity:
Curiosity is an act of exploration. It’s freedom in practice. Curiosity is an act of rebellion from the rigidity of the well-worn paths of habitual thought patterns. It’s a way of off-roading in your mind.
So much of meditating is about opening yourself up to recovery or, what we can refer to as healing. Healing requires space so you can shift and change. Conversely, healing is slowed when we are constricted and tight. When you offer yourself curiosity and exploration in meditation, you are opening yourself up. You are giving yourself freedom to expand into your own spaciousness. You are following the body’s healing intuition.
When you meditate, consider recruiting your curiosity to come along. Give yourself freedom to follow the trail of your senses.
It’s really useful to have a “tell-me-more” approach with yourself when you meditate. You might even make “what else” your whole mantra. Other useful mantras to play with this skill might be:
teach me
show me
I am free to feel
I am free to flow
my inner world is full of mystery
I’m listening (“shrutam” in Sanskrit)
You might also embody the archetype of explorer, pioneer or seeker; and embark on a meditation propelled by that particular set of energies and sensations.
Another idea would be to create a visual mantra where you are free as a bird, flying through the air or even soaring through the cosmos. There are no limits in meditation. Or if water is more your element, then maybe you visualize yourself as a playful dolphin or a brave sailor, or even the ocean itself, sometimes flowing, sometimes storming, sometimes utterly still. The name of the game is freedom to allow yourself adventure.
The Skill of Sticking-Up for Yourself
There is skillfulness in remembering your own sovereignty over your life. Approach meditation with the clarity that you are seated at the powerful center of you. And you have the ability to reclaim your autonomy.
It’s normal and common in meditation to view yourself through the lens of others’ opinions, needs and expectations. In fact, it’s healing and useful to let those thoughts and feelings enter your meditations. Meditation is where those thoughts will receive healing attention from your nervous system. And your healing body realigns you to your sense of inner knowing.
Meditation is how your nervous system vets out whether or not imposing energies are actually threats; and so by feeling these things, you are giving your body a chance to build resilience to them. This is how meditation works. So you can expect this process and know that it’s normal and even useful for your sense of freedom and sovereignty when you’re out in the world.
And so the meditation skill here is to simply remember that you have agency. Whenever you’re meditating and you find yourself being bossed around by thoughts or opinions, reclaim the power. Remember that you are actually in charge of your meditation. You are meditating to explore your own freedom and self-discovery. Or, as my teacher, Camille Maurine says in her book Meditation Secrets for Women, “you are tracking your own scent.” And you are free to do so.
So, you can welcome the imposing thoughts and opinions. But hear them out in meditation in the same way that a queen might listen to the input of her subjects. Sure there are a million needs and directives all around you. But YOU sit on the throne. And you are beholden to exactly one directive: that of your own soul. And it’s deeply responsible to make space in your life to listen to YOU.
There are innumerable ways to employ freedom in meditation and an equal abundance of ways that meditation can offer you more freedom in your daily life. The key is to play with it, be curious, explore and empower yourself to reclaim that freedom that is innately yours to begin with.
