Freedom and Acceptance

Charm, the light brown horse, and Othin, the darker brown horse graze facing opposite directions in front of cedar trees and hills.

One of my favorite Beyonce songs is Freedom featuring Kendrick Lamar. Its a powerful, upbeat song that I have used in many a dark day to motivate me to work towards my own 'freedom.'

While I have led a privileged and lucky life with many freedoms, I have experienced the trauma and abuse that comes with much of human experience. Because of those experiences, the idea of freedom has been a evolving concept.

I was drawn to Freedom Based Training and Elsa Sinclair's work because of her focus on Freedom as well as choice or consent, something I wasn't give much of as a young woman growing up in the evangelical church and then something I didn't give the equines I trained much of when I was a professional equestrian. Freedom means being given choice and being able to consent, as a human or an animal.

Alongside freedom, I have been learning about and attempting to embody the idea of radical acceptance for myself and in my relationships. This is not an easy task. I wrestled with the conflation in my mind that acceptance = approval. That by accepting that meant I had to be ok with others' behaviors or treatment of me. But thats not it, because acceptance can come with boundaries. (Thank you Buckshot) Acceptance means, I stop trying to change you or fix you so that I can be more comfortable. It also means not focusing on fixing or changing myself to make anyone else more comfortable.

Ok. That's fucking hard. Like, goes against all the ways you have kept yourself safe hard.

So my emotions, brain, nervous system, whatever created a loophole: I can accept someone, including all of their actions, their words, their behavior, etc. IF I can understand where it comes from. Boom. No more uncomfortableness in my own body, mind, or nervous system because I understand. So. I can accept.

Wrong.

Babes this is not radical.

This is conditional. It was a good try. It was a good step in the right direction, perhaps. But it isn't the radical acceptance you are looking for. Yay, more opportunity to grow! she says with tears and clinched teeth

So I gotta break up with my desire, need, and drive for fully understanding. Its getting in the way of being fully compassionate with myself, with my partner, with all the relationships in my life. I'm not going to quit trying to understand all the ends and outs, the ups and downs. I suppose I will start by tapping into the embodiment I have been working on to interrupt the "I must understand so I can feel comfortable pipeline." I'll note that feeling in my chest of heaviness keeping my attention. I'll note the racing thoughts trying to come up with the best question to gain insight. I'll note the need to make the uncomfortableness go away and use the practice of RAIN to love it instead. Love with fierce compassion and boundaries, not fully understanding to be less uncomfortable.

This is going to be hard.

But as Glennon, Abby, and Sister say, We can do hard things. And maybe in the spirit of Beyonce and Kendrick, we can be more free.