Three simple tricks to feel free and be happy now

What do I need to do to get one step closer to my goals or dreams?

I have thought a lot about what I need to move forwards in my life. After reading way too much from way too many people, I think I’ve found a solution. For now. I’ve narrowed it down to three things for myself.

My goal is to reach a sense of freedom in each of these areas:

  • Physical
  • Experiential
  • Emotional

Freedom in the physical is easy…

Let’s start with something we all know. And something we’re so good at ignoring. Physical health. I claim no expertise, only experience. My experience goes back to my core idea. I follow others to learn, then steal ideas and create my own way of doing things.

I realised I needed to exercise. I realised because I wanted to lose weight and feel healthy. I bought a training system online, started going to the gym, and quickly felt great. It’s simple.

But it’s simple because I found a way of training that appealed to me. For me it was working on core strength, which affected my posture, which affected how I walked, how my outlook on the world was. It became a spiritual practice, in many ways.

For others, this comes through running. I have a good friend who goes running in the forest in the morning. I would love to do that. But I can’t.

I don’t have the drive to go running. If you don’t have the drive to do something, chances are you won’t continue.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t try. Try it all. If you don’t know if yoga will be your thing, try it. Break through the comfort zone and see if it’s what triggers something within you. Maybe it’s martial arts, maybe it’s swimming.

Giving your body a form of exercise is key to mental strength. Having a strong body helps form strong thoughts. It’s a positive spiral. You end up wanting to consume less shit, you start drinking more water and you know you will feel better.

When it comes to nutrition, it’s the same. For me, the key was cutting carbs. It began with Tim Ferriss’ Slow-Carb diet. I don’t follow any particular diet now, but cutting starches from my diet made me feel better. I felt less bloated. I ate a full meal feeling satisfied and not stuffed. And I felt satisfied for longer.

This is what it’s all about. Figure out what you need, and don’t listen to what anyone else tells you. If it feels good to you, if it improves your life, makes you more willing to go out of your comfort zone, it’s a good thing.

When we start doing good things to ourselves first, we start doing good things for others.

And we all want good things.

What does freedom in the experiential even mean?

To me (you’ve realised this is just about me by now, right?) freedom in the experiential is about breaking through the comfort zone.

It’s a dishonest word, comfort zone. We should call it “comfort prison”. Or cage. Or dungeon. It might be comfortable, but it’s also limiting. It’s destructive to growth, and all in all, the worst place to be if you want to experience anything.

Saying you can’t experience anything in your comfort zone is a big statement. Everyone feels they experience something. Even if it’s boring.

I’ll qualify this and say there’s no experience of growth or expansion of self or of mind if you stay within your own zone. It’s your own prison.

I try as much as possible to do something out of my comfort zone. All the time. Sometimes it means small things like talking to strangers or going to a concert alone. Other times reaching out to someone I think is doing something great. And when I go big, I change my life in its entirety: moving country, leaving house, dog and people behind.

I don’t suggest doing the big ones right away, unless you really need it. But small steps are important. It’s the key to experiencing life.

So many inspirational quotations say the same thing. Life begins where it starts getting uncomfortable. It’s chaotic, it feels scary, it’s all new.

And all new experiences cause growth and learning. The pumping of blood into parts of your brain you thought were dead.

Don’t let fear of the new or fear of change stop you from living. The true experience of life comes when you are in growth.

I remember living in London with a comfortable job, comfortable apartment. At the same time, I felt dissatisfied with life. On the surface it was great.

I had a friend from Spain visiting at the time. I told him I had been considering leaving the country.

“What are you scared of? You can always go back to your life here,” he told me. “But you have to leave before you can come back.”

This changed my life. I realized we all have a safety net. In most cases we can always go back somehow. But the safety net is only there if we jump.

Jump.

It’s liberating. And that is freedom in the experiential.

What does it mean to be emotionally free?

I’m not going to presume expertise in psychology and give you an answer to this. Nor am I going to presume I have achieved this elusive freedom from the emotional.

It’s still a goal for me. The daily striving towards it has helped me a great deal. Being a slave to your emotions is painful.

Being a slave to emotions means being dragged in one direction then another. Outside influences are affecting you, rather than feeling into the depth of calm and wisdom inside you.

You’ve probably experienced an emotion rushing through you. After it has left, it doesn’t feel so strong.

The first flush of anger is powerful. It drags you into a whirlwind of hormones, thoughts, emotions. Once it subsides, it feels much less of an issue. Yet we all still follow that whirlwind.

We get dragged into it. It’s the same for all emotions. Including love. We just appreciate that whirlwind more.

For me, emotional freedom is in the ability to allow it all to be. Just as it is. To be able to observe the emotion, rather than follow it.

I know it will pass. I know the emotion just wants me to feed it with my observation, to feed it with attention.

This is quite possibly the hardest thing to do. For me, at least.

The times I’ve managed to let it go by, watching a fit of rage or a wave of sadness pass, the experience is liberating like no other.

Imagine the feeling of calm while you know you feel sad, or angry, or even happy. It’s a moment of clarity, and knowing you are bigger than your emotions.

The way to do it is simple. When you feel the wave or fit or explosion, dive into it. Don’t follow it, just feel it.

Watch it. Allow it to be there.

It requires practice. Keep practicing. Keep letting the emotions be what they are. So you can be what you are. Be the vessel, not the follower.

The key is letting go.

Let the experience of the emotion be.

Then breathe. And allow yourself to keep feeling it, until you’ve had enough. It might be sooner than you think.

This is not to say we shouldn’t feel. We can’t avoid that. It’s just a choice between being a slave to our emotions, or an observer.

It’s your choice.

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