Express yourself Freely

Express yourself Freely


Freedom – a word that has defined Indian history, a word that shapes nations, people and the world. Yet, I wonder how many of us look at Freedom as our personal ability to express freely and live without fears and emotional barriers. We all have a basic need for freedom of expression. The greatest gift given to mankind is the freedom to speak one’s mind. People may express through poems, paintings, literature, speeches or even social service. Our emotional barriers and self imposed limitations are our biggest chains.

Helen Keller was born without sight and the ability to hear or speak. Till the age of 7, her parents were caught in chains of helplessness and anger. Helen lived a life devoid of a language to express. She was like a trapped animal, desperate to get free. Her teacher believed in Helen’s intelligence and taught her a language. The teacher was free from any prejudices with regard to Helen and that’s what gave Helen the courage to overcome her fears.

A child has an amazing amount of energy. He can run around and play endlessly. Often the person playing with the child gets tired but not the child. More often than not, we want our child to sleep not because the child is tired. It’s because we are tired! The child does the same thing repeatedly till he masters the act and makes a game out of everything. As the child grows up, concepts comparisons, fears, emotional needs rob that life of the beauty to shine as it was meant to. The energy that was limitless starts diminishing because of the emotional drain.

There are various cultural, social, family and other pressures that curtail or block our freedom of expression. There are many who may never even be aware of their true form of expression because they may have never taken the opportunity to explore or discover their expression. Many opt to live and follow a path may be driven by needs/ demands of society, family, culture, religion etc. Often the child of businessman is expected to take over the reins of the business and expand the same. It is unlikely that the family will inquire into the possibility or encourage their child to pursue other interests like photography, music or art. Similarly, an educated professional may expect his child to pursue academia rather then theatre or cinema.
Victor Frankl said “Everything can be taken from a man but ... the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
What is it that prevents us to discover ourselves as an adult? Are you ashamed or embarrassed or scared to accept that you lived a life perceivably designed by others such as your parents, husband, in-laws, society and religion? Well, let me tell you – you are not alone.



Most of us live our life wanting to fulfill others aspirations, needs, fears, values. I agree that the early years of our life are often restricted because we need to understand the tremendous responsibility that goes hand in hand with this freedom. There is also an added responsibility to respect others self expression.

Life is fair in terms of all of us are given the abundant resources to work with – 24 hours in a day, environmental resources and abundant energy. It’s entirely up to each one of us what we do with our 24 hours. It’s all about choices and priorities. Some of us prioritize family, wealth, power, health, fun or complacency. Depending upon what we choose to focus on, we get that in our life. For instance, even an alcoholic gets what he wants – he focuses on failure and continues to get that in his life, till he chooses to want differently.

We fight for freedom from many external sources. To achieve anything, we first need to free ourselves from our own fears and emotional chains. It is said that we use only 10% of the energy existing in our body. The remaining 90% is sitting deep underneath waiting to be used. For instance, a volcano has tremendous heat and liquid energy trapped inside. After years of turbulence and pressure, the volcano erupts with such force that it causes havoc and damage to the surroundings. The impact is uncontrollable and lasts for days till that compressed energy calms down. This analogy can be applied for our body as well. The energy in our body is under utilized or rather channelized towards aspects that are often not fulfilling or significant.

An ancient Greek historian said that “The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.”

There are very few who find the courage to search for their path. We hardly ever look inside ourselves to confront this mask or persona that we create over the years with the desire to survive, over takes the need to find our true self. Over the years of programming, we forget that it “I” who lived and survived this life; it is “I” who made the choices and that is who “I” am today.

I know it sounds very simplistic – then why don’t we often get what we truly want – say love and peace. The answer is inside each one of us – how authentically do we work towards love and peace. In reality most of our energies go in acts such as proving ourselves right, justifying our actions, being scared to express freely for fear of getting rejected or taken advantage of, being scared to move forward for fear of losing, attempting to control others etc. We are therefore using our energies in acts of fear or ego. The result is a very tired mind and body. Fatigue comes into play when we do things that are contrary to our inherent nature.

Expressing ourselves freely is inherent to our being. Each person can express freely through actions such as painting, music, architecture, writing, poetry, teaching, entrepreneurship, doctor etc. Therefore, first we need to understand our unique skill. If we work from our unique gift, there is no fatigue and struggle. We can work effortlessly at refining that skill and contributing from there.

Of course, to live in this world of people, certain rules and norms need to be observed to maintain harmony. Also there may be certain acts which we may not enjoy the most but we need to learn and understand because that’s how we create space for each other to contribute and grow ourselves.

We need to contribute according to when and where there is maximum impact. This enhances our growth and that of another. Problems come into our life when we feel dissatisfied with our effort because either we did not put in our 100% or we are dissatisfied with the returns. Actually, we do not always receive something from the person to whom we contribute to. We may receive from someone else at another time and place. The way we cannot return what we receive in equal proportion, similarly, we cannot receive in equal proportion. It is for us to understand that we receive constantly.

After all, life itself is a gift and each breath of life is the best payment that we receive in return. Sadly, we rarely appreciate our breath of life. We take it for granted since it’s a silent part of us forever. We only feel a sense of gratitude towards it when we are close to our last or latter few years of our life. That’s when we start wanting to catch up on all the things that we have not been able to do while we had time and energy on our side.
Albert Einstein said, “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”