Blog Layout

Where will you go?

Susan Grandfield • 7 June 2020

When you feel like you've lost your freedom

“I feel like a caged tiger” said my husband the other day.

We were reflecting on how the past few weeks have felt for us as we have been in lockdown together and he talked about how he felt given that (in his words) “our freedom has been taken away from us”.

In that moment I realised that I didn’t feel like that. I understood what he meant but I just didn’t feel the same.

Whilst there are limitations on where I can go, what I can do and who I can be with right now I still feel free. I certainly don’t feel like a caged tiger!

I should say at this point that I have had moments over the past few weeks when I have felt a deep desire to get in my car, drive more than 5 minutes away and spend time with the people I love and can’t be with right now. I recognise that could be me experiencing having had my freedom taken away.

I have also had moments when I’ve felt like I am in that wonderful film “Groundhog Day” and have found myself replaying a similar routine and set of activities to the day before and wishing for more variety in my life. I recognise that could be experience as being like being caged in a life not of my choosing.

However, in the moment when my husband said those two phrases I realised that my sense of freedom comes from my state of mind. No matter what is going on on the outside, I can always feel free on the inside.

Our minds are incredible! If you take time to notice, they are creative, free spirited and expansive with the capacity to take you anywhere you want to go.  

I can travel anywhere in the world through my memories of places I have been or to places I have yet to visit through my imagination. And all from the comfort of my own home. I don’t need to go anywhere or be with anyone else I can do it all right here where I am now.

How wonderful it is that my freedom and all that comes with it (sense of happiness, connection, inspiration, creativity, joy) is right here all the time. I don’t need to wait until lockdown is over to experience it. I don’t need to wait for the government to tell me it’s ok. I can go there right now and so can you.

So, where will you go?


What do you need help with?

by Susan Grandfield 28 October 2024
Part 4 - the way forward In this final part of the series, we are looking at the way forward. What does this awakening mean and how do we stay on the path that we’ve started to walk down?
Self-acceptance and allowing are key to the journey of being who we are in the world.
by Susan Grandfield 21 October 2024
This is an invitation to be curious about the freedom that comes from finally letting go of the need to fit in, to embrace how you see the world and how you want to approach life and the ripple effect that can have on the lives of those around you. It is all about self-acceptance and allowing.
There is a struggle when we set out on a quest to be who we are more in the world.
by Susan Grandfield 14 October 2024
The struggle of an idealist in a world of pessimists, pragmatists and realists is that at times it can feel very lonely, like we’re sitting on the edge of the crowd not being invited into the conversation. Everyone is looking in one direction and when we point out that there is another direction they could look in we feel dismissed, not heard and ridiculed for romantic notions about the world. But it doesn't have to feel that way.
We need more idealism in the world to balance the pessimism
by Susan Grandfield 8 October 2024
Idealist: “Someone who believes that very good things can be achieved, often when this does not seem likely to others”. Rather than hiding away, agreeing with others, making myself wrong for holding a more hopeful view of the world or criticising myself for being naïve I backed myself and stood behind my beliefs.
Find your way back to balance, ease and contentment and really start living.
by Susan Grandfield 19 August 2024
We are under the misapprehension that we need to push ourselves outside our comfort zone if we really want to experience life and be successful. But that is not true. Finding our way back to our comfort zone is a vital part of experiencing life with more ease, enjoyment and freedom.
Lighter way to uncover wisdom
by Susan Grandfield 3 July 2024
The reality of life is that we forget and fall into the predictable traps of the ego and its susceptibility to the outside world but that finding our way back to inner peace and stability comes from remembering that our experience is created from the inside.
Discover how changing the stories you tell yourself about yourself can transform your life.
by Susan Grandfield 27 May 2024
We are incredibly talented at creating fictitious stories about ourselves and going through life without editing them, updating them or realising we can actually re-write them. Discovering how quickly life can change when you start to pay attention to your stories.
Go on an adventure of a lifetime
by Susan Grandfield 7 February 2024
We begin this adventure of a lifetime as wide open, expansive, creative, loving, curious and innately wise little beings full of possibility, potential and optimism. But through our experience of interacting with others and the world around us we, unconsciously, wrap ourselves up in patterns of behaving and thinking which serve to protect us from the perceived risk of following that childlike energy. Now is the time to "unwrap" those protective layers and reconnect with who we really are.
There is a real freedom in approaching things with an experimental mindset .
by Susan Grandfield 30 January 2024
Experimenting is fundamentally about trying things out and not being attached to a particular outcome. It is about giving things a go and learning from whatever happens. There is a real freedom in approaching things with an experimental mindset and I believe it can be brought to all aspects of our lives.
Bliss, joy, gratitude, peace, moments to just be
by Susan Grandfield 22 September 2023
Like me, are you also someone who tends to plan moments of bliss rather than allow them to happen? Ridiculous as that may sound, I realise that when I am in my familiar environment doing familiar and routine activities I tend to plan for moments of bliss or joy to happen sometime in the future, when all of the things I need to do have been done. I am discovering the possibility of experiencing moments of bliss at any time and without the preplanning.
More posts
Share by: