What is the freedom to be yourself? This is one of the key issues in personal development. Indeed, as long as we do not become aware or know what freedom is about being ourselves, it is very difficult for us to have good personal development. We live in a world where we need to know what freedom is about ourselves.

Do you have freedom of self? Did you know what that entails? Well, in this article we will tell you more about the freedom to be yourself.

What is the freedom to be yourself? It’s simple: The freedom of oneself is daring to assert oneself. And here’s how you have to understand the notion of “daring to assert yourself”.

What Is the Freedom to Be Yourself?

1 – Self-Freedom Is Self-Respect

The freedom of oneself is to respect oneself and to be in harmony with oneself, with who we are, and to assume it, whatever the circumstances and the gaze that is borne to us.

In any case, whatever we do, we cannot help being subjected to judgment and criticism, so much so that we let ourselves be ourselves by accepting the risk of displeasing ourselves.

2 – Self-Freedom Is the Self-Recognition and Self-Respect That Unites Us to Ourselves.

Self-freedom means having the courage to “overcome” limitations, “freeing yourself” from blockages, fears, attachments, and “bad” images that have been built into oneself since childhood, through which we are identified and to which, unconsciously, we have identified ourselves. So we have to make changes in ourselves so that we do not generate division within ourselves.

Self-freedom is self-recognition and therefore self-respect, it “connects” and unifies us.

It is only one’s self that we put an end to any “attempt” of division, the cause of misery! To allow oneself to be “self” is to go towards freedom of being and as long as we make a duality exist in ourselves, between what is and what should be, between having and being, right and wrong when we desire and resist, we are in duality, “divided” and “torn”, and bad … happy!

In order not to create a division in itself, do not we have to love ourselves and accept ourselves as we are?

To feel unified to ourselves, in the same way, that we accept our share of “light”, we also have to accept our “shadow” part, a reflection of states of souls, “cracks” and “Fragilities” because both are part of us and contribute to the being that we are. Our weaknesses can spring up forces and our strengths can be translated into weaknesses!

We are complex and emotional beings, so we can allow ourselves to feel emotions and it is by welcoming them that we can understand what they express.

We can sometimes be “torn” between what we think we should do and what we feel to do, which has the effect of creating a “division” in itself. The way of perceiving the world around us depends on the way we have been educated: “raised or lowered”, “deficient or suffocated”,… If we felt loved, pampered, surrounded, or otherwise unloved, rejected, abandoned …, all this affects our choices, our emotional life, and how to be present to the world, we need to be aware to “readjust”.

The conflictual state in itself can also be experienced when we are internally angry and that to show nothing, we “silence” by displaying a “facade image”, while our whole being pushes us to express it. In this state, we are not then unified to ourselves.

3 – The Freedom of Oneself Is Only Being Oneself!

To be oneself or more exactly, to be only oneself! It is to “unclutter” our minds, to make clear what “pollutes” us, that is to say, “to clarify”, to become aware.

Why is respect important? What must guide us to be only ourselves is self-respect, so as to always be in agreement, in congruence with who we are.

Among other things, we have to place ourselves in a position of equals with others. Neither above nor below, a sign of devaluation (over or under), knowledge and skills are to be differentiated, and this should not interfere with this notion of equality.

Giving yourself a place equal to that of others contributes to self-esteem and self-esteem, and this reflects our confidence in ourselves.

It is also a question of balance and letting go, so that the opposites, to have and to be, to have and to want …

There is no freedom of self without struggles. In fact, we will have both internal and external struggles. Because, on the one hand, one must “free oneself” – and on the other hand, “liberate oneself from others”. How to understand the expression: “there is no freedom of self without struggles”?

In Search of Self-Freedom

We all aspire to well-being, a feeling of inner peace, and freedom of Being. We do not depend on having to BE since we already are, we must nevertheless ” HAVE ” enough to satisfy our primary needs.

But it can create a division in itself, if we are ” torn between ” the desire to be (self) and the need to have (love, consideration, recognition …), having the effect of creating a division, a duality in itself. To flourish, we need to feel loved and recognized by our loved ones. This recognition reveals our existence: ” I am seen and recognized, so I exist”! But sometimes, it is impossible to obtain this recognition of our loved ones, it is up to us then to accept it and to recognize ourselves, while ceasing to hope for a change on their part.

Some ” big wounds ” like, rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal, and injustice …, ” prevent us ” from being ourselves. They are at the source of our “problems” of physical, emotional and/or mental order and they reveal gaps that it is up to us to identify, to be able to solve each of our personal difficulties.

For example, behind the need for recognition are hidden shortcomings of childhood that seek to be fulfilled. For fear of displeasing, this need sometimes ” removes ” all spontaneity, because, through it, the importance with regard to the other is given, which submits to approval and disapproval.

Dependence Makes the Concern

This dependence makes the concern, conscious or not, to ” look good ” to be kind, in the sense of being loved. The temptation is great to take refuge in the appearance, to show a ” picture ” of himself  ” smooth ” and not to let anything appear, of what is of the order of the intimate.

When one is in search of love and/or recognition, there may be a “struggle” that takes place within oneself, where different feelings coexist. Being dependent on the approval of the other, it is important not to feel judged. Difficult then to be “imperfect”, because otherwise, it is “to risk losing” esteem, trust, love of others …

To be considered, some even go so far as to ” deny ” themselves to “look good” and/or to be “irreproachable”, or at least “exemplary”, and this sometimes implies “going back” and/or repressing emotions and feelings. This lack of affirmation nourishes a duality in them, between wanting to BE and the need to APPEAR.

When we are “torn” between two desires, that of satisfying the desire of others and that dictated by the heart, then an internal conflict takes place in itself.

This freedom of Being is then lacking. It is even sometimes put to the test in our relations, through which, being prisoners of “schemas” of the past and of the need to satisfy certain desires to feel themselves to exist, we are not in congruence with ourselves, nor unified and neither in agreement with oneself.

We sometimes put in place a whole strategy to escape our fears instead of just dealing with them. But it is only by confronting them that we can perceive unless there is an imminent danger, that in reality, they are an only illusion. We can realize this by “opening the door” to the reality of the present moment, that nothing frightening hides behind!

Finally, to ” allow oneself ” to be in harmony with oneself, we have to ” strengthen ” ourselves from within and regain self-confidence.

”  To strengthen oneself from within is a” strength “that helps to” let go “of our naturalness and to assume it fully. It is about, among other things, to dissociate ourselves from certain identifications, to reconsider our way of thinking by dropping the masks of ” facades ” and pageantry, this ” seeming ” that we consciously or unconsciously put in place, either for protection or by habit and/or in a way calculated to feel some benefit.

Once fortified internally, the choice of masks is then made in all conscience, because we know that we play a role to adjust our behavior to the situations that arise. These masks also help to “preserve” an intimacy that we do not wish to “exhibit” in plain view.

Questions to Ask When We Are Looking for Freedom of Self?

To let oneself go to Being oneself, it supposes above all to accept oneself with benevolence, by having a presence to oneself in the listening of what is lived internally.

Here are the questions we could ask ourselves to help us see more clearly:

– “What do I really want, but really (to do or to be)”?

– “Am I in agreement with what I feel to do, or am I divided in my heart”?

– “Why do I say yes, when deep inside me I am in the refusal”?

– “Do I listen to what the mind dictates to me or what comes from my heart and from my whole Being”?

– “Would not it be desirable for me to feel connected and unified, to be in tune with what I feel deeply”?