It is our human birth right to be free, and instinctive humanity knows it. All human rights, activism, constitutions, governments and even wars have this natural freedom as their base. A basic freedom to ‘be ourselves’, to live a life as a separate individual and to feel free, healthy and safe in that state.
The process of finding and living this freedom is constant movement and growth. As part of this periods of separation are inevitable and important. Separations are often part of any new movement or evolution. An individual breaks away to find new shores, an adult from his family to create another, a new baby is born and separates from its mother, a snake separates from its old dead skin, we stand separately to proclaim a new way. At death we ultimately separate from this world. We cannot avoid it and periods of separation are part of a full, natural and healthy life.
Interestingly initially the impetus to separate is invisible. It starts first as a small idea, a germ, a thought, a feeling. The thought of a child comes way before the birth, the vision before the project, the small emotional slight before the fight. Nelson Mandelas ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ started as an invisible idea and stayed that way all through his physical incarceration when the majority of his country told him he was wrong. He had to have supreme faith in the invisible idea, separate from the world and keep holding it before it came to fruition.
In our own lives, our own walk to freedom, we need to learn to separate fully and with success. To do this we need to have a strong relationship with our own invisible process. We must have trust and faith in what we can’t see yet, to trust these intuitions, these visions; even if the world tells us they are wrong. Often it is not until much later that we can see the fruits of our faith. We can only learn through experience that the separation was worth it, see the idea or vision fully realised and standing on its own. We must push on with unseen faith until then.
I have been lucky growing up in New Zealand to have the freedom to separate, to search for, and find the truth for myself. But the holding of this truth in an adult word has been much harder. I have to constantly reconnect, to go inward to remind myself of these truths, to hold them and trust them even if it is not what the mainstream is thinking.
This trusting can be difficult as these days there is less acknowledgement of this invisible space, this internal tuning up, this hearing of our own intuition, our own truth, our own God connection. Religion (where there is a whole language around these invisible truths) is naturally waning and as yet there is nothing in its place. Without the acknowledgement and trust in this invisible knowledge we can get stuck, called back down to ‘reality’, to others peoples thoughts and become confused. Our truth is invisibly telling us one thing but the ‘world’ is telling us another. Doubt creeps in, guilt creeps in.
Or often we are responsible for someone and feel our ways or standards are the way for them and are perplexed, angry or upset when the relationships starts to break down. We need to remember that they have their own independence and freedom and we must let go and trust that the invisible spark that created all, and created them will lead them on to their own freedom even if we cannot rationally understand it.
We can get stuck and this does not feel good (waiting rooms are full of people confusing their own truths with others) but the natural process is at work. Old habitual patterns and beliefs can hold us back but we are governed by larger truths. Eventually we will reach a tipping point where we must separate, recognise our own truth, trust and follow it.
What can smooth the way during these important periods of separation is keeping our connection to our invisible truths constant. The word Prayer has become old fashioned and out of date but prayer is just aligning ourselves to this invisible support, to what is true for us as individuals. It is a way of quietening the secondary outer parts of life and connecting in and having a relationship with the internal intuitive part which needs time and space to be heard.
There are as many varied forms of prayer as there are people. We can take a walk, take some time out, take a trip away or even leave a relationship until we can get clear enough to feel the ‘rightness’ of our own truth. When we constantly turn to this true source we will get the support and sustenance we need, the small incremental steps we need to push us on. A course of action will appear and we will know what to do, who to talk to, what to say.
Through experience we learn how to trust, to live our own truth, our own path, and express our own unique version of Love in the world.
Separation is a natural part of life and growth and we must take time to tune in, to listen and to follow the leads. To trust, honour and fully complete the process.