Three freedoms

photo of Freediver at the North Pole by Fred Buyle, www.nektos.net

Recently I was chatting with a coach, who observed 'Whenever anyone mentions freedom in relation to a goal, they are motivated in an away from direction.'

I agree that often people want freedom as an away from, I also think that we can distinguish three kinds of freedom.

We have already looked at the first one - what I call freedom from. As a motivation it can work pretty well. People ache for freedom from war, injustice, poverty, their boss, their job, their spouse(!). You can probably think of quite a few variations, and think of the lengths people go through to escape from the constrictions of their life or society.

Then we also have what I call freedom for. Which can you can also think of as freedom to. Freedom to love, to sing, to dance, to dream, to act. Again you can add in what you'd like to freedom for.

Finally there is simply freedom. I think of this as the ability to simply be in the present moment, accepting whatever is there, neither trying to get towards something, nor get away from something.

I realise so far I have defined this freedom as a negatively. It does not make it an away from. Towards and away from cease to mean anything in this state. I think of it as beyond towards and away from.

This kind of freedom is not something that can easily be talked about in words.

What has this got to do with NLP? I suppose this freedom is a state, and NLP has a lot to do with moving through states, becoming a connoisseur of states. In this state the old rules are suspended, perhaps removed. NLP values flexibility. In developing the flexibility, the ability to suspend rules is a useful skill.

It is a state that has been pointed to in many traditions through the ages. In yogic contemplative practise people talk about 'not this, not that'. In Zen they talk about cultivating doubt, the ability to doubt and go beyond a limited sense of who you are.

I could think of many worse ways to spend some daily time (or daily timelessness) laying aside desires, fears and even identity. Some people get scared by this idea, who will they be? What will the point be?

But in my experience we usually find our lives, habits and identity still there at the end of practise. Still there, but with greater choice as to what to do with them. Old motivations drop away, like clothes becoming looser and finally falling off. At the same time we get sensitive to deeper motivations calling. With that comes the possibility of deeper satisfaction, deeper pleasure and deeper happiness.

If we do not spend time doing this how can we examine where our motivations, our freedoms from and freedoms for come from? They might be from parents, from friends, from peer pressure, and from advertising. They might even be, heavens forbid, from NLP teachers!

Do you know what you want freedom from? What you want freedom for? and when you are free to accept exactly what is there, what is there?