When Freedom Sparks Fear

In this episode of Spiritual Unraveling, Ashley and Nate explore the complex relationship between freedom and fear, discussing how the journey towards authentic power and sovereignty can evoke feelings of anxiety and paralysis. They delve into the importance of presence as a means to navigate these emotions, emphasizing the need to let go of control and expectations. The conversation highlights the challenges of reclaiming personal power and the disorientation that often accompanies this process. Ultimately, they encourage listeners to embrace the journey towards freedom with bravery, grace, and a commitment to awareness in the present moment.

Transcript

Ashley Henderson (00:02.756)
Welcome to Spiritual Unraveling with Ashley and Nate. And on today's podcast, we are going to discuss the fright or the fears that come with freedom. I know that those are pointed and strong words and strong language, but Ashley and I were just having a conversation before we got on about how sometimes

On the spiritual journey, when we start to really strip things away and move into authentic power and sovereignty, there is a lot of fear, at least in me, that comes up around the unclaimed power of you get to be whatever you want. This kind of idea that you get to sculpt or live.

your best life and that sounds great in a book or on a podcast or in a video but when you actually start grappling with and living that reality in your life you realize that the sovereignty also comes with in an a lot of responsibility and sometimes as I said for me I can feel that that responsibility translates

into some sense of paralysis or fear or what if I choose the wrong thing or what are the ramifications of this process. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. It's a big subject and it could go in a lot of different ways, but we're gonna talk about some of the actual lived realities, the the pros and the cons of being a truly sovereign being the

The fears that may arise with freedom. I don't what does what does that make you think, Ash?

Ashley (02:03.038)
Well, I was thinking about it last week in the last few weeks that there's a almost like moving from sort of a hazy conceptual idea of freedom to like actual lived freedom. there's a starkness to it.

that is it's surprising like i was just saying to you that you know when i started the this spiritual journey you know sort of at the beginning of it you sort of have this idea of what freedom is right and and you have an idea of what freedom isn't right so you have your sort of experience of suffering or struggle or and seeing this thing I want to be free I want to be free of the suffering I want

Free of suffering. And it it drives, it really drives you, it motivates you to do the practices, to create the space, to read the books and listen to the people and and and really focus your attention. Really, really focus your attention. And it's great. And in freedom, there's like what's starkly contrasted is that there's almost an absence of motivation. because

You're free. So there the the motivation isn't driven by sort of a sense of unworthiness or a sense of wanting to stop the suffering or what else is what else motivates us? Just sort of the unconscious motivations of cultural conditioning. You know, I need to be successful, I need to be popular, I need to be.

Rich, I need to be I don't know my body to look a certain way, I need to feel like people like me or I'm important, I don't know. those all fall away. So there's like a falling away of all these things, and you're like, whoa, I feel like I'm floating in space now. Where if I don't have that motivation, then how do I know what to do?

Ashley (04:28.042)
And the intuitive, like obvious answer in those moments is presence. And you know, you can pay attention. Now I'm getting into the weeds a little bit, but for me in the last few weeks, what I've recognized is okay, I know what the gift of freedom is, it's presence. And when I'm going into the fear, it's because my mind.

Ego wants to hijack this moment. You know, it wants to have something to do, it wants to have an orientation or a map or a purpose or something like that. And and the truth is that in freedom, the ego doesn't have the ego, it is there to sort of follow presence. It doesn't really, it's not in front of presence, right? It's not in front of

Freedom. it sort of follows freedom. And so the the presence practice really is the is the only answer. It's the only thing to quote unquote do is to be. And then and then it's sort of wild how life emerges from that in a semi-coherent way, right? Then the mind gets to enjoy the coherence of presence rather than the mind gets to run.

and direct the life on the show. because freedom is that. It's it's freedom. It's kind of like really wild to experience like actual freedom. I don't know. What did I did that make any sense?

Ashley Henderson (06:14.687)
Yeah, it did. And when you were talking, it made me aware that we should maybe say a few things first. So that for me, I believe that freedom isn't just a political right, but that I I I believe that in most political systems that have freedom and that blossom because of that.

It's not because the political system is materially right. I believe it's like universally right, like it's it's freedom is a endowment of source or God. And so when humans in their mentalism stumble upon a political system that says, like, hey, we should have freedom as part of this, I think that like both with with cultures all throughout history, the reason that there's

a blossoming of those certain cultures or ways that that political system works that has like a

Synergy, and it's because they are working with a universal principle, which I think is freedom. I think it's also sovereignty. Which, so I I at a core level, I just want to say this is, I believe, an endowment from creation. This is a source, and that we are all creators, and that in that is this unique freedom to choose.

Whatever we want to create, whatever we want to focus on, whatever we want to be. And so that's just one thing I wanted to lay out there. The other thing that I think we're you were talking about that I was aware of was that there's a point along the spiritual journey where you or just kind of the human journey, not even the spiritual journey, where we pursue freedom.

Ashley Henderson (08:17.161)
Where we're like fighting freedom fighters, right? This is a term, this is human rights. We're pushing, we're we're like kind of striving for freedom. We're, you know, this urge and drive. And then when you move into a spiritual practice and you and I think when you bring a certain level of awareness to it, you realize that freedom hasn't gone anywhere. You're always free. And

It's there for you to choose, and then your relationship with freedom becomes very different because now you're not pursuing it, you realize you are free, you are sovereign. Nobody can get inside of your essence, nobody can get inside your energy. That is yours, that's where your sovereignty lies. And then that's where we move into that odd place of I can be or do.

or have whatever I want in in my energetic field and then that infiniteness, that infinite possibility of choice, that's I think where the nerves come in, if you will. Because we live in a we live in a human world that is very bound by, you know, physics

social structures, strictures that keep us in place and the kind of limitlessness of our infinite possibility it can feel a little bit overwhelming and it has a lot to do with focus and what are we choosing to

Bring into our lives? What are we choosing to orient towards? What would we like to create more of? And some of this is happening by default if there isn't awareness. And then sometimes we have awareness, and then we are in this place of okay, now I have awareness of freedom and of power and of choice, but I have an atrophied.

Ashley Henderson (10:34.723)
Ability to focus. And I think for me, that's kind of like where I am right now, where I feel like I am aware of the freedom and of the infinite possibility, but life for 40 plus years has led me to a place of giving away a lot of that power. So reclaiming it and and particularly reclaiming and rehoning the ability to focus.

And have

intention in a meaningful way towards the things that actually are what I want to manifest more of. That's where I think it gets very interesting. And that's where it's like, you know, I kind of feel like a toddler stumbling around trying to find, trying to remember how this stuff all works. and it's exciting, but it's also it it can feel a little bit frustrating as you're in the at for me in these early days of just like

Okay, I have this ability. Now I need to practice ha you know, it's kinda like driving. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago with your son learning how to drive. At the beginning, y y y you need a lot of practice 'cause you're not really you've got a powerful tool there to work with. So I go, that's kind of where I go.

Ashley (11:58.671)
Yeah, that's great. You you deconstructed presence. You tr you deconstructed what I you know what I was sort of bumbling bumbling through. And you know, a lot of times in our podcast we'll start with we'll you know, we'll we'll talk about presence a lot, but really deconstructing what that is. Because I think you know, free freedom is presence.

Freed freedom is presence, right? It's it's not that tricky. It's like it it's presence. but what is presence? It it it's where are you where is your attention in this moment? And so we can I feel like what what kind of just emerged from what you said in my mind is sort of the two two

Woven pathways toward to freedom are a practicing presence, which is something that you know we're all sort of we know we're supposed to eat healthy, we know we're supposed to go to the gym, and we know we're supposed to be meditating. Those are like the things we're, you know, supposed to be doing, right? So we know we're supposed to be practicing presence, and that's something that really, really helps. It really matters, it really helps. Like

Practicing presence can really open your whole world, and and change your whole world. And the other thing is really being aware of what the obstacles are to presence, because we all have so many obstacles to presence. In any given moment, right? The mind just tak wants to pop in and hijack presence, right? So

So really noticing what the mind is doing and why it's so hard to keep our attention in the present moment is the work. It's the work, right? so it's a such a important thing to be aware of and and decide, decide, you know, because it's not even like

Ashley (14:20.716)
in the future like when we're talking about manifestation or what do i want to bring more of in my life it's how do i want to feel right now what's available right now is freedom available right now inside of let's say anxiety is freedom available is is freedom available in any given moment no matter what's happening you know

Is freedom available in disappointment? Is freedom available in grief? You know? so it's that you know, that's like such a cool like question to even work with. Can I can I access freedom right now? You know, because that seems really interesting. If if I'm if I'm sitting in an emotion that I'm not

Like that excited about, you know? And I say, is freedom available right now? That seems really compelling. Right? So that that can be a really cool practice. But then when you sort of work your way through I'm okay with grief. Let's say grief. I'm okay with grief. Grief can be here. I don't have any resistance to grief. Well, that's freedom.

So freedom doesn't look like, I'm I'm joyful and happy all the time. It could. That'd be awesome, you know, maybe. but it can look like presence with whatever's happening. It look can look like acceptance of whatever's here. And so for me, where I'm at with it was is what I was kind of describing before is the absence of.

A couple of things. The absence of identity. I absence of motivation. Motivation is a kind of the wrong word, but I don't

Ashley (16:19.963)
But yeah, absence of motivation, absence of belonging actually, in the old way of belonging and and and really moving into belonging in a whole different way, which is more what you were talking about in terms of like a more of a divine sense of belonging or

more unity consciousness, sense of belonging, rather than like belonging somewhere in the culture that keeps me in some kind of weird hierarchical madness. it's sort of a more

expansive sense of belonging, but that can feel that can feel really disorienting. It can just be really disorienting to start to have those tethers to the culture, if for lack of a better word, fall away and feel that sense of larger, larger sense of freedom. It's just very disorienting in my experience.

Ashley Henderson (17:20.016)
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think you just hit on why you and I thought this would be a compelling thing to talk about because

It seems exciting. And I don't think you could find many people on like on the street if you just said, you know, how do you feel about freedom? And what would it be like to be completely 100% free and to choose your own reality and all this stuff? It's like everyone would be like, yeah, alright. But then, you know, this kind of unlimited power and also stepping out of a structural system like

politics, like society, all this stuff. When you start to like let go of some of that stuff and really do come into the power of the now moment with presence and sitting with and not judging everything that arises and starting to be very clear about you and your relationship to those things, it's there's not a lot that there's not a lot of people doing that.

And it can feel a little isolating. It can feel a little lonely at first. and I think again, it's kind of like the for me, sometimes it's the sitting with the immensity of that that can feel a little

disorienting. but as you had so so nicely pointed out, the antidote to that is presence, is the now moment is okay. The anxiety only exists when I project out in time and I try to start to manipulate manipulate or control circumstances or reality in order to assuage anxiety versus

Ashley Henderson (19:20.442)
I'm an infinite being. I am right here in the now moment, and I get to choose where how I respond to anything that arises in my life. And I get to sit with it and allow it and not necessarily control it. And there's a real Yeah, I mean I guess I guess why this stuff is compelling to us is that there

There's not a lot of this being reflected back to us in terms of who's doing this, how do you do it, how do you do it gracefully? how do you manage the kind of day-to-day pitfalls and realities that can kind of come with this when you're trying to step out of a a system and really own freedom and sovereignty? The means you're not going to be playing.

By certain people's rules anymore, and that might upset people. I don't know. There's just a lot. I guess as we're talking about this stuff, I'm realizing that a lot of what's coming up for me is just kind of all the unspoken things that come with spiritually waking up and trying to step more and more into your power. There's a lot there that I think is.

Ashley Henderson (20:51.275)
Not you just it's a surprise, really. There's there's but it it sh it's not shocking that it's a surprise because your power is with you, it didn't go anywhere. So the only thing that changed is that either your thinking or your circumstances or other belief systems have come around to kind of hide the power. It's

Ashley (20:55.451)
Yeah.

Ashley Henderson (21:17.726)
It's still in you. It hasn't gone anywhere. So what you really are finding is the places where your power is hidden from you and usually you are the one that hid it from yourself. Which is like it's kind of a mind bending thing.

Ashley (21:29.915)
Totally. Totally. Totally. I I I love you brought up a lot of things in that. But power is a good is is a really important thing to to name because I think that a lot of

The discomfort around freedom is about power. And it's it's about owning your own power. I mean, I think that's what this whole path is really actually about. And maybe we've talked about this a million times, but I really think stepping into your own power is part of what makes this process really challenging.

Because we've been so, we've been so conditioned away from our own power. And there's so many depths and dimensions and layers to accepting your own power, because it just show seems to show up a lot. and there's a lot of positive things. I just also want to say, like, there's a lot of really cool things about freedom and stepping into power. There's a lot of creativity.

There's actually a lot of like freaking magic and synchronicity and joy in simplicity. And there's just an amazing, amazing world that opens up in freedom. So we could have a whole podcast about the the joy of freedom. but I think our what we're interested in is like the the actual lived experience, and this is where

I think we're sitting right now is in the disorientation. As power comes back online, as personal power comes back online, there's a really disoriented way in that because the because the way that our culture is set up is a it's a disempowered culture. Even if we're we're we're sold, here, for $29.99, you can have personal power. It's like there's actually like yeah, there's a disempowering

Ashley (23:38.393)
Aspect to participation in the culture. And so it starts to feel really uncomfortable when you disconnect from that and come into personal power. The other thing you brought up was control. And that is also something that is an important thing to talk about because with freedom comes a letting go of control.

That can be really confusing, I think, in this process, because what you might unconsciously or consciously imagine freedom to feel like is control. It's actually the opposite. And freedom can only come in the letting go of control, which is just so brutally hard for everybody. I mean, it's just so hard. It is the hardest thing to let go of control. but there's a

real beauty in it there's a real you know that I don't know you just can't you can't get to freedom without letting go control and that's something to explore in a moment to moment present moment you know work in progress kind of way is to see where am I still holding on to control.

Ashley Henderson (24:59.089)
Yeah. I just wanna jump in there and the thing that I think was coming up for me as you were saying that is the relationship between control and expectation is such a big component here. So we we have this we have this idea of f freedom and of choosing your life and making the life of your dreams and then and that's great, right?

That's you kind of have this, and that's largely what's sold to you in the books and the self-help literature and things. And yet the problem with that kind of way of thinking is that it reinforces the idea that you're going to create like kind of in a step-by-step way, or you you just it your brain will your brain and your ego will jump in very quickly and start to have

expectations about how things will go. And as soon as you have expectations about how things will go, it very quickly control comes it comes in. It's like expectation and control are partners in crime. And what's fascinating, and it does get talked about in in books and in literature and in lots of spiritual leaders have talked about this, with which is

Surrender and allowance, right? That's kind of the antidote to control and expectation. But the process of getting to allowance and surrender isn't all that well described. It's kind of just said. And I think that the way that we do that is through.

really really having awareness and in the now moment having like allowing those things to happen with neutrality even if expectation and control come in there's an a a level of acceptance that those two structures or ideas or thought forms they need to be allowed to have space too. It's like this very like

Ashley Henderson (27:22.435)
Freedom is so weird, like infinite possibility freedom. All of it gets to exist, including control, including power dynamics, including expectations. There's a strange way that we we just we want we wanna not grip onto those things. It's like they're I mean we talk about meditation focusing on thoughts like clouds.

moving through your mind and that's kind of the way control power exp expectation are when it comes to true infinite freedom which is just like this this is part of the mind and that's okay we don't want to get caught in the minutia caught in the mud get caught and mired in with control and expectation just like it comes up you say

I'm trying to predict the future. I'm trying to orchestrate events because I want to have control, because I want to feel safe, because I'm having a little anxiety. And then instead of fixing any of that, it becomes the moment in in the now to love all of that stuff and just say, this is my humanness. This is part of being.

a spirit in in physical form is that it comes with all of this and that's okay. And I don't need to grip onto it. And it also doesn't limit me. It's just an aspect of reality. And that's okay. And it's it's reinforced largely by the culture right now. And so it has a stronger grip than normal. So it has like it's it's more weighted to that stuff. So it's likely that you're gonna face that.

But still you don't want to fight against it. That's kind of the irony of this stuff. You need to it also needs space to breathe and be there. And you can at the same time say, but that's not the reality. That's a that that's a thought form. That's something that other people have agreed on. That's not necessarily what I agree to. That's not a universal reality. Yeah, that's where things just get weird and fascinating and exciting.

Ashley (29:47.047)
Well, it's funny because you could take what you just said and have it be a

sort of instruction manual for meditation. And so you could bring it back down to the to a meditation practice, which is actually not that easy. It's not that easy to stay present in meditation. It's a practice, right? So you sit down, maybe you ring a bell, you set a timer, right? And you're

Your goal is to stay present with whatever's arising, make space, make room for whatever's arising, no resistance, you know. and then you find your mind going off in all these different directions, or you you you see you see what I'm saying? You get to you get to actually see it all in this kind of very acute way, and and

You know, you see where you bring judgment in, you see where you bring expectation in, you see where you want to control things. You see, you know, I remember my favorite thing on retreat is always or in in meditation groups is when people are really honest and there's just one lovely woman who's like, I am just waiting, I can't wait for you to ring that bell. Like I'm just can't, you know, I'm just like, when is she gonna ring the bell? When is she gonna ring that? So you can just sort of see what starts to happen to you.

when you're in meditation. And then that gets, you know, then you can practice it in your life in a in a much more kind of conscious, mmm conscious way. Like bring the, you know, it can seem like it gets more complicated in life because there's more distractions, there's more players, there's more, but really it's all the same thing. It's all it's all the same practice.

Ashley (31:40.265)
You know, you get up off the cushion and then you go deal with your family. It's all the same practice. You know, and and it's a sort of takes like an interest and a commitment, takes a real interest and a commitment to practicing surrender, practicing letting go of expectations, letting go of control, practice acceptance rather than judgment, practice, you know, it's a so it's like all those things are are things we can really

really get clear and mindful about in our meditation practice and then bring into our lives. And then, you know, presence becomes the it, you know, presence becomes the thing, right? Presence is is the thing. And so once you can kind of really there's a tipping point for me, I'll just say there's a t there was a tipping point for me where presence became a lot more interesting.

than anything else. So it became more of a default mode than anything else. And now in my life I can really see when I'm not in presence because there's like literal fallout. There's like consequences, you know? much more than, you know, I think at the beginning of the practi the beginning of the journey, presence can feel super boring.

And a little scary and or a lot scary, and like why, why, why? This is like what's here, you know. There's so much more interesting to sort of be constructing and reacting to the past and the future and all these stories in our head. but presence gets really interesting. Presence is where there's like a lot of magic and a it, you know, a lot of aliveness, a lot of peace.

So it becomes like the thing that you want to get back to. you don't want to really leave, right? And I imagine in my life I'll be hijacked out of presence for the rest of my life. I mean, I it's just part of the journey. It's actually interesting to me. I had an experience recently where I had a lot of unconscious expectations and that for for a trip that I took, and

Ashley (34:03.172)
that created you know an created a mmm how do i say it like an experience where I left where I left presence and that created this kind of like series of events that ended up like you know kind of showing me what happens when I leave presence and

And it was amazing. It was amazing to see the whole thing. It was amazing to like be like, whoa, that's that's what happens and and and and kind of own all of it without judgment and without any kind of, yeah, judgment at all. It was just like really super fascinating. So even that, like it it's there's no, there's really no, I don't know how to say it, like goal of any of it all. You know, it's really we're where what are you?

What are you drawn to? What are you you know, what what's interesting to you? So

Ashley Henderson (35:03.44)
Yeah, presence is not a diploma, right? You don't get it and then you're like, I got it. I got the badge. It's sewed on the sash here. It's every moment. And I love that what you're what you're reminding us of, which is that you can be pulled out of presence and be disappointed or sad or frustrated, or you can be pulled out of presence and say, that's so interesting or funny. What was it?

Where did I lose it? How did it happen? Because those again are clues and they're hiding places around belief systems that we have where a little bit more of our power can be reclaimed, where staying present can be a little bit easier once we see the places where we lost it before. And I I also just thought of when you were talking about this stuff that

Two words that came to me were bravery and grace. And they're not necessarily words that I always associate with this kind of process of spiritual awakening, but it really is, it takes a certain level of bravery and and really doing things differently than other people and trying to hold your center. And I think that in that process, having grace as a companion.

In being very gentle with yourself and trying to not be judgmental towards yourself or other people as they are exploring dimensions of freedom, which is really what life is, is this weird exploration of how we live, how we live our freedom, you know, how how do we how do we artificially constrain ourselves and then break free from these constraints? It's like the this is the

beauty of of existence and of humanity and having comedy and grace and laughter and curiosity, these are all gonna be companions that will help you along the way with this journey. And I and I think you had spoken to this point earlier, but I just want to again reiterate it, which is

Ashley Henderson (37:28.094)
All of this can sound weird and esoteric and kind of out there, and it could all be boiled down to very, very simple things, which is awareness in the now moment. That's everything that we've been talking about is just nuance and description about awareness in the now moment with with non-judgment. Just kind of absolute like this is here right now. Everything that you want is here right now.

Ashley (37:55.455)
Yeah.

Ashley Henderson (37:58.865)
Every all of your power is here right now. That's that's all the freedom that we've been discussing and all of the things. It's all here right now and that is simple to understand, but not necessarily always easy to to live or grapple with. But that's that's the invitation.

Ashley (38:25.589)
Totally. I it makes me think about

Truth. Like I was thinking, you know, you start when you start orienting to presence and you you start orienting to truth. And and the the truth becomes really compelling and and freeing. And

I feel like that's where my inner compass is set towards. And so I'm really aware when I'm not in truth. And I can come back. because I'm interested in that more than anything else. And that's where you you sort of like you know, we kind of come through the cocoon. When you get through the cocoon layers, and I think we cocoon over and over and over again throughout our lives, but which is the good news.

But you know, you kind of break free into this truth and it's powerful. It's really powerful. I just wanted to share this. I saw this on social media. This singer that I follow. he sings sort of chanting music. It's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful presence, beautiful singer. He came out, had this post that he's really had an i a a crisis of identity and

And that he's gonna he's going through a period of change. And it was a very vulnerable, very honest, beautiful post. And it was interesting for me to go into the comment section. I didn't go very deep, but

Ashley (40:05.673)
The compassion, there was so much compassion for him going through this process. It's almost like we recognize this in other people. When people have the willingness to get vulnerable in this process, there's some part of us that goes, yes, me too. Me too. That's part of my inner world. And when somebody has the courage to move that inner world of, you know,

This sort of crisis that happens as truth moves through you, you know, and move it into the outside. It's such a gift. You know, it's such a gift. I think that can be really hard. but yeah, I was just rem reminded of that as you were talking, of this that more and more and more we're having we we we're having permission, inner permission and outer permission to share.

the vulnerability of this process and the the hard parts and the beautiful parts and and then finding that yeah this is every people are like yeah me too or there's compassion there you know and it's safe

Ashley Henderson (41:16.559)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's important to remember that everyone, regardless of where they're at on this journey, is on the same journey towards towards freedom, towards truth, towards wholeness. And yeah, when we see it in other people, it it lights a spark inside of us. It's a mirror of our own process. And I think when things can feel tough or lonely, it's important to remember that.

that no matter where people are at on the spectrum, they are all on some leg of this journey with you. And yeah, to celebrate other people and then create a little more compassion and grace for yourself in that process.

Ashley Henderson (42:10.342)
Okay. Thanks everyone.