Transform Your Life - Just Count Me In
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Transform Your Life - Just Count Me In
#76 The Freedom No One Can Take Away
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I connect the 4th of July idea of independence to a deeper kind of freedom that no one can hand you and no one can take away. I walk through how self-trust, nervous system safety, and living in alignment with your values creates the quiet confidence to be yourself at home, at work, and in relationships.
This Fourth of July, we’re exploring a deeper kind of independence—the freedom that begins within. While external freedom gives us choices, inner freedom shapes how we live, lead, love, parent, and build our businesses. Drawing on timeless wisdom from thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Wayne Dyer, Esther Hicks, Joe Dispenza, and Viktor Frankl, , this episode invites you to discover the kind of freedom that no circumstance can take away.
Transform Your Life: Just Count Me In with Sari Stone
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Welcome And Fourth Of July Frame
SPEAKER_00Welcome, welcome back to Transform Your Life. Just count me in if you're rejoining and if you're joining us for the first time. I'm your host, Sari Stone, and I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for spending your time and listening today. We're celebrating in America the 4th of July weekend where we celebrate this gift of freedom, and it's something that everybody cherishes in all over the world. Today I want you to think about another kind of freedom. The freedom that no one really can give us and actually no one can take away. This is a freedom to just be ourselves. It's what this podcast is about. It's the freedom to stop living for everyone else's approval. The freedom to create businesses that really reflect our values instead of our fears. The freedom to raise our children, to know that they're enough, to build relationships with honesty and trust and growth. The freedom to let go of old stories that no longer serve us and to just step really fully, two feet firmly planted, boots on the ground, into that life that we are meant to live. Because when we experience freedom on the inside, it changes absolutely everything on the outside. It changes how we lead, it changes how we love, it changes how we serve, it changes how we show up in our communities, and then to even make it better, it creates this like ripple effect that reaches way beyond ourselves. So today and tomorrow, there's gonna be a lot of fireworks in our area as we celebrate our country's independence, but more importantly, I think we should explore the quiet, really powerful journey toward inner freedom that we all are on, because that may be honestly the greatest independence of all. It's my hopes that these words bring peace to those who are carrying fear, hope to those who might feel stuck right now, and courage to those who may have forgotten who they are. May this conversation please remind each listener that the deepest freedom is not found in changing their circumstances, but in first discovering the strength and the wisdom and the love that have been with them all along. I am so glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Inner Freedom Framework
SPEAKER_00We spend our lives chasing freedom outside of ourselves when the deepest freedom has always really been an inside job. Awareness helps us see our patterns, and then alignment helps us live from those values. Boundaries help us to protect what matters, and presence reconnects us to ourselves. Freedom is what naturally emerges when we consistently live in alignment with who we truly are. It's not something that you earn, it's something you actually remember. We were born with it. What if we celebrated our emotional freedom, like mental freedom, spiritual freedom, relational freedom, the freedom to stop performing, the freedom to stop proving, the freedom to become just yourself, that connects us to our hope and possibilities in life.
What Great Thinkers Say About Freedom
SPEAKER_00So I went to people who I respect a lot to look at their definitions of freedom. And I know Ralph Waldo Emerson, he believed that freedom begins with self-trust. His whole mantra was trust thyself. Not because we're all perfect, but because our deepest wisdom actually lives inside of us. Freedom is living from that inner authority instead of constant approval from everyone else. I also like Henry David Thoreau's take on it too, because he believed that most people quietly imprison themselves. His famous observation, most men lead lives of desperation. He wasn't talking about money. He was talking about people living lives that don't belong to them. His version of freedom was living deliberately and choosing consciously and owning less so that life owns you less. Wayne Dyer taught that freedom comes from letting go of attachment, not attachment to people, attachment to outcomes. He believed that attachment to needing approval and attachment to always being right were the roots of our suffering and being unhappy. And one of his big ideas was when you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change. Freedom isn't changing the world, it's changing your relationship with it. Esther Hicks is one of my greatest teachers, and she teaches that freedom is actually one of our natural emotional states. We are born that way. In her framework, joy and love and appreciation and freedom are all the emotional indicators that we are living in alignment with who we really are. She believes, and so do I, that resistance creates our suffering and alignment creates our freedom. For the neuroscience part, I always go to Dr. Joe. Joe Dispenza is a genius in my opinion, and he approaches freedom through neuroscience. He often says that we're addicted to familiar emotions, which we know the brain likes familiar. Our personality creates our personal reality. Freedom is becoming greater than the habits that created our current life. In other words, your body gets addicted to certain stress levels and cortisol. Then you're not free. If your identity depends on constantly proving yourself, you are not free. Freedom begins when you become conscious enough to choose a different future than your past. Victor Frankel is probably the most dramatic definition because he lived through a Nazi concentration camp. And he wrote that everything can be taken from a person except one thing, the freedom to choose your attitude, that there is a space, and that in that space between stimulus and response lies our greatest freedom, and it's our freedom to choose, freedom from reaction, and freedom to respond intentionally. Freedom is remembering who you were before fear convinced you that you had to become someone else. Freedom is not about becoming somebody new. It's uncovering who you've always, always been. Freedom
How Stress Steals Your Freedom
SPEAKER_00feels like peace instead of proving, confidence instead of comparing, curiosity instead of fear, love instead of control, presence instead of performance, and physically you actually experience freedom in your nervous system. When you are chronically stressed, and I have been there, your shoulders are tight, your breathing becomes more shallow, you actually narrow your vision because you're trying to survive, basically. It's what happens with your brain, and your creativity has to decrease. Your decision making becomes very reactive. And these are tools from our nervous system from a long time ago because these were survival tools and they still can come in very handy. But when you're feeling safe, your breathing naturally deepens, your imagination then becomes free to expand, your intuition becomes crystal clear and your connection increases. Freedom is not just something philosophical. Your body actually knows the difference.
Money Options And Inner Peace
SPEAKER_00When it comes to financial freedom, which we we have been talking about as well, money absolutely increases freedom. It can give you options, it can give you flexibility, it can provide opportunities, it can provide the opportunity to maintain your health better. But that said, and money doesn't automatically create inner freedom. Some wealthy people are really imprisoned by fear, and I've seen that. And as well, I've seen some people with very little experience tremendous peace. Some of the happiest people I've met in my life lived in Costa Rica, and they did not have much, and they were so happy. The healthiest goal is not choosing one over the other. I believe that it's creating both external freedom and internal freedom.
Freedom At Work Home And Love
SPEAKER_00Freedom in business. So when you're free from constantly proving yourself, you stop building a business that looks successful from the outside and you start building one that is successful on the outside because it's aligned on the inside. You stop copying everybody's marketing, you stop trying to imitate, and you start saying yes to clients who build your business and stop saying yes to people who drain your energy. You stop pricing your services from fear, and you become willing to create your business around your values instead of someone else's formula. Your clients are going to feel that authenticity. They trust you to become that you're showing up as yourself, not as a performance. The most effective leaders aren't controlling people. They are creating environments. Environments where people feel safe to contribute, innovate, ask questions, grow, and be all in. When you are internally free, you don't need to control everyone around you. You can lead with confidence instead of fear. Children don't just hear our words, they absorb our emotional state. I think it was Max that said, more important than what you say is how you show up for your children, and I agree. If we're trapped by perfectionism, people pleasing, fear of failure, they learn those patterns too. When they see a parent who apologizes, who learns, who laughs, who rests, who stays true to their values, they learn what freedom looks like. One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is permission to become themselves because we have given ourselves that same permission. Real love is not about controlling another person in a relationship. It's creating enough emotional safety that both people can grow. There is nothing to hide. Freedom in a relationship means I don't need you to become someone else for me to be okay. I'm free to communicate who I am. I'm free to have healthy boundaries and take care of myself. I am free to love you 100% without losing myself. That's where real intimacy grows. Every person who experiences greater inner freedom becomes someone who brings more peace into conversations, into workplaces, into neighborhoods, and into the communities. Freedom is contagious. So is fear. Every interaction is your opportunity to spread one or spread the other. Sometimes we think freedom means no responsibilities. I found the opposite to be true. The freer I become on the inside, the more intentionally I show up for my responsibilities, actually. I become better at parenting because I'm not parenting from fear. I become a better partner because I'm not loving from insecurity. Better leaders are easy to become when we're not leading from the ego, and it feels better to be that kind of leader. It's like a relief. Better business owners become better because they're no longer trying to prove their worth. Inner freedom doesn't take us away from our lives, it transforms the way we live them. Freedom isn't just a gift that you give yourself. It's a gift you give everyone whose lives you touch. In our business, when we're no longer trying to prove our worth, we build businesses that reflect our values instead of our fears. We stop comparing ourselves to everyone else. We stop saying yes when our hearts are really saying no. We attract clients who resonate with authenticity. Authenticity is what we are offering. The best leaders don't control people. They actually create environments where people feel safe enough to contribute, to innovate, to ask questions and grow. When we're internally free, we lead with confidence instead of fear. Children absorb far more than our words. They pick up on how we handle disappointment. They are taking notes on how we respond to stress, whether we believe or enough. When we model self-awareness, healthy boundaries, curiosity, authenticity, alignment, we are quietly giving our kids permission to become that too. That may be one of the greatest gifts we can give them. Real love is not about control. I have been with my husband for over 40 years, and we have been all kinds of people in that relationship with each other, and we love each other. Things are probably better now than they actually have ever been. Real love is not about control. It's about creating enough emotional safety that both of us can continue growing. Freedom in relationships means that we can communicate honestly, we can have healthy boundaries, and we can love each other all the way without losing ourselves. Every person who becomes more internally free becomes someone who brings more peace into conversations, into their workplace, into neighborhoods, and into communities. Freedom spreads. Many of us spend years chasing freedom through achievement. If I make more money, if I lose the weight, if I find the right relationship, if my business succeeds, those things definitely enrich our lives, but none of them guarantees the freedom that inner peace gives you. The healthiest goal is not choosing between external success and internal freedom, it is creating both. External freedom gives us choices, inner freedom determines how we use those choices.
Questions To Find Your Freedom
SPEAKER_00So you might ask yourself, where do I feel most free? What steals my freedom? What beliefs do I have that I really have outgrown in who am I trying to please here? What would I do if fear wasn't making my decisions today? What would my life look like if I decided I was free? What if I really gave myself permission to want more, to take up space, and to change things? What does freedom feel like in my body? And where am I confusing comfort with freedom? And that's a big one. Sometimes when we're comfortable, we think that's freedom, and sometimes it is, and sometimes it is not. Tomorrow in America, there's going to be fireworks. Fireworks are beautiful. I love them. I'm really looking forward to seeing them this year. They're loud and they're exciting and they're colorful, and they just remind me of the spark, the spark of life and the potential that we all have. But they only last minutes. Real freedom is quieter. It doesn't explode. Real freedom expands. It's like the quiet confidence of waking up and realizing I can just be who I am and I don't need permission. In that sense, freedom is not the starting point. It's actually the natural outcome of living a life that's in congruence with your deepest values and your authentic self.
Quiet Freedom And Daily Choices
SPEAKER_00So as we close this episode today, I want to leave you with one thought. Freedom is not a destination that we're someday going to arrive at. It's choices that we make moment by moment. Every time we choose courage over fear, every time we choose presence over performance, every single time we choose our authenticity over approval, love over control, we become more free. As we become freer, the people around us begin to feel that freedom too. There's a ripple effect that goes on here. Our families become stronger, our businesses become more aligned and they flourish. Our relationships become healthier, our communities become more compassionate. It's a big ripple effect of leading life from the inside out. So if you're in America and you're celebrating the 4th of July, and if you're not in the US, either way, I hope you'll take a moment to appreciate not only the freedoms we've been blessed with, but the freedom we have each day to choose your thoughts, your attitude, your values, your next step. There are people living in countries with great conflict right now. There are people living in war zones right now. They still have, to an extent, the freedom to choose their thoughts. So no matter where you've been or what you're carrying, there is always hope, there is always possibility, and there is always another choice. You always have the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to lead with integrity, the freedom to build businesses that reflect your values, the freedom to raise emotionally healthy children, the freedom to love without losing yourself, and the freedom to choose hope instead of fear. Maybe the greatest act of freedom is not about changing where we live or what we do. Sometimes it can be a part of it, but it doesn't have to be. Maybe it's having the courage to stop abandoning ourselves because every single time we choose to honor our values, to speak our truth with kindness, to live in alignment with our higher selves and live in alignment with who we are created to be. We don't just transform our lives. We give everyone around us permission to do the same. Awareness leads to choice. Choice leads to alignment. Alignment leads to freedom, and freedom allows us to serve others more fully. So happy Fourth of July. May you celebrate the freedoms that we've inherited, honor those who made them possible, and discover that the deeper freedom that begins with your own heart is always there. Thank you so much for spending time with me.
Coaching Invite And Share The Show
SPEAKER_00If this episode spoke to your heart or if you want to explore this further, I would love to have a conversation with you, and I do have some coaching spots open for the summer. Please share this episode with someone else who could use a little more freedom in their life. And if you haven't already, I'd be very honored if you would follow this podcast. Please leave a review, give me some feedback, and help me spread messages of hope and healing and transformation to even more people. Until next time, live with intention, lead with love, choose freedom, and remember, transform your life. Just count me in.