Recently a friend of mine was speaking about her experiences of being at home with her six small children.

The challenge to be mother, nurse, counsellor, teacher, cook, cleaner all in one day was hitting her forcibly. She was beginning to feel that she was slowly becoming locked into an endless assault of activity and stress.

Then one evening at the end of a long week, her youngest daughter of 4 years hugged her tightly before going to bed and said very emphatically ‘you are the bestest mother ever.’ Shortly after this my friend discovered on her bedside locker a little parcel wrapped beautifully with a chocolate sweet inside, and written neatly on a card was, ‘Thank You Mum, we love you.’

Innocent and small gestures of gratitude. And yet the reaction of my friend was striking,  ‘ yes, it was worth it all, she said later on, as we sipped a glass of wine in her garden,  ‘ The joy of seeing my kids happy and content, and knowing I must be doing the right thing, somehow frees me up from all that bitter stuff that was beginning to brew up inside.’

When I was a student in college my ideas on freedom and love were very different. For me freedom meant travelling to many places, and meeting tons of different kinds of people, it meant doing as many exciting things as I could. With the advent of work, and assuming a responsible job all that changed quite a bit.

And certainly, as I got a tad older - and hopefully a bit more mature- my thoughts on freedom also changed.

I learned that freedom no longer had to mean doing everything I could, or living life to the full in an unrealistic way.

I began to understand that a sense of freedom could come from doing a job well - in my case teaching - and being satisfied that others can benefit from that job. In fact, my freedom expanded as I journeyed through the adventure of engaging with English Literature in the company of young teenagers. It was an experience that helped me understand the close relationship between freedom and love. Just like my friend- burdened with a tsunami of tasks- had been set  free from the prison of her mind, by seeing the gratitude and love in her small children, I too felt liberated by the experience of wanting the best for these young people, and loving them for  who they were.

Little by little I was coming to the realisation that freedom is hard to grasp. It took me many years to absorb its power and implications in my life.  Eventually I understood the fact that we are always free. And if we can embed this idea in our minds, our lives can be so different, or at least our attitudes to the things in our lives can change us so radically. We begin to look at all the failure and defeat, and even negativity in our lives in a different way.

I think it was Gandhi who once said that freedom is not worth having if it doesn’t include the freedom to make mistakes.

Let’s live our lives without the imprisoning sense of fear that can stifle and paralyse us. Fear of failure. Fear of the future. Fear of what other people think etc. 

Take the situation of Victor Frankl the Austrian psychiatrist who was in Auschwitz for many years, having lost a lot of the things that were important to him in life, his family, his profession, and his freedom.   And yet this man managed to move beyond the tremendous humiliating circumstances of his position and survive. How did he do this? Through love and through using his capacity for freedom on the inside.

As he writes in his small book Man’s Search for Meaning he began to think about his wife in moments when he was tempted to give up all hope,  and he decided to look forward to the day when he would be reunited with her in the future. This sustained him through a great deal of trauma which could otherwise have broken him. Memories of her look and her smile led him to the conclusion that ‘man’s salvation is through love and in love.’

These days of lock-down we are surrounded by those that we love (we cannot get away from them!) Is freedom not also an acceptance of each other, warts and all? After all it is our love for others and their limitations that gives us courage to be ourselves and their love for us with our share of limitations that is a source of strength for us in moments of self-doubt. 

That’s a lot easier said than done. Having had two parents who were perfectionists in their own ways I needed to discover this right to be myself with all my mistakes and my limitations. I needed to let go of who I thought I was supposed to be and embrace who I was and am. 

We can help each other to discover this great freedom.