The other day, my friend Ryan was explaining the difference between autonomy and freedom to me.
I’d never really considered it before.
Having benefited greatly from his GMB Fitness trainings in physical autonomy I’d assumed I enjoyed them so much because I was a lover of freedom and autonomy was essentially the same thing.
Ryan explained that autonomy is about being able to make decisions and govern yourself based on your values, desires, and reasons. It’s about self-governance and personal authority over your actions.
In other words, autonomy is about you having skill, ability and strength of will.
Freedom, on the other hand, Ryan distinguished as the absence of constraints or external limitations on your actions. When you are free, you are able to act without restraint.
As I’ve contemplated this distinction that autonomy is about who is making the decision (you) and freedom is about whether you’re allowed to act without being hindered, I’ve begun to see why I couldn’t see it before.
It’s not that I was missing out on what might be a common distinction. It’s that I have worked tirelessly to dissolve that distinction for myself and everyone I meet.
The reality is that there are external limitations and constraints on us and this does, in fact, limit our freedom. However, the perspective I take on those constraints and limitations – that they are all my past and ongoing creation – moves the locus of power from outside of me to inside of me.
Did you know I was once arrested in a small town in New Hampshire? That’s a story for another time, but for now, just picture me in the sheriff’s jail cell at the police station where I can see the key to the jail door hanging on the wall over his desk.
This isn’t how it went down exactly, but as a metaphor, my taking the perspective that external limitations are my creation and my creation alone, is akin to that key floating off of the wall through the bars of the jail and into my hand.
It’s not that the bars of the jails in our life aren’t really there. They are. The circumstances are real and we are stuck inside of them.
But there is always a way out.
While my circumstances are the limiting factor on my freedom, with the right attitude they can always be changed or transcended.
It is for this reason that I have not distinguished personal autonomy from personal freedom. In fact, my autonomy—my ability to make decisions and govern myself—includes my ability to choose perspectives that change and transcend limitations.
It’s been said that ‘freedom isn’t free’.
In the same way that the physical autonomy Ryan is giving me through his slow and meditative movement practices takes months of challenging physical exertion, cultivating the psychospiritual autonomy to free myself from seemingly fixed external obstacles takes constant self-reflective effort that is often mentally exhausting and emotionally uncomfortable.
The reward though is a freedom that doesn’t know itself as distinct from autonomy. A freedom that lives at the center of your being and emanates out from you into the world, creating the possibility of liberation for everyone you meet.
The more free we are—the less constrained we are—the more we can grow into the wild beings we are meant to be. The wild and more beautiful beings that make the most beautiful world.
What constrains you at the moment? Where don’t you feel free?
Hit me back here and let me know, as I’d love to hear from you.
Loving us all, JPM
