Acceptance: Freedom Is Found from Within

"Freedom is found from within."

When I heard #JonathanVanNess say that in an episode of #QueerEye, something resonated deep within me. I work with students who frequently struggle with self-acceptance or even being accepted by family members and friends for a range of reasons. Adults sometimes struggle with the same thing, for a range of reasons; sometimes the lack of acceptance that we might have can paralyze us for years.

While I knew he was discussing with the hero of the week—a young man from Japan struggling with what he believed were his society's views about the LGBTQ community—the importance of feeling free enough to live your truth, Van Ness's words about freedom coming from within made me very still as I came to reflect about how we ourselves stifle our own growth and really, our own joy because we think we're "too much" or even "not enough" of one thing or another.

See, when we consider things from a mental health angle, the idea of freedom being found from within becomes so much more than just words that someone (regardless of how fabulous that someone is) has said. I'm not saying that people with mental health conditions need to simply work on personal freedom and things will be fine. There are mental health conditions that absolutely, without question, need medical support in order that the person with the condition can not only survive, but thrive.

However, when people with mental health conditions are constantly in a war with themselves to just get through the day, the idea of winning that battle against anxiety, depression, or whatever the mental health condition happens to be becomes incredibly appealing, and the mere idea of it is very freeing. Once that freedom occurs, the person can breathe again. The person can look at life with a new set of eyes and realize that it is possible to live their truth and be free—or at the very least, live comfortably with their condition.

Someone who is working through past trauma will also find a great deal of freedom in working through their process of healing, ultimately. Trauma from our pasts will definitely have an impact on who we become as adults, and certainly, what has happened to us effectively influences how we reach out and work and grow with others. It takes many years that feel like several lifetimes, but working through that healing process will lead to freedom. How? Simply put, once we start working through and fully processing the trauma, and the healing from it, our feelings revolving around the trauma start to ease—at least enough so that we can breathe.

There's a great deal of freedom that comes from healing from difficult pasts or from current trauma. Discovering the freedom that brings is life-changing, as one might expect. Once the freedom is found it's as though your life has truly become yours again. You could be living as a closeted member of the LGBTQ+ community; you could be struggling with any one of a number of physical and mental health conditions; you could be trying to leave a traumatic past behind.

Regardless of what your unique situation is, the fact of the matter is that there is no one who can help you find the personal freedom you seek from your demons—whether imposed on you by society or otherwise—but you. Once you discover the key to finding that freedom—and truthfully, how you find that freedom will vary from one person to the next—the realization that freedom comes from within and that you found your way to that freedom is incredibly powerful.