It is a deliverance of self to break free from serving a life that doesn’t give us an inner autonomy.

I recently experienced such a thing.

I delivered myself to myself, finally.

What that entails cannot be explained in simple terms.

It is a form of redemption that can only reign after we overstay our old worlds.

In pain. In deep sorrow.

Deep relentless inner captivity and outer servitude.

Oh friend, the hardest thing to know is that we can’t let ourselves out because most of us don’t know we are in captivity.

Until we feel a type of anguish that has no specific ache but comes over routinely and not triggered by actual events. A constant nag.

At first you can prolong your life in captivity without it getting in the way of your servitude.

But the longer the anguish takes place the more you start to look for the open windows.

You start to question some of your long term decisions about your life.

I learned that starting with those may feel like torture but they do provide a shortcut to your freedom deliverance.

In the beginning, your life will darken.

The room you occupied starts to appear for what it really is; a waiting room in disguise.

You will consider unlocking the doors but that thought may as well look like a wild bear as it is frightening to even consider.

Unlocking the doors comes with a loudness that rings through the halls of your world.

When you start the unlocking, it won’t be undisclosed or concealed from everyone else.

Freeing yourself from the outdated choices of your life feels like running naked in front of everyone you know.

That very thought takes you from unlocking the covert operation to forgetting where the door even is. You go through a period of denying the truth of your servitude.

Going back to the subterranean life is better than what this feels like.

And for what, you think?

What are you really fighting for?

Your haven is a non local place with no form at this point.

You can’t point at it and go there.

It is a formless thought and a repetitive anguish in your heart that comes out of nowhere and stays until you fall asleep.

While at the same time your outdated world calls on you with all the responsibilities of the life that was built under different times, and different yous.

A very different you built the world you occupy today.

Right about now you start to realize why it doesn’t feel good anymore.

The daily torment comes from living in someone else’s house, with someone else’s wishes and dreams. Unlocking the front door and leaving means the whole town will wake up to see you run out without any of your belongings. No clothes. No money. No respect. No understanding. No empathy. No validation. No cheering. No nodding. Nothing.

It is you and your new naked self, like a fugitive. A drifter. With no place to go.

When you start to consider this option, know that you are getting ready for your escape.

At this stage you are approaching your breaking point.

You start to chew over the two options, obsessively.

Stay in perpetual anguish or become a naked drifter. 

When the naked drifter option starts to feel like not such a bad choice, you are probably in the worst emotional shape.

But one unexpected night, as if you were born to do this you unlock that loud door.

You wake everyone up with it as you step out of your old world ready for the life of a drifter.

Ready to sacrifice everything for your redemption.

But that’s it right here, the sacrifice is never as big as you think it will be.

There is a kind of bliss that your bones, your flesh, your being, your mind starts to feel pretty soon after the first mile or two in your journey.

You rejoice.

You go from a prisoner, to a drifter, to a divergent, to a place that has no locks.

Until it is time again for your next reentry.

Your next habitat.

But now you know, when that first daily anguish starts to set in, you are already late. Your old world has given birth to a new one, and the longer you stay back, the harder it is to run naked in the streets.

With many lives and even more reentries,

Christina

Christina Rasmussen is the creator and founder of The Life Reentry Institute, Second Firsts, and Star Letters, and the host of the Dear Life Podcast. Christina is on a crusade to help millions of people rebuild, reclaim, and relaunch their lives using the power of their own minds. Christina’s work has been featured on ABC News, NPR, The White House Blog, and MariaShriver.com. She is the bestselling author of Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again, which has also been translated in Chinese and German and just released her second book Where Did You Go on expanding the mind in ways that allows co-creation with the forces of the universe. She is also writing her first work of fiction: a science fiction story about a woman on a quest to start over and begin a new life. You can find more information on her website and follow her on FB or Twitter.

Image courtesy of Ben Mack.