Your Own Independence Day

It’s the most brilliant time of year—summer!

Happy Independence Day.                                                                                        

Not just to those in the U.S.—but to those around the world.

Ever wish to declare a day marking the beginning of your own freedom? To draw a boundary between you and something or someone in life that is dragging you down?

Perhaps you need to draw such a boundary even with yourself.

Imagine this: Hosting your own Tea Party, rejecting outright a grip that someone or something has over you. And then showing your consternation visibly and forcibly.

(We actually just hit the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party in December 2023.)

Who would you diss in your own tea party?

What do you want independence from?

As parents know, when children age, they start to push us away, creating emotional and psychological distance to find their own space. They begin to reject parents’ opinions and suggestions, wanting to do it on their own. 

My son would say to me again and again, “I’ve got this, Mom.” 

(And I would think, “But do you really?”)

Regardless what I thought, a fierce part of him was ready to create some distance. Ready to make his own decisions. Ready to declare his independence. 

Sometimes, we need that distance from other people.

But sometimes, we need it from ourselves.

What part of you might you like to separate from? 

Who in you are you kinda sick of?

What part would you like to challenge and say, “I’ve got this! Stop getting in my way! Stop telling me what I can’t do!”?

David Whyte, poet and leadership consultant, was recently interviewed on the Coaches Risingpodcast. Whyte said we find change only when we get tired of ourselves. 

“We cross a threshold,” Whyte said, “and life just doesn’t make sense on the other side anymore.”

I’ve had that happen before. When I arrived at the threshold of being ready to leave a job. Or when I became sick of a dysfunctional relationship. Or when I discovered I was actually tired of how I was managing those very things myself.

Whyte suggests that in order to identify where we might be exhausting ourselves, we can ask, “What conversation am I having that needs to stop right now?” 

Any areas of your life where even you are tired of your own complaints? 

What old stories about yourself and your limitations are boring even you?

These areas are good places to declare our own independence.

Whyte does point out, however, that this process is a bit mucky (think of how messy it was when they dumped all that tea into Boston Harbor!). He said that in great moments of change and transformation, we are molting. Just like animals shedding their skin, we are not the most attractive when we are shedding our old selves.

Ever see a penguin when it is molting? 

They look horrifying. 

It's even known as “catastrophic molt.”

But once their feathers drop away, their penguin bodies are newly sleek and re-weatherproofed, and they are ready to dive in after life once again.

The thing about molting is that penguins generally do it every year. 

We as humans need to also.

We, too, are in a constant state of evolution. So we also need to keep pushing for change, challenging ourselves to step out, shed those feathers, move forward, and rock on.

Reportedly, after the tea was dumped during the Boston Tea party, John Adams wrote in his diary “This is the most magnificent movement of all. I can’t but consider it as an epocha in history.”

Pour yourself a cup of tea and get ready for your own epocha in history.

Happy Independence Day to the new you.

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