But, for so many of us as we age into freedom, it’s the process of defining what’s important. I know for me, I’ve gone from caring about being desired (physically) to being admired. From being interesting to being interested. From being youthful to being useful. From striving to thriving.
I’ve known Holly Stiel for decades as she was the grande dame – a young age – of hospitality training in San Francisco. I always looked up to her because she helped me to feel that the hospitality industry is a noble profession. But, as is true for anyone providing service year-round, it can also be a burnout.
Holly recently wrote me the following from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, “While washing dishes in the morning, I heard the word Freedom pop into my head, and it was starkly loud. It gave me physical shivers. I felt it course through my body. It was a knowing that freedom is available in this time in life in a way it has never been previously. Freedom from having to matter and make a difference, Freedom to not have to be someone people admire, and are inspired by. Freedom from pushing and striving and proving myself. A freedom from being successful in the big world. Freedom from feeling like I have to be someone special or important, from being someone other people clap for. All that pressure, to be replaced with a freedom to creatively express for no other reason, than I want to. The freedom to just be. Just like Marlo Thomas so jauntily taught us all.”
I know many of you feel estranged from freedom. I felt that in my late 40s when someone asked me, “Chip, why did you start your boutique hotel company more than two decades ago?” And, I answered that it was creativity and freedom that drew me, but – suffering through the Great Recession trying to make payroll for 3,500 employees while tending to my adult foster son who was in trouble with the law, I didn’t feel much freedom any more. And, then, I had an NDE and died nine times in 90 minutes which gave me the ultimate feeling of freedom. And, I changed my life as a result and welcome freedom back into my life.
How could you curate your life to offer a sprinkling of freedom more often?
-Chip
P.S. For those of you who’d like to do a weekend workshop with me in California, the Southeast, or the Northeast, here are a few options (some of these may be sold out soon):
April 11-13 at the Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California
April 25-27 at the 1440 Retreat Center, Santa Cruz Mountains, California
June 13-15 at The Art of Living Retreat Center, Boone, North Carolina
July 11-13 at the Omega Institute, Rhineback, New York