One of the greatest feelings on earth is freedom.
The feeling that you have all the space
that you need to be yourself,
to grow, and be at peace.
Many of us experience this sense of
freedom as kids, and then the older we
get and the more responsibilities we have,
we start to feel much less free.
Freedom can start to be something that we only experience on vacation,
or for brief moments in the morning
before we start our day.
But it doesn't have to be like that.
If you've been feeling weighed down by life,
then this video is for you.
I'm Asia Suler of One WIllow Apothecaries,
and this video is a guide to
help you feel free again.
Freedom is our natural way of being—
this is why it feels so good when we feel free.
Every other being on Earth
has that sense and that feeling of freedom inside
of themselves. This is why it can feel so
healing to be in nature or spend time
with an animal companion.
It's heartening for me to remember
that freedom is the natural state of the world,
and a natural state of being,
because it means that for—as weighed down
as we can feel, that sense of freedom
is just a step away.
Even though we've "grown up,"
we still have the ability to be a child in this world.
We are the earth's children.
And so there are some simple things you can do to feel
that freedom again, of being young at heart.
The very first thing is to spend
unstructured time in nature.
Now, many of us like things like hiking
or wildcrafting herbs and that's beautiful,
but it tends to be going out in nature with
a purpose—it's just another way to have a checklist
sometimes. So if you really want to feel free,
get yourself out in nature without
any plan whatsoever.
I like to call this "the medicine of rambling."
I am a notorious rambler.
It can be hard sometimes for people to hike with me
because I get side-tracked, I want to veer off—
go off the path—look at a certain tree,
sit with a certain rock, but if you think about it,
this is how you operated as a kid.
You weren't trying to go from Point A. to Point B.,
you were just trying to experience the
world. And you let yourself slow down enough
to see the delights that are there.
As an adult now, one of the things that you can
do, is schedule this time for yourself to take
time in nature, and then once you're there,
just let go. Explore. See
what calls you in. It's amazing
how much our sense of time can change,
when we let go of our agendas.
Notice how when you're in nature, too, how all the other
beings feel around you.
Literally hug a tree, or put your feet in a small stream,
or hold a rock. What is their sense
of freedom. How do they feel about existence?
I promise you that there's so much medicine
in tuning into the freedom that is all around you.
The second tip to feel freedom
again in your life is to turn off all
clocks—so that includes computers,
and phones, as well as watches.
So time as we know it, it's a construct.
Right? Time is always shifting, the length
of the day is shifting, our experience
of a minute can be really different.
Think about how long a minute feels when you are
doing pushes, or holding a plank, versus how long a minute
feels when you're scrolling on social media—
totally different, right?
So when we take the factor out
of being able to see time, we actually
unchain ourself from time, we unchain
ourselves from the to-do list, and we,
instead, can just experience reality
as our body is perceiving it.
So one of my closest friends
observes an orthodox shabbat every single week
and she has really inspired me to try this
by starting to turn off my clocks at
sundown on one day, and leaving them off
until sundown the next.
I often do this on one of the weekend days
when I'm a little bit more free with my time
and I can let go of my work
and it's amazing to see how
much my perspective of reality
shifts when I don't have a clock to look at to
know what time it is—
all I can go off is my body's time, my body's rhythms
and the rhythms of the world around me.
Not only does it make moments so much richer,
but it slows me down into this sense
of complete spaciousness.
So if you're feeling any sense of being
constricted by life right now, if you're
sensing that you need more freedom,
try turning off the clocks for a day,
and it can be incredible how much will shift.
The last freedom practice is
to learn about one wild edible
that's growing near you.
I think part of why we struggle
with feeling freedom is because we live
in a capitalistic society,
where our time literally means money
and where we need money to take care of our basic needs.
That's stressful. That's something that inherently
keeps upon us a sense of being constricted.
So when you learn something like one
one wild edible, or one medicine that's growing in
your garden, as growing as a weed in your
neighborhood, you start to
unchain yourself from the shackles
of capitalism, and materialism—
to see that truly everything we need
to survive, is here around us.
True freedom is knowing that you're taken care of,
that you have the space to be yourself,
and that the elements that make our life possible
don't require us to fit ourselves into
a box, or deny our body's natural way of functioning,
or taking pleasure in existence.
It's amazing how just finding one
herb to interact with—knowing that
you can nibble on that herb when you're hungry, or
collect it when you need medicine—how that can
really help us create this sense of being so free.
Human beings are meant to feel free.
And the natural world is here to help us remember
just how free we truly are.
I know when I first started studying herbalism
one of the most incredible side-effects
was realizing that I am so much more free than I think.
And it's been so amazing to
see, how that sense of freedom has only grown
the more I've learned.
So if you're interested in deepening your
herbal knowledge, definitely check out
my online catalogue of classes.
Each class is a deep dive into a particular
topic, and the plants that can help support you along the way.
Plants are so good at helping us to
connect into this essential state of freedom.
They know exactly
what it means to be free in this world and
they will show you.
Once you're on my website, you can also
sign up to become a part of the inner circle.
Once there, I will send these videos directly to your
inbox, as well as bi-monthly missives
that can help you open the portal to
connect into the world around you and
to the nature that surrounds you and your home.
And so now I'd love to hear from you,
what is it that's helping you feel freer in your life?
I think when we take a moment to share with each other,
we can often realize that the freedom
that feels so far away is
so much closer than we think.
So thank you so much for watching,
and maybe I'll see you out wandering on the trail.