Transformation Is Not Liberation

Or, is it?
(artwork by Dan Rosenhagen)

Housework has become a mecca for epiphanies. Yesterday, folding clothes and putting them away, I wondered, have I spent years confusing transformation for liberation? Is the awareness of what fuels my growth more important than growth itself?

My desire to "be a better person" has created so much self-sabotage, painful distortions and creative contortions. At the time, I thought all of this flexibility and self-denial was making me more spiritual. Now, looking back, only a small percentage of what I did actually helped liberate me.

As I finished putting my clothes away, I felt the physical exhaustion from the false ways I've contorted and distorted myself in the name of transformation. How do I stay connected to my authentic desire for freedom? How do I resist the social pressures that taps into my desire to be a better human being but don't have any consciousness of my unique being and what it needs to free itself?

No matter how much skin-deep transformation I might have done in the past, I am humbled by the potency of my desire to be free.