Healthy Independence Will Make You Live Free

Women should all strive for healthy independence in our lives because it gives us many other freedoms that collectively can create a successful, fulfilling life.

Here are four of those freedoms and how they can affect your life:

1. External Influences - Becoming free from external influences allows you to make your own decisions and happily own the outcomes. When you have healthy self-esteem, you will rely on yourself for decisions and choices. You will not look externally for validation, and you will not constantly second-guess yourself. You will have an intelligent basis for your preferences, and you will not bend to culture, society, religion, or background. You will be able to think for yourself in all situations.
2. Internal Reactions - You are not emotionally reactive when free from internal reactions. You have reasoned reactions to situations rather than knee-jerk emotional reactions. You think about things. You weigh options, benefits, and drawbacks. You educate yourself to make good decisions. And you will direct your life in such a way that you will experience happiness instead of regret.
3. The Past - Freedom from your past is one of the important choices you can experience. So many women live in the past as if they can change it. Nothing past can be changed, ever. The one thing we can do is step forward, with learned lessons concerning what to do and not do, what works and what does not. Focusing on past mistakes holds you hostage to those mistakes, even if you want to move forward. Instead of bringing your life in a new, healthy, positive direction, you get stuck in the errors. The past must be put in the past. The lessons learned are internalized and used to make smarter decisions in the future.
4. Love - The freedom to love completely can help you heal from the inside out. Learn to love unconditionally, and then love those you might most want to dislike. Permit yourself to feel compassion, patience, peace, and passion. Understand to let go of drama, negativity, and other things that you think hold you back. Letting yourself love completely gives others what they need. Letting yourself be loved completely will enable you to get what you desire.

Those with a healthy sense of independence can give without feeling used up or taken advantage of their generosity. They can respond happily to the needs of others and are a source of tremendous positive energy to those who know them.