Episode 19: The price for freedom, especially in relationships and love

It's been a hectic summer and after a short summer break, I am back! I meant to post this episode around the 4th of July, but the stories are still relevant. The US sought independence from the British (ignore the mistake on the audio where I said the French... I was clearly distracted), the #FreeBritney movement is still strong and she is finally making headway, and my story of how a disastrous divorce left me wondering if there was a price for my freedom - and how much was I going to be willing to pay.

Blog:

https://www.feistymermaids.com/post/stop-trying-to-please-everyone

Website:

https://www.feistymermaids.com/

@FeistyMermaids on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube an TikTok

About Feisty Mermaids:

Mermaids embody the qualities we hold inside and are sometimes too afraid to show. They are feminine, brave, adventurous, sensual and have uncanny wisdom and intuition. Feisty Mermaids is a podcast and blog with stories of inspiration, relationships and community. Vanessa May shares her journey and those of her featured guests, in hopes you will feel inspired to take on the world even when you are too exhausted to find north.

Life is about lessons, belonging and authenticity. This mermaid lifestyle blog, podcast and mermaid leggings outfit clothing store is about knowing there is growth in every encounter, having the courage to live life on your own terms, creating a path where there isn't one, and knowing you are limitless.

Transcript

Hi everyone, It’s Vanessa May, host of Feisty Mermaids, this is a podcast where we explore topics to help you Unleash the Power of the mermaid within we talk about self-love relationships and the roadblocks which often stop us from being Limitless today I'm going to talk about independence and finding your freedom I think from time to time we have all felt trapped whether it's in a situation or a person or just in life in general so I'm going to talk about independence at the macro-level such as a country seeking Independence and then talked about a few celebrities that have made a media for fighting for some kind of Independence to get restore to them and then of course I'm going to share with you my story of Independence and the price that I had to pay to be free to live life on my own terms here on Feisty Mermaids.

so today is Independence Day in the United States it's the fourth of July so in about I don't know a couple hours or less you're going to start to see a lot of fireworks and people sitting all barbecues and really being the first year I want to see post-pandemic although there's still such a big issue with covid-19 people are really excited about commemorating this holiday the first time that people are really starting to gather they're vaccinated etcetera but the 4th of July date marks the Independence Day in the United States so you know this is not a History Podcast and I'm getting some of these facts from Wikipedia so you may want to go ahead and check them but in essence what happened is back in the 1707 words that came into what's now known as the United States established 13 colonies and for the most part they let a pretty autonomous life however the British began imposing a series of taxes like the Stamp Act of 1765 the Townshend Acts and the act the Tea Act of 1773 the most of us know what happened right the British ended up coming over and fighting in the American Revolutionary War it took place from 1775 to 1783 and we know the ending the Americans defeated the French and us the the United States was born after the signing of the Declaration of Independence it was humans we really value our independence we value that internal Freedom uniqueness originality to be who we want to be to dress how we want and this Independence gives us the ability to carry out important decisions about ourselves and it's also the try behind so many movements like feminism equal rights the end of slavery and it's all about having the opportunity to decide for ourselves and to be able to carve our own path in the future without anyone telling us how to do it so personal Independence actually boosts our confidence and their Reliance on others and it doesn't mean that you have to go through life alone or do everything by yourself it just means that you're in control of your decisions and the past that you want your life to take being constantly dependent on others will put a dent on yourself value and your self-esteem I was actually streaming through the TV the other day and I came across a little new snippet of Britney Spears and how she had her one of her first court appearance has in a long time where she actually made a plea to the court and for any of you that are Britney Spears fan I'm a huge fan of always been for a long time and the movement for free Britney has been really taking Center Stage if you remember it's been about 13 years since the courts actually appointed a conservatorship so in essence she doesn't necessarily have control over much in her life and some of those details are starting to come out which is kind of crazy and she all these years she's been forced to perform and put out records in to do all these different things that make a lot of money but in essence she has no control where that money goes and there were lots of people that are on his payroll and getting paid an exuberant amount of money so I'm really glad that the courts are starting to look at that but this is a move from artist a well-known performer that is trying to gain her independence back cut doesn't only happen when a country is trying to find our freedom from from an oppressor but it's also coming from a person an artist as I was looking through this I also remembered back to the artist Prince again I'm a huge fan of friends and I started to look back how he was fighting the record labels back in the days to gain ownership and artistic control over his music ultimately Prince had to change his name and he had to launch his own record label to be able to do this and he would often times for form during this time. With the word slave written across his cheek because he felt like he was a slave to his record company and he fought really hard to gain the independence and to have his own creative freedom over his work so as I've looked at this it's not only big important people that are trying to gain their independence I remember the time when I was looking to gain my own independence and my freedom and the price that I had to pay to get to the point all the way I was actually going through a divorce and I know I often talked about and then relationships and when relationships and the things that I went through the things that I have learned from these but I do feel that they have taught me so much so I was going through this divorce and we had decided that it was the best thing we were being pretty amicable up until that point and it was one morning I walked into the bathroom and we were discussing how do we proceed what do we need to do and we had both agreed up until this point that they would be no attorneys involved that we were going to try to do this on our own or maybe with the help of a mediator or something like that to keep things a little more amicable but of course whenever you're going through a relationship break up there are so many emotions that surround a situation and I think in this case my soon-to-be ex was very emotionally-charged just like I was and one of the things he said to me on this particular morning is you're the one that word doesn't want to be with me and it's going to cost you I remember up until this day the chills that those words to send up and down my spine and it was a very scary time thinking that my Independence that my freedom in essence was going to have a price tag associated with it as the weeks went on things got really tough and one day I called one of my friends and absolute 2 years I'm a first-generation immigrant no 4 through really hard to build not only my education but also myself to the point where I am now which is pretty financially stable again I'm not over-the-top right I am a middle-class person that works really hard and hustles on the side but in talking to my friend and talking about the financial hit that I was going to take with this divorce my friend actually asked me what is the price for your freedom what are you willing to pay for your freedom how badly do you want your happiness and I thought about it because I thought about the past that I wanted to build and the life that I wanted to build and where I wanted to go in my life I didn't know what happiness meant that I wanted to go out there and find it I wanted to go out there and Define it I thought about how I would have recovered financially and through the divorce I actually uncovered that there was an enormous amount of hitting debt that I knew nothing about and I was going to get stuck with part of that debt is just the way the laws are here in the United States and in particular and my state in Florida so I was very angry again as a first-generation immigrant I'd worked so hard to build everything I had and I was so scared that I was about to lose it all so I actually remembered a commencement our graduation address that was done quite a few years ago by the then CEO of Coca-Cola Brian Tyson and he was talking about how you should prioritize your commitments and he was actually talking about imagining that life is a game where you actually juggling balls up in the air 5 balls up in the air and you can name these balls whatever you want I can be you work Family Health friends your spirits one of them can be money whatever you want it to be and your job is to keep these balls up in the air because the really important ones are made of glass so you need to decide which of those balls or actually made of glass and which ones are actually made of rubber because the ones that you drop that are made of rubber are going to bounce back as you juggling them but the others that are actually made of glass the important

And you can name these balls whatever you want I can be you work Family Health friends your spirit one of them can be money whatever you want it to be and your job is to keep these balls up in the air because the really important ones are made of glass so you need to decide which of those balls are actually made of glass and which ones are actually made of rubber because the ones that you dropped that are made of rubber are going to bounce back as you juggling them but the others that are actually made of glass the important ones like your family your health your friends your spirit those if you drop them they're going to be broken they're going to be shattered or they're going to have a mark and Nick they're going to get damaged but something is going to happen to those glass balls if you drop them so you have to decide which ones do you keep on in the air and which ones do you just drop it's okay because they'll bounce back I had watched my parents lose everything when we lived in Mexico and I remember the stress that cost on our family of these stress that I cost on me and I too had lost everything during the financial crisis in the early 2000s but in this case I chose to make money a rubber ball and I knew that even if I dropped it even if the ball fell in this case because of the divorce he was going to bounce back the price for my Independence and my happiness was worth so much more than my spirit slowly wilting until I was no longer alive and there wasn't much left of me what good would I really be to my daughter if I stayed in an unhappy and miserable situation what was I going to be teaching her so I chose to go for my Independence I chose to go for my happiness and I love to hear from you and then you stories that you can share about gaining your Independence and your freedom on this Fourth of July as we celebrated in the United States you can reach me on social media @Feistymermaids on Instagram Facebook Twitter and YouTube and don't forget to visit and subscribe to my website for the latest blogs podcast and clothes at feistymermaids.com so for now I will leave you with this quote and it says you're strong enough to face it all even if it doesn't feel like it now I think that sums up when you're trying to figure Independence exactly how you feel so thank you for being here and I'll see you next time