Exploring Freedom Throughout Being: Maskenarbeit als Methode Elicitiver Friedens- und Konflikttransformation
Through my research, I combined philosophy, psychology and peace studies to explore my research question: How can inner freedom be fostered through exploring the self? I arrived at this question as I have sought freedom in many ways throughout my life, and though I seemed outwardly free, I have felt inwardly constricted. Therefore, I wanted to research how freedom can be found within. I did this through a combination of exploring the literature on freedom as well as a personal autoethnographic account for how I have experienced freedom through the different ways of knowing.
In exploring freedom from within, I studied the different perspectives of the self in humanistic and transpersonal psychology and peace studies. Bringing this together with the philosophical discourse, and my personal experiences with freedom, through the different ways of knowing, I portrayed a transrational view of freedom. This is a freedom of acknowledging the many different freedoms and gaining awareness of the self. Hereby, connecting the self to how I feel free, and the freedoms found in the exploration of the self.
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This research transformed me in many ways, and though it has been challenging to go through, with many up’s and down’s, I have gained a better understanding for how embracing the many aspects within myself can foster an immense freedom within and throughout my being. With that said, it is also a constant process to be worked on, and not an endpoint to reach. This is why, though my thesis is done, the process of finding and working on freedom within, is a continuous journey.