March 20, 2025
Freedom Friday: You Won't Be Free Without Boundaries
Freedom depends not on unlimited choices but on clear boundaries that enable focused attention and meaningful progress.
• You cannot focus on something that isn't properly framed
• Like picture frames, boundaries help eliminate distractions and highlight what's important
• True freedom isn't chaotic—it's responsible, enjoyable and safe
• Struggling to focus often indicates a lack of proper boundaries
• Creating frameworks starts with documenting what has worked before
• Connect your personal frameworks to universal best practices
• Create visual representations of your boundaries for daily reference
• Progress depends on focus, which depends on proper framing
Continue to like, share, comment, and subscribe as we build this community together. Let's keep unlearning so we can experience more freedom.
Chapters
00:09 - Welcome to Freedom Friday
00:27 - Focus Requires Framing
01:52 - Boundaries Create Freedom
03:32 - How to Frame Your Focus
07:16 - Creating Visual Frameworks
09:55 - Closing and Podcast Information
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the unlearned podcast.
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I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where we come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free.
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So today is pretty simple, right?
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Here's what I've been unlearning lately that you can't focus on something or you won't focus on something that is not properly framed.
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I'll say again you will not focus on something that is not properly framed.
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Have you ever thought why people frame pictures?
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I was thinking about this the other day.
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Why do people frame pictures?
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And if you can see in your mind, if you have a picture in front of you and think, okay, if this is fine, and it's not that I can't see the picture, you can see the picture.
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But a frame helps you to focus in on the picture.
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It kind of it psychologically eliminates the other things that you could be focused on, the other things that might be around it, and it makes you focus in on it.
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If you, if you put a picture on the table with a bunch of other pictures, how am I going to distinguish that picture out?
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I have to put it in a frame, I have to outline it and distinguish it in order to focus on it.
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If you see, if you know there's a collage, if you have a collage of pictures and you and you begin to to to say, hey, I want you to look at that picture, I want you to focus in on that picture, but it's a collage, so it's all together.
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It'd be really, really hard to do that because you've got these other images that are in your mind.
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But a frame helps you to focus.
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And what I've had to unlearn recently is that when is that boundaries right?
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The boundaries that a frame gives right?
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The boundaries that a frame gives?
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The boundaries are what I have to.
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I had to unlearn that boundaries did not contribute to freedom.
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Boundaries give the freedom that you need to focus.
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If somebody says, focus on this picture and there are other pictures that it's bleeding into, I am going to have a really hard time doing that.
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If they give me a boundary on which to focus in on, I'm free to focus and I don't have to worry about the other images that are coming to my mind.
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Another way to think about this is on a highway, right, we are, we're driving, there are rules of the road, there are things that I don't have to think about or decide or make decisions on when I get onto the road, because they're already made for me.
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I'm free to focus because my it's all my focus is being framed because there's boundaries.
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I don't have to worry about running into somebody who's going the opposite direction of me as me, because you, you can only go one direction on my side of the road, right.
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So that is.
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That is an example of of a boundary, right, if there's a framework at play and it helps me to focus, it takes some thinking out, uh, for me to do.
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It's freedom.
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It's freedom Sometimes, and I know this concept of boundaries is freedom.
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I mean, this is something that a lot of us have definitely heard and maybe even embraced.
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But here's why I challenge you is asking yourself why is it hard for you to focus?
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Why are you struggling focusing?
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For whatever reason you're struggling with focusing, you can't.
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You seem to keep getting distracted, keep going here and there, and you know, you know this phone call and that email, and you know this, this event, this opportunity, and I don't know where I'm going.
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I don't know where I'm thinking.
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I, just I.
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You know my mind is going everywhere.
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I start this book.
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I put that down, I pick this book up.
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I never finished this book because this was interesting.
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And now I'm listening to this podcast and I'm listening to this song.
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I mean, it's just doing all this stuff.
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You got all these different options and you're having trouble focusing, and what I would challenge you to do is say where are my frames?
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Where have I put frames in my life?
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What have I really framed so that I can focus on?
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In other words, what boundaries have I put around the very thing that I say I want to focus on?
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If you want to focus on spending more time with your family, what boundaries have you put in place to do that?
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If you want to focus on getting a project done at work, what boundaries have you put around to do that?
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If you want to focus on a particular relationship more, what boundaries have you put around to do that?
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If you haven't framed, if you haven't begun to frame your boundaries, if you haven't done that, there's no way you can focus on it.
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How can you do it?
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You got 10 million other things that your brain and your eyes are moving to.
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There's all these other different images that you are being pulled into because you haven't yet framed your focus, so you're not free, and so it's like, okay, well, isn't it freedom to just be able to do what I want to do and think what I want to think and just kind of take things as they come?
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Is that not freedom?
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Well, sure, but it's also chaotic and, at its core, freedom is not chaos.
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At its core, freedom is really responsibility.
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Right, it is being responsible and being able to really max out a moment.
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Right, that's I mean.
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True freedom is not chaotic, true freedom is enjoyable, true freedom takes responsibility, and it is.
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It's an amazing feeling.
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You can't be, you can't be in chaos and be free because you can't be safe, and and and true freedom is safety and boundaries really help you.
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Framing around your focus helps you, to say, helps you to stay free, because you free, because it helps your mind to stay safe.
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So how do I do that?
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How do I do that?
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How do I create frames and frameworks around the thing I wanna focus on?
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So what?
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And this next part, I'm actually stealing from another podcast.
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It's called why that Works Donald Miller, he does StoryBrand.
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If you haven't heard him, look him up.
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Great content, great mind when it comes to storytelling.
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And so I took this from that.
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I'm not even gonna lie, I'm stealing this, but in the context that they're talking about, they're talking about how do you build your own framework.
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But in the context that they're talking about, they're talking about how do you build your own framework, and I kind of want to use that same idea to help you to figure out how do I build a frame around the thing I want to focus on.
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What are some good steps to do that?
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The first thing I want to just say around that is you probably already have these things.
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You probably already know what they are because you've done them before.
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You just have stopped doing them.
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They're not consistent, you aren't being disciplined in it.
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So a lot of this stuff isn't necessarily like you're not recreating the wheel, but you might want to just be thinking about what already, what already applies, and then then do these steps to make it, make it intentional.
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Okay.
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So the first thing is create like, what is the process?
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What is what does it take for you to spend more time with with your spouse?
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Let's just say that, right.
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Let's just say I want to focus on my relationship.
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It means I need to spend more time with my spouse.
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What is that going to take?
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Okay, so maybe it's going to take me coming home by five o'clock Okay, cool.
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What do I need to do to make that happen?
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If I need to be home by five o'clock, that means maybe I need to get to work by eight instead of nine.
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Give myself an extra hour.
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Maybe I need to not take as many, not, you know, cut my meeting times off at three if I just get back, you know.
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So you know doing things.
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What is it?
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What are the things that I need to do?
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What are the steps that have to take place in order for me to get where I want to get, and then write those things down.
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A good way to understand this is when did it work before?
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Maybe you've had times where you've spent time with your spouse and it was great, or you spent time with your kids it was great.
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Or when you were taking care of yourself physically right and and was working All right.
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What was it?
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What was it?
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Write it down.
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Write down what has worked.
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Write down the process that has worked in the past, that you don't necessarily have to recreate it.
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You've already done it.
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You just stopped doing it, so write it down.
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That becomes your boundaries.
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I'm going to make sure I'm home at five, which means I'm not going to take any meetings after three, which means that I might have to start work a little early.
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You know, I'm going to go ahead and put certain dates on the calendar that I'm going to ask for this time off, because I know that I need to be prepared for that.
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I'm going to do that now instead of waiting, waiting later and waiting last minute.
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Right, those are the things if they worked before, they'll work again, most likely and write them down.
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Just write them down.
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Make them your steps.
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Those are your rules, those are your boundaries.
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Write those things down.
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The second thing is you connect it to a best practice.
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This is interesting.
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We're talking about more of a personal kind of framing, but this could also be good for, like a universal framing.
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So, if you know, connecting it to a best practice.
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So it's not just about does it work for you, but does it work for a lot of people?
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And sometimes those things you can find them out there, right, there's all kinds.
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I won't even go through them, but Maslow's Hierarchy Needs is a great example of this.
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Right, it's based on a best practice and you know it works across the board, because it's talking about human nature at a very basic level.
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So that's an example of how to connect it to a best practice.
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Is it not just working for me, but does it work for other people?
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Does it work at a universal level?
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And the last thing is create some nice visual for yourself.
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So, if it's a bullet-pointed list, maybe it's a bullet pointed list, but maybe it's like a triangle or a circle or an actual, like you know, a square that looks like a picture frame, right?
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So, whatever that might be, create a visual that makes maybe it's a vision board or something like that.
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I'm not sure you can get creative but create a visual that outlines your process.
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Maybe it's a calendar.
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Create a visual that outlines your process and that makes it simple for you to go by, so you can take the creativity out of this thing, so that you can begin to frame it and you can focus on it, because your progress is going to be dependent on your focus and your focus is going to be dependent on how you frame it.
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You cannot focus on something that is not framed, and so I hope that's helpful on some level.
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It was helpful for me.
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I have started using this principle recently and I always already find myself being being a lot freer, being a lot more, a lot, a lot less stressed around figuring things out.
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It's like I don't want to wake up, it's just kind of try to figure everything out.
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That becomes very overwhelming.
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There are some things that I can already pre-think, pre-figure out, but then sometimes, even though I've done that, if I haven't written it down, if I haven't connected it to something bigger and if I haven't created some sort of visual for me to look at every day, then oftentimes I'll forget about it and I find myself being inconsistent and then thinking, oh shoot, I gotta do this again.
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And now I'm using energy to recreate something that I used to do, that I don't do anymore, that I know I need to do in order to make it, make it to the next step.
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So that's that's kind of how I've been using it recently and what some of the I've had to do some unlearning around it.
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But I hope that's helpful to you.
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And check out the podcast why that Works.
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It's a really good podcast.
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I think it's really really interesting and it breaks down a lot of these principles and I think it can be really helpful for those of us that are unlearning because you just have to.
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It's basically talking about unlocking the mindset of what works and what doesn't.
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All right, that's it, y'all.
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Thanks again.
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Continue to like and share and comment and subscribe, and let's keep building this community together Until next week, y'all.
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Let's keep unlearning so that we can experience more freedom, peace.
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Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.
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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.
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Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think.
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We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.
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See you then.
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