Freedom isn’t a place. I had to learn that the hard way.
I moved to Mexico looking for freedom. It took me months to realize I'd had it backwards.
When people find out we moved from Canada to Puerto Vallarta, they usually say one of two things.
Either: “Oh my God, I’m so jealous.”
Or: “Aren’t you scared?”
Both reactions tell me the same thin…that most people think of freedom as a location. A destination you arrive at. A postcard. A life where everything finally looks the way you always imagined it would.
I used to think that too.
Then we actually moved. I realized that the version of freedom I thought I was chasing — the one that lived somewhere warm and foreign — was never really what I needed. What I needed was already inside me. I just hadn’t let it out yet.
Here’s what I mean.
The first few months in Mexico, I kept waiting to feel free. We had the ocean. We had the weather. We had finally done the thing everyone said was crazy. So why did I still feel like the same person, carrying the same worries, running the same mental loops I’d always run?
Freedom isn’t about where you live. It’s about how you think.
The real shift happened when I stopped trying to control things that weren’t mine to control. This sounds simple. It is not simple. I grew up in a culture that rewards vigilance; someone’s music is too loud, say something; a neighbor isn’t following the rules, report it; someone is doing something you disagree with, make it your business. That’s just how things work.
Mexico doesn’t work that way. There’s a quiet understanding here: you do your thing, I’ll do mine. Children play in ways that would send North American parents into a panic. Dogs wander. People build and cook and operate with a kind of freedom that looks, from the outside, like chaos. It’s not chaos, though. It’s just trust — trust that adults can make their own choices and live with the consequences. If you’re curious what daily life here actually looks like, 3 Years in Puerto Vallarta: What I’ve Learned (and What I Wish I Knew) gets into all of it.
What I had to unlearn was the habit of caring about things that were never mine to carry. That's harder than it sounds when you've spent decades in a culture that treats vigilance as a virtue.
The other shift was even harder.
I had to look at what was actually stopping me — not the logistics, not the money, not Scott’s opinion or my parents’ worry or the fact that I didn’t have a proven roadmap. What was really in the way?
Me. My own beliefs about what was possible for someone like me, at this stage of life, with this background, starting from this place.
There’s a story about baby elephants that I keep coming back to. When they’re young, they’re tied to a stake. They pull and pull and can’t break free, so eventually they stop trying. When they grow into these enormous, powerful animals that could snap that stake without a second thought, they don’t even try. They’ve already decided they can’t.
That was me for a long time. Not because my life was terrible — it wasn’t. Over many years, I had quietly accepted a smaller version of what I thought was available to me. If that resonates, Why Fear, Not Laziness, Keeps You From Starting Your Online Business is worth a read — it goes deeper into exactly this.
The moment I started questioning that, everything shifted.
Not because I suddenly had more money or more time or fewer responsibilities. Nothing changed on the outside. What changed was the story I was telling myself about what I was allowed to want. That internal shift is actually at the heart of The New Freedom — the idea that a different kind of life starts long before you change your circumstances.
That’s the freedom that actually matters. Not the latitude and longitude. Not the passport stamps. Not the aesthetics of a life that photographs well.
The freedom to think clearly, act honestly, and stop waiting for someone to hand you permission to live the way you’ve always known you should be living.
You don’t need to move to Mexico to find it. Though if you want to, I highly recommend it. Here’s what actually made us choose Puerto Vallarta over everywhere else — and why we’ve never looked back.
What you do need is the willingness to look at the stake you’ve been tied to — and realize it stopped holding you a long time ago.
Until next time, Tania
If this landed for you, forward it to someone who needs to hear it. Ready to start building a life on your own terms — income included? The Exit Plan is a good place to begin. Grab it free at freedomuncovered.net.