Freedom Slips In
By: Anna Poplawski, LSW
Our values, hopes, symptoms, and styles of relating are all products of where we came from and our past experiences. In short, who we are is the result of a series of responses to our environment over time. We have limited control over the context we are navigating and being shaped by, especially as children. Yet our individuality is the piece of us that is able to creatively choose how we relate to the conditions of our lives. The questions, expectations, and struggles the world throws at us are both constraints and prompts for invention. We are all born to people who have preconceived ideas of who we will be. We inherit family histories, cultural and political backgrounds that can be both enriching and limiting, as well as certain genetic factors. We are given names, which can be blessings that connect us to loved ones or unwelcome assumptions about who we will become.
There is so much that determines us before we are even able to speak. Beyond that, many of the clients I work with have experienced additional wounds to their sense of autonomy and choice in diverse ways: families who reject their queerness, abusive and controlling relationships, and incarceration. We are situated within, produced by, and subject to factors and other people outside our sphere of influence. This can be a beautiful, enlivening thing, but how do we find our sense of singular purpose and desire when we are contending with oppressive social systems and people who make us feel powerless? Psychotherapy can be one way to wade through everything that feels painful and burdensome to find what is unique, free, and unexpected in ourselves. A nonjudgmental space where the only rule is that you say everything that is on your mind without censorship can transform our relationship to ourselves and the world. With time, some of the symptoms we developed to solve old problems and find internal balance don’t feel so necessary anymore and we can let go.
Sometimes, mistakes offer clues to inner conflicts, wishes, or feelings we are not consciously aware of. A therapist can help us explore why we keep repeating patterns we would rather break. Maybe the slip is truly nonsense, but maybe it is a message worth listening to, because we often suppress thoughts that we identify as offensive or disappointing to the people we love. This is an understandable strategy, but bringing repressed wishes to the surface gives us the power of choice rather than automatic response. When we ignore signals in ourselves, they often come out sideways.
For example, if a client keeps forgetting her house keys, I might ask if there is any reason she does not want to go home. I won’t and can’t tell her the reason, because only she knows, and it is important that she directs the exhilarating process of making meaning of her own life. My role is to point out echoes, contradictions, and ruptures where new language and meaning might come in. By tuning in to the parts of ourselves that are speaking through mistakes and repetitions, we can (re)connect with a feeling of independence and agency. It takes courage to voice feelings that seem inconvenient or shameful. The reward is living with more freedom to pursue your singular desire in a world of constraints, without fear of what you may find in your own mind.