One of the key values espoused by the Western world is freedom. Individualistic societies are designed to allow individuals for the greatest amount of autonomy in living their lives. Although this external freedom propels many of us to seek avenues and activities to explore who we are, it can sometimes distract us from pursuing true freedom – the one experienced in our mind or what I like to call “inner freedom.” Viktor Frankl, the holocaust survivor and psychologist who wrote the celebrated book Man’s Search for Meaning, famously said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” It is this freedom that excites me and one that I continue to explore through the work that I do.
So how are we trapped in our mind? Simply put, it is through conditioning. As we grow up, we adopt a way of being that allows us to function and survive in the world. By the time we reach mid-life, these set patterns get so strong that another way of being is almost incomprehensible to us. That is why it is so hard for people to change the older they get, whether they are go-getters, people-pleasers, caretakers, or whoever else they have come to be. The key to freeing the mind is to recognize our conditioning, uncover our unconscious, and become whole. Carl Jung calls this process individuation. It is only by going through individuation that one can become truly free. Going through the individuation process allows you to get to a point where you don’t have to be a certain way all the time. You can freely choose which quality to embody in what circumstance and how. And this choice is not made cognitively but driven by the expression of your soul.
Like all of us, I have been the product of my conditioning, whether it was through my family, the society and community I lived in, the institutions I attended, the books I read, and so on. Each important experience locked in a pattern that went something like this: If I do _________, I will survive. The blank typically entailed some sort of hard work whether it was at school or my job, some kind of social activity that made me feel wanted and loved, and, almost always, the deferment of current joy for the possibility of something better in the future. The latter has been the hardest to shake off. I continue to lean toward choices that trade short-term happiness for long-term happiness instinctively. I have to pause and ask myself – does it have to be this way? The answer is always no. Nothing ever always has to be a certain way. The rules are just a product of our conditioning and, for true freedom to exist, they must be malleable.
If you pause and reflect on your life, you may notice that these well-conditioned rules are at the heart of all your conflicts and troubles. They are sapping you of joy and making you unhappy. You may be conscious of them or have no idea that they exist. If you make your unconscious rules and ways of being conscious, that would be the first step toward true freedom. And then what, you may ask? It may be tempting and even encouraged in some circles to throw those rules out the window completely and do the opposite. The people pleaser is suddenly mean to everyone around them. The go-getter quits their job and becomes a recluse. Most recently, I saw a former colleague who presented as sweet, calm, and timid at work suddenly take on an extremely extroverted persona in the world. She went from politely agreeing with others to making WTF posts on social media and throwing F-bombs at former colleagues and companies. She essentially started applying the opposite rules of what she was living by. This is just as problematic. One is still rule-bound but now by a different rule.
True freedom is about realizing that you can choose your actions and reactions freely instead of resorting to prior conditioned patterns. It is the equivalent of your computer asking you “where do you want to save this file?” for every single file you download rather than automatically saving it in one place by default. This way of being where you don’t live life by default, no matter how common or rare your default may be, is truly energizing. If you feel exhausted or experience meaninglessness, it is likely because your default way of being is sucking up much of your energy and not serving you anymore. I invite you to introspect and identify the unconscious rules you have been operating by so you can find your spark again and experience true freedom.
