Freedom To vs. Freedom From
Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
I love this idea that we can be free without freeing ourselves. We can reach whatever representation of freedom we claimed as the epitome of freedom for ourselves, while also forgetting to claim ourselves as free.
What this means is that we continue to move in the same way we moved prior to reaching our desired freedom. We act, think, and speak about ourselves and the world in the same way we did when we sought freedom from something. But like Dr. Edith Eva Eger pointed out in her memoir, The Choice, we can't only be FREE FROM we must also be FREE TO:
"We're free from the death camps, but we also must be free to--free to create, to make a life , to choose. And until we find our freedom *to* we're just spinning around in the same endless darkness."
Our circumstances may evolve, our bodies may slither out of the cocoon it was once confined to, but our minds can remain glued in place. Freedom to means releasing our mind from confinement and allowing our entire being to dance the dance of life. We make freedom seem so simple and yet Black enslavement and its delayed and incremental dismantling demonstrates that freedom is not one action by the powers that be. Humans are born free from one another's control, which is represented by our individual consciousness. Our physical makeup, makes it so that four hands are better than one, but that two hands will get the job done just fine. We are designed to have the tools required to control ourselves after childhood. Making ownership a clear violation, a disregard for a person's soul.
What the incremental dismantling of Black enslavement in America demonstrated was that freedom from mandated free labor and abuse didn't mean freedom from prejudice or cruelty; fragments of that prejudice never dissipated with the illegality of slavery. But more important than the freedom from slavery is the freedom from the thinking that allowed it to flourish; the freedom from the mental stronghold of racism. The freedom from the validity of racism. Freedom from these ideas, allows the freedom to take a different approach. The freedom to choose fairness; the freedom to choose kindness and the freedom to do better than to disregard an entire population's individual spirit.
The physical freedom from things doesn't save us, it only updates our geography. The freedom to is what propels us forward by giving us the freedom to live and not merely to be alive. Dr. Scott Barry Kaufmann says, "It takes courage to grow." Finding the freedom to is an act of courage and growth. When I consider Holocaust survivors like Dr. Eger and survivors of American enslavement like Harriet Tubman, I am struck by the reminder that their freedom from enslavement was only one part of their story and not the particularly good part. Mental resiliency is the part that allowed them the freedom to make lives after their trauma experiences. It is what made growth possible.
The importance of freedom to is easiest communicated using examples of individuals who have experienced significant near-death trauma, but the freedom to even micro experiences of enlightenment and improvement is meaningful. We often seek freedom from everyday experiences like work. Constantly watching the clock to see when it'll click to the time that sounds an internal recess bell. We seek freedom from our homes sometimes when we've been cooped up for too long. We seek freedom from our mental ailments like depression, anxiety, ADHD, and all others. But once we're free from those things what then? When our depression loosens a bit, what are we free to do? When we leave work for the day what are we free to do?
I believe there's a lot of power in energizing our minds around being free to do and to be rather than focusing our thinking space on what we want to get away from. That is another benefit I have received from Dr. Egers and from Viktor Frankl, is this idea that thriving after hardship requires a shift in thinking because indignation doesn't nurture development. It doesn't allow space for growth. Thriving demands mental strength and mental strength demands we release our minds from a preoccupation with our experiences of suffering and freedom to live and prosper.
When we have trauma experiences they and the events that are a result of them become a part of our life course. We can't separate ourselves from the experiences that made us and we shouldn't try to. Acknowledging our traumas is necessary work for powering passed them. This, however, doesn't equate to a preoccupation with them. Overtime being engrossed in our own suffering, the ways in which we were wronged, transforms our narrative from one that could be self-controlled to one that is out of our control. Everything we are becomes about our suffering, about those we wronged us. While there is no debating that being treated poorly is the fault of the person who treated us that way, what we do next is up to us.
