Freedom Is Not Given. It Is Remembered.

"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."

Viktor E. Frankl

There is a kind of power in the world that hides behind the mask of helplessness.

It does not shout or command, but it shapes and bends the will of others quietly, through emotion, through suffering, and through story.

Adlerian psychology teaches us something subtle but revolutionary: the victim—especially the one who clings to their victimhood—often holds the greatest power.

Consider a baby. Helpless, unable to speak, yet it commands the attention of the entire room. Its cries dictate the actions of those around it. In its helplessness, it rules the entire household.

But this dynamic doesn’t end with infancy.

Many individuals, communities—even entire cultures—come to organize their identity around pain. Around being done to. Around the idea that life has happened to us, rather than through us.

We see this clearly in the modern world.

For generations, the Palestinian identity has been shaped by themselves and by others as that of the eternal refugee - defined by displacement. Defined by helplessness. Refugees not only by circumstance, but by identity. Refugees in perpetuity. 

This identity, steeped in decades of pain, gathers sympathy and deflects accountability, all while consigning its people to a status of indentured disempowerment. And, while it is crucial to honor the profound suffering that has transpired, we must also ask: 

What power does this narrative serve, and more importantly at what cost?

But this dynamic is not just confined to geopolitics. Our geopolitical landscape is merely an outward reflection of our internal world. In one way or another, we shelter ourselves within narratives that actually keep us in exile - a self-imposed imprisonment from which we seldom seek escape.

We tell ourselves, “I am this way because I was never loved the way I needed to be;” “The world is unjust, and therefore I will never be - fill in the blank” These stories, however well-intentioned they may seem, become immutable identities that define us, stop us from evolving, and lock us into a perpetual state of victimhood preventing us from experiencing the vastness of the life that we are capable of living. 

If we were to embody Adler, we’d have to ask: For what purpose does this narrative serve? What does this story make possible for me —or prevent?

When helplessness becomes an identity, it becomes a tool: a way to garner sympathy, defer responsibility, and outsource our agency to others— to the West, to our parents, to our ex-wife or ex-husband, or to the past.

And tragically, these stories keep the very people they mean to protect, powerless.

While from the lens of Freud, from the lens of trauma, from the lens of cause and effect these sound like explanations, but more often they are justifications.

They sound like truth, but more often they are half-truths that “protect” us from change.  We call this the Etiology Trap—our addiction to cause-and-effect storytelling. The idea that our present is caused by our past. That our identity is a product of old wounds. That our anxiety, our anger, our fear is something that happens to us, not something we choose.

But what if our suffering isn’t caused by the past—what if it serves a purpose in the present?

What if we are anxious because it allows us to avoid risk?

What if we are helpless because it allows us to be cared for?

What if we are angry because it gives us power without vulnerability?

What if we are single because we’re so afraid of what it feels like to truly give ourselves over fully to love knowing that at some point we will lose it?

This isn’t blame. This is the beginning of freedom.

Because as long as we believe our pain is the inevitable result of our past, we are frozen in time.  

We live “as if” our interpretations are fact, as if they are truth—when really, they are just choices we’ve repeated often enough until we begin to believe it.

But here we are - on the precipice of Passover, my favorite holiday of all holidays, amongst all of the religions that I study.

In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim—the narrow place or narrow strait.

The place of constriction. The place where we are bound not by metal chains per se, but by the bondage of our stories. By the narrowness of our thoughts. By the narrowness of our identities. By our fears and limited thinking.

The Hebrew name for Passover is Pe-Sach, the mouth that speaks.

Not just the mouth that cries out in suffering—but the one that speaks truth.

Amid these conflicting narratives, there is a crucial idea that stands firm: there is only one truth—not the truth of yesterday, not my truth or your truth, but one singular truth that exists beyond our interpretations. Beyond our experiences, beyond our own subjectivity - which more often then not is the source of our own subjugation.

Often, we blur the lines of truth by attaching meaning to experiences that are, in their nature, meaningless—until we define them with our assumptions, our fears, our hopes, our own meanings. And in doing so, we construct a reality that is less about what truly is and more about the stories we tell ourselves.

Adler reminds us that our behaviors are not dictated by the immutable past, but serve a purpose in the present. We must recognize that while we assign meaning to events, those meanings are not inherent in the events themselves. They are sacred contracts we form with our selves, often perpetuating a state of limitation rather than opening us to the expansive freedom of possibility.

This is not an exercise in nihilism, but a call to reclaim the power of narrative. True liberation comes when we realize that the truth remains singular and unsullied by our projections. The stories, however captivating, are our creations—expressions of the words we choose to live by. We must be willing to question and, if need be, discard the tales that no longer serve our growth.

Passover is an opportunity to emancipate ourselves from causal thinking. To free ourselves from the bondage of our own minds. An opportunity to release the belief that our past is our fate. We step into the power of presence—the only place transformation can ever truly occur… because, well, there is only right here, right now.

Because freedom is not something that is given.

Freedom is something that is chosen.

Not once. But over and over again.  

So, if you have time to reflect over the next few days, I offer you this: 

• What is the story you tell yourself that has actually become the barrier to your transformation?

• What are examples of the way you have given meaning to certain events and/or experiences in your life that have kept you on this predetermined path? Meanings that have validated your current story?

• In other words, what fixed identity have you given yourself that has become the resistance to change?

I offer these questions because our stories become our identities. And our Identities? Our identities become our prisons. 

And the path to freedom? Responsibility. 

The willingness to choose courage over victimization. To choose action over narrative. To stop asking “Who is to blame for yesterday?” and start asking “What am I choosing today?”

Because each of us is both Pharaoh and Moses.

Each of us is both David and Goliath.

The Oppressed and the Oppressor. 

We are both the mouth that has been silenced—and the voice that can now speak.

The path is paved with courage. The Sea parted with faith.

The only thing keeping us in Egypt—is the belief that we’re still there.

Sending Love,

J

         PADHiA:  Gangsta Buddha, 2020