During the Covid-19 pandemic many people have complained about the loss of the freedom to choose to do what they might have done in different times. I understand that frustration, but it causes me to reflect, not so much on the validity of lockdowns but on the value to our mental health of making positive choices. My experience as a Counsellor and Pastor is that even when we are not in lockdown, many people still feel the lack of freedom to make health promoting choices.
A person I was speaking to once said, “I feel like there is nothing in my adult life that has resulted from a choice I have made. I studied medicine in University because of the expectation of my parents that I would become a doctor like my grandmother. From the time of my graduation till now, my life has seemed to be a series of circumstances that have steered me along my professional pathway, filled my life with incredible busy-ness, robbed me of a social life and made it impossible to find a life partner. Then chronic arthritis forced me to leave medicine and my father’s early onset of dementia has meant that I am now his primary carer. I feel like a passenger in a driverless bus.”
I suspect many people feel like ‘passengers in a driverless bus,’ and would describe their lives as being out of control. Common choices like, which university course to study, what form of employment to engage in, what sort of car to buy, to marry or not to marry, to have children or not to have children do not seem to be available to them. Financial constraints, physical or mental health issues and difficult relational situations are some of the reasons why people feel that they have been robbed of both the freedom and the power of choice. It is commonly accepted that depression, anxiety and physical ill health are frequently directly related to the feeling of disempowerment that occurs when we allow anything to rob us of the freedom to make choices. The question is, “How, when I live with circumstances that inhibit my freedom to make choices, do I still achieve a sense of being healthily in control of the factors that influence and shape the person that I am becoming?”
In his famous motivational talk Navy Admiral William H McRaven told students that if they wanted to change the world, they needed to do 10 things and the first one was to “make your bed.” Every morning the trainees in his Seal class were required to make their bed perfectly. It was a small thing but whatever else happened in that day, it had begun by accomplishing a task that would lead them to completing more small tasks during the day. I like the strategy because, regardless of whatever circumstances I am in, it is a choice, along with others, I can make, and a task I do because I choose to.
There are many choices I can make. I can choose my mood. I can choose to greet the day with a smile or a song or a prayer. I can choose to forgive the person who hurts me, accept the person who frustrates me, encourage someone who is discouraged and support someone who is grieving or disappointed. I can choose to be thankful for the little I have rather than to long for what I cannot have.
Lindy Chamberlain stands as an amazing inspiration. From a mind-numbing tragedy that begins with her cry in the dark, “The dingo has taken my baby!” and progresses to millions of Australians labelling her a murderer and a liar, to her spending years in prison before she is exonerated, Lindy emerges without bitterness, forgiving those responsible for the gross injustices committed against her and seeking to encourage and support others. She made a choice, not to be defined by her grief, by her circumstances, by the opinions of others, by her complete loss of freedom and by injustice, and she made that choice in a situation where many of us would have concluded that we had lost any opportunity for decision making and self-actualisation. Just as the courage and resoluteness of Nelson Mandela spoke into the hopelessness of millions of South Africans, so Lindy’s refusal to give up the right to make positive choices, speaks to all those who are trapped in negativity and disempowerment.
Like most people I need to admit that I have not always made good choices and that sometimes my bad choices have hurt others and myself. Our bad choices are frequently birthed out of painful emotions, selfishness, and a lack of both real compassion for others and self-discipline; and I am sure that I am no exception. I do, however, know better, and everyday I am aware that I have the freedom to make choices which reflect the love that I receive from God and from those near to me. If I deliberately choose to be patient and kind, and choose not to be jealous or boastful, or rude, or unforgiving then I have chosen compassion above self-pity or negativism. When I make that choice, I am choosing to change my life and to contribute to the health and happiness of others.
Knowing that we are loved by God means that regardless of our circumstance we will always have the freedom and the privilege to love others and ourselves. The point is that like Nelson Mandela or Lindy Chamberlain we might have to make that choice in the dark before we can even see there is any light. But a choice to love ourselves’ always ignites the light of hope.
God Bless
Graeme.