In this past month-ish of life, I have been thinking a lot about subconscious motivators. The stuff that we don’t realize is influencing our affections and attention until later down the road. The parts of life we didn’t have control over that now leak out through the cracks of our choices. Like when you look back 5 years down the road and realize you were only with that guy because you didn’t want to be alone through a painful season of life and not because you were actually good together, like you believed. Or that you kept taking trips because it was too lonely at home and not just because you just really love traveling. Part of me finds this very fascinating because I love to delve deep into the psyche, to understand why am I this way? Why am I doing what I’m doing? But part of me also finds this very tender, very fragile- because it matters so much. Our big and small choices make up our days, and how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, I’ve heard. But what is actually influencing our choices and how we make them?

I think your 30’s is when this starts to creep to the surface. Because in your 20’s, time feels more pressurized and you just do things because Now Is The Time to do them! It matters less why you’re doing them. Because you have energy and youthful optimism. You don’t realize that the energy might actually be adrenaline from outrunning a soul-level threat. Not to say that every choice we make is motivated by some trauma or grief or something bad. Not at all! But now that I’m in my 30’s, I am starting to put together the puzzle pieces a little bit more, and I can see the story of my life a little more clearly. That even in my best decisions, there was a thread connected to a deeper desire, a deeper soul need. Desires aren’t bad. Needs aren’t bad. I guess I’m just seeing their origins more clearly.

Anyways, I’ve been talking to some friends about this recently. One realized her family tree is full of withheld information and generational secret-keeping. One is trying to make a career decision and is finding it difficult to know how to know what he wants after always doing what was expected. And my own story of losing a parent and being launched into hyper-responsibility and emotional independence far too early. These things affect us deeply and they subconsciously influence our decisions. It’s like a quiet little rudder on a boat saying ‘better go that way, it seems safer,’ or ‘that seems like a good idea, it will be fulfilling!’ or ‘this is the right choice because it will prove that I’m ___.’

But with more awareness, my questions have become… what is safe? Why is it fulfilling? Fulfilling what? What is behind that longing to be fill-in-the-blank? And who decided the definition of those words in my life? Is it true? Do I believe it? Until I recognize what might be silently influencing my core desires and needs, I don’t think I will have the freedom to actually make the healthiest decisions for my life.

I fear I’m getting in the weeds here and this isn’t going to make sense unless your brain works like mine lol. I’ll give a personal example. I grew up with a large and closely-knit extended family. Tons of time with cousins and a pretty idyllic childhood- safe and funny parents, loving aunts and uncles, doting (though over-involved) grandparents etc. But it all started to unravel when my mom passed away after fighting breast cancer for 6 years. She was apparently the cornerstone. My family slowly dissipated and relationships fell apart. Quite a few don’t even speak to each other anymore. That sense of family was lost- and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to realize how a lot of my decisions were actually an attempt to fill that void in various ways. As my therapist once described it- a lot of our decisions are a cathartic attempt to gain the thing we long for the most. Going into a helping career, working with babies no less- helping mothers care for their babies, trying to fill the ‘care void’ left by the loss of my own mother. Always looking to create community wherever I live to feel that safety net of belonging that I don’t really receive from my own family, because I don’t want to be alone. Wow this is sounding depressing! I’m ok! I’ve healed a lot! It’s ok! I am so much more free than I used to be, though there is still far to go. But perhaps you get the picture.

But what i’ve been thinking about lately is that it is a Grace that we discover these undercurrents of motivation in our souls. Because if we don’t- it leads to burnout. It leads to exhaustion and repeated patterns. It leads to an unfair pressure put on people we love/jobs/cities/etc to meet needs that are beyond their reach. It makes it harder to let go and leave things that are not good for us because maybe it will meet my needs if I give it longer and try harder! It means we cyclically reach for things that won’t actually heal the wound, though they might soothe it for a time and maybe even start the healing process.

I think it’s worth sitting with because I just really believe freedom is possible. We don’t have to be steered by our pain and our fear forever. They make us think that we’re in charge because we make choices that seem good and helpful for us. But all along they’ve kept some control… it’s like the car for driving instructors who have their own set of brakes, giving you the illusion that you control the vehicle1. But they have the final word. But I don’t know- I just refuse to believe that it has to stay that way.

Talk about it with close friends. Maybe write out a family tree and think about the roles that family members have played down the line. Look at patterns in your own life, in your family’s life, in your choices. Dig into it in therapy. Pray about it. I believe in the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit- that he heals and changes things that feel immovable. I have seen it in my own life and I don’t know how else to explain it. In the past 3 months, more of these roots have been exposed than I’m comfortable to admit exist. And thank God for that. But after decades of anxiety, my motto has become- “I want to be as free as I can be.” It feels hard sometimes, to show up for that… but I want to do the work. I don’t want to be silently steered by fear anymore. I want to choose for myself.