Restriction and liberation: the tension between placing limitations and indulging impulses

27 Jun

This is one of those binds that most of us find ourselves in at some point – maybe even at multiple times a day, depending on our natural levels of impulsivity. The desire to move towards pleasure and away from pain is a strong one, and humans have created many different ways of trying to overcome these primal urges. Still, they exist. And there is a huge spectrum of responses to them. On one end, there is rigid control and living within strict rules for our behaviour. These can make people feel safe, ‘clean’ or perhaps self-satisfied and morally superior. At the other end, there is no space between impulse and action. The need for reward must be instantly satisfied and there is almost joy in the avoidance of any slight sense of being denied.

Although they seem like opposites, both ends of this spectrum share a certain level of obsessionality, and often a sneering attitude to the other as well. We can spend all day planning how exactly we are going to either avoid our hit, or access it. We can call the people with high levels of self-control, boring and smug ‘anal retentives’, and those demonstrating less self-control, feckless and reckless ‘addicts’. Both of these aspects can occur within the same person of course and in this case, it’s easy to enter into an emotional rollercoaster of extreme behavioural control or the complete absence of it – an eternal battle between two halves of the same whole. Sometimes it’s possible to intellectually understand that both sides can learn much from each other, about creating a life worth living, which takes both energies. But it can be harder to make peace with that concept emotionally.

Ideas for engaging with this particular tension:

BODY: if you feel able to be a little physically playful, make some time to experiment with different postures that allow you to be more or less restricted (but remember that you’ll need to get yourself out of them again afterwards!). Maybe roll yourself up tightly in a blanket like a burrito, or find a small cupboard to crawl into (not advised if you experience claustrophobia). Whatever is tolerable but leads to a feeling of being less able to move. Study your reactions. Do you like feeling ‘held’ in this is way? Is it aggravating to feel limited, or are you able to accept this sensation. Is there a time period in which it’s fine and then you want to cut loose? Similarly, try to connect with the opposite type of feeling. Perhaps having a bath and letting your limbs float a bit. Or finding a swing to swing on. Anything that frees you from the feeling of being physically restricted. What arises for you? How can you feel OK for a time in both states?

MIND: draw out a ‘mind map’ (any kind of picture which captures your inner thoughts and feelings) to outline the different ways in which you feel restricted in life or feel relatively free. Start to organise these items into those in which you have some aspect of control over the level of restriction and those which are truly beyond your grasp (maybe financially, physically, socially or politically). Of the things that you are able to turn the volume up or down on, can you find links between them. For example, limitations in eating junk food could be associated with liberation from gut problems. Or freedom from an exercise rhythm may be related to restrictions in physical stamina. These trade-offs sound simplistic and obvious, but they are so often central to the difficulties brought into the therapy room. Consider how these links may apply to your life and the clues they offer to you in terms of maximising your well-being.

SPIRIT: when we go deeper into this kind of work, we can see that much of what drives this type of obsessionality is a fear of deprivation. Sometimes we over-restrict to protect our precious resources or we over-indulge for fear of not knowing when we might access the resources again. Perhaps this is about our distant evolutionary past, when this focus was what kept us alive. Survival of the fittest is more about adaptation though than obeying our quite basic threat- or reward-based impulses, so we may need the occasional meditation that gives us a feeling of ‘having enough’ and being ‘held by the universe’ in some way. In this way, we can perhaps be spacious enough to imagine another, more balanced, way of being. In a peaceful moment, close your eyes and visualise the movement from a ‘scarcity mindset’ to an ‘abundance mindset’ (whatever those mean to you personally). Embrace the middle space if you can.