LI, like billions of other parents around the world, have a baby who doesn’t like to go to sleep. Which explains why, among other honestly trivial endeavors, I recently found myself over her crib, rhythmically alternating between clapping my hands and clicking my fingers while chanting: “Moses supposes his toes are roses, but Moses mistakenly supposes .”
When I imagined motherhood, it was not how I imagined it. I spent many dark hours wishing I had a baby who would only sleep; wish she would change. And it got me thinking.
It’s an old therapy saying that many patients come to treatment because they want change—but they don’t necessarily want to on alter. This is a crucial distinction: wanting our children to change, wanting our relationships to change, wanting our workplace to change, wanting society to change – these are all, to a large extent, place the onus of change beyond ourselves.
It is a very human reaction to want to hold on to ourselves and block out the change; digging our rosy toes in and clinging desperately to the wallpaper of our minds we’ve always known, the psychological furniture and bolted doors we unconsciously believe can protect us from the terror of the new.
But if we want to build a better life for ourselves and others, we must allow change to begin with us. It won’t be as simple as getting up earlier, or changing our exercise routine, or reading this column. To have any hope of experiencing a deeper, lasting shift, we must recognize that as much as we want change, part of us fears it, and will fight it, because we also want things to stay the same . Part of us is choosing a safer life over a better life.
I dreamed about this once. I tried to cross a highway on foot, but speeding cars prevented me from getting to the other side. I made it halfway, but I was stuck on – wait for it – the central discussion. With this dream, my unconscious came up with a beautiful visual pun to communicate my ambivalence about change: my own central reserve, where change feels dangerous, risky, but staying safe means staying stuck where you are, not in unable to move forward.
To change, we need to face the parts of ourselves that we pretend we don’t know, that we don’t like, and understand our own responsibility for our part in our circumstances. It is much more painful than putting all our problems in the people around us. I can tell you, as a patient in therapy and as a therapist for patients, it does not feel good. It really hurts. If I didn’t have to pay the royalties, I’d quote you the chorus of Radiohead’s Just. Instead, I’ll quote psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion for free: “Of all the hateful possibilities, growth and maturity are the most feared and abhorred.” Change means admitting that we are all wrongly assumed—recognizing that our toes are not beautiful roses, but ordinary, human, fallible toes.
For some, this can feel like victim-blaming. So let me be clear: I am in no way minimizing the terrible impact that society and its ills, from poverty to racism and misogyny and the rest, as well as abusive institutions and families and individuals, can have on one’s life.
What I am saying is that those evils “out there”, over which we as individuals have little control, make it even more important for us to make use of the agency we do have in our own lives. To do this, we must recognize and understand our own contribution to our entrapment: the relational patterns we repeat over and over again; the evenings to browse social media instead of really living; keeping things the way they are because it feels easier than making a real, profound change.
What was also crucial for me is to recognize where all those social evils out there start: with each of us. In order to build not only a better life, but a better world, we must understand that society would not be so discriminatory, misogynistic, abusive and the rest if these tendencies did not exist in all of us in one form or another. don’t have – a sense of being special and superior to others, or a disrespect for anything feminine or maternal, or a sneering disregard for emotional vulnerability, our own and in others.
It can be horrifying to realize how these unconscious beliefs and patterns have trapped us and our loved ones and prevented us from evolving – but it’s also liberating. Such self-understanding can be life-changing. For example, it makes us realize that we can be unconsciously attracted to a neglectful, “difficult” relationship dynamic that feels exciting but is also harmful.
By understanding our own role in the situations and relationships we find ourselves in, we can then begin to experience aspects of life as something we choose, rather than just as something that happens to us. We can learn and grow from our experiences – even from the sleep deprivation of parenthood.
So don’t be like Moses, “because no one’s toes are roses or posies like Moses supposes his toes to be.” Except for my beautiful baby, whose toes really are roses and who is delightful in every way. Especially when she’s sleeping.
