SAFE ENOUGH TO BE FREE

What if the freedom we spend our lives protecting is precisely what we lose when we stop trusting?

By Ligia Koijen

We have developed a rather curious understanding of freedom. We associate it with independence, autonomy, control and, perhaps more than anything else, the ability to protect ourselves from other people. We want to be free from their expectations, their judgements, their influence and their capacity to hurt us. We build boundaries, learn to recognise danger, become selective about what we reveal and congratulate ourselves on becoming emotionally independent.

And yet, I wonder whether we have confused freedom with isolation.

Because there is something profoundly contradictory about a life organised around protection. The more energy we invest in ensuring that nobody can hurt us, the more our behaviour becomes determined by the very people we are trying to protect ourselves from.

We think before speaking, not necessarily because we are choosing our words carefully, but because we are anticipating reactions. We hide emotions, not because we do not wish to express them, but because we fear what someone might do with them. We avoid certain conversations, relationships or experiences, not because they lack value, but because they contain uncertainty.

We call this self-protection. Sometimes, we even call it strength.

But how free are we when fear is making so many of our decisions?

The paradox of protection

There is an important philosophical distinction between being free from something and being free to do something.

Isaiah Berlin famously explored the difference between negative and positive liberty. Although his argument was primarily political, the distinction offers an interesting starting point for understanding human relationships.

Freedom from interference is not necessarily the same as freedom to act, express ourselves or become who we wish to be.

We can be perfectly independent and still feel imprisoned by our own anticipation of what might happen.

Imagine someone who has learned never to depend on anybody. They make their own decisions, reveal very little, rarely ask for help and maintain enough emotional distance to ensure that nobody has too much influence over their life.

From the outside, this person may appear extraordinarily free.

But what happens when they want to love someone? When they need support? When they have an idea they are afraid others will ridicule? When they want to admit that they do not know what to do?

Suddenly, their independence comes with conditions.

They are free, provided they do not need anybody. Free, provided they remain in control. Free, provided they never expose themselves to the possibility of disappointment.

That sounds less like freedom and more like a contract with fear.

Of course, there are situations in which protecting ourselves is necessary. Trust is not an obligation, and some relationships genuinely require distance. The philosophical problem is not protection itself. It is what happens when protection stops being a response to danger and becomes our permanent way of relating to the world.

At that point, we may have successfully reduced our vulnerability, but we have also reduced our possibilities.

Perhaps safety is not what we think it is

We tend to imagine safety as the absence of threat. Nothing can go wrong, nobody can hurt us, and every possible outcome is under control.

But human life does not work like that.

There is no relationship without uncertainty, no meaningful decision without risk and no genuine encounter with another human being that does not involve the possibility of being affected by them.

If absolute safety were the condition for freedom, freedom would be practically impossible.

Perhaps we need a different understanding of safety.

Think about the people with whom you feel genuinely comfortable. Not simply the people who agree with you or make you feel appreciated, but those around whom you do not need to monitor yourself.

You can disagree without fearing the end of the relationship. You can admit ignorance without feeling diminished. You can change your mind without having to defend your identity. You can be enthusiastic, unreasonable, emotional, quiet or completely ridiculous.

You can simply be.

What makes these relationships remarkable is not that nothing unpleasant will ever happen. You may argue, disappoint each other or make mistakes.

What changes is that you do not experience every disagreement as a threat to your place in the relationship.

You trust that the relationship can accommodate the complexity of being human.

And suddenly, you have access to a kind of freedom that no amount of independence could have given you.

You are safe enough to be free.

Trust gives us back our attention

There is another dimension to this question that fascinates me.

Think about the extraordinary amount of mental energy required to distrust someone.

You interpret their words, examine their intentions, anticipate their reactions and prepare your responses. You search for inconsistencies, replay conversations and construct possible scenarios. Sometimes, you even have arguments with them in your imagination before the real conversation has taken place.

And occasionally, you win those imaginary arguments. Congratulations.

But notice what is happening.

Your attention is no longer entirely yours. It has become occupied by the task of managing another person's potential behaviour.

This is why I find the relationship between trust and freedom so interesting. Trust, when grounded in experience and good judgement, releases attention.

When I trust you, I do not need to spend every moment wondering what you really mean. When I trust that a disagreement will not destroy our relationship, I can concentrate on understanding your perspective rather than defending mine. When I trust that I can make a mistake without being humiliated, I can devote more energy to learning than to appearing competent.

Trust does not eliminate uncertainty. It changes how much of our lives we must dedicate to managing it.

And perhaps that is one of the most underestimated forms of freedom: having our attention available for living rather than constantly preparing for danger.

The illusion of control in leadership

This paradox becomes particularly visible in organisations.

We speak endlessly about empowerment, accountability, innovation and independent thinking. Companies invest in leadership programmes, cultural transformations and elaborate declarations about the importance of trust.

And then they create systems in which people need permission to make decisions they are supposedly responsible for.

We ask employees to think independently while supervising their every move. We encourage creativity while punishing unsuccessful experiments. We invite honest feedback while rewarding those who know exactly what management wants to hear.

It is a peculiar arrangement.

We want people to behave freely, but only after we have removed the conditions that make freedom possible.

Of course, organisations need structures, responsibilities, standards and accountability. Trust should never become an excuse for ambiguity or incompetence. But there is an enormous difference between creating clarity and creating dependency.

A leader who needs to approve everything may feel in control. A team that needs constant approval may appear obedient and well organised. Yet neither condition necessarily demonstrates a healthy organisation.

Sometimes, what looks like discipline is simply fear with excellent administrative skills.

Research on psychological safety, particularly the work of Amy Edmondson, has helped establish the importance of environments in which people can take interpersonal risks, such as asking questions, acknowledging mistakes or challenging assumptions.

But I think there is a philosophical question beneath the organisational one.

What kind of human beings are we allowing people to be at work?

If someone spends eight hours a day carefully managing impressions, avoiding disagreement and calculating the safest way to communicate, what exactly are we paying for?

Their intelligence? Their creativity? Their judgement?

Or their capacity to avoid trouble?

An organisation built on distrust may obtain compliance. But compliance is not the same as commitment, and the absence of disagreement is certainly not proof of alignment.

The freedom to think requires sufficient safety to express thought.

And a business that makes thinking dangerous should not be surprised when people stop offering it.

Trust is not the opposite of boundaries

There is, however, a danger in romanticising trust.

We could easily turn this argument into another simplistic invitation to be vulnerable, open our hearts and trust everybody.

That would be both philosophically weak and practically irresponsible.

Not everyone is trustworthy. Not every environment is safe. And the ability to recognise danger is not a personal limitation; it is often an essential form of intelligence.

Trust must be informed by experience, behaviour, consistency and the capacity to recognise when something is wrong.

The philosopher Annette Baier described trust in terms of accepted vulnerability to another person's goodwill. This is an important insight because it reminds us that trust involves something real. We are not simply choosing a pleasant feeling. We are allowing another person to have some influence over what happens to us.

That influence carries responsibility.

A trustworthy person is not someone who promises never to disappoint us. It is someone whose conduct gives us reasonable grounds to believe that our vulnerability will not be treated carelessly.

And perhaps this is where boundaries become particularly interesting.

Good boundaries do not necessarily prevent trust. They can make trust possible.

When expectations are clear, when disagreement is permitted, when responsibility is understood and when people respect one another's autonomy, trust has something concrete on which to develop.

Freedom without responsibility can become disregard for others. Trust without judgement can become dangerous. Safety without freedom can become control.

The challenge is not to choose one over the others, but to understand how they make one another possible.

The freedom of being reachable

I sometimes wonder whether our admiration for independence has gone too far.

We celebrate people who need nobody, who are unaffected by criticism, who can walk away without looking back and who appear emotionally untouchable.

There is certainly value in knowing that we can stand on our own feet.

But when did being unreachable become such an admired human achievement?

What is so extraordinary about constructing a life in which nobody can affect us?

We are relational beings. Our language, identity, knowledge and understanding of the world develop through encounters with others. Even our most private thoughts are shaped by concepts and experiences we did not create alone.

The idea that complete independence represents the highest form of freedom deserves serious questioning.

Perhaps maturity is not the point at which we no longer need anyone. Perhaps it is the point at which we can recognise whom to trust, how to trust and when to protect ourselves, without allowing fear to become the organising principle of our existence.

There is a particular kind of courage in allowing ourselves to be reached.

Not because we are certain that nothing will happen, but because we understand that being affected by life is part of participating in it.

And participation, unlike protection, always contains an element of uncertainty.

Safe enough to be free

So I return to the question that started this reflection.

What if the more we trust, the freer we become?

Not because trust makes the world harmless. Not because other people suddenly become incapable of disappointing us. And certainly not because we should abandon the boundaries that protect our dignity and wellbeing.

But because trustworthy relationships create conditions in which we no longer need to dedicate so much of ourselves to defence.

We can think without constantly anticipating judgement. Speak without rehearsing every possible consequence. Love without trying to control every outcome. Lead without supervising every movement. Disagree without treating difference as a threat.

We can use our energy to participate in life rather than merely protect ourselves from it.

Perhaps freedom is not the reward we receive after eliminating every possible danger.

Perhaps freedom is what becomes possible when we have enough safety, within ourselves and in our relationships, to live with the uncertainty that remains.

And that changes the question entirely.

Instead of asking how we can protect ourselves from everyone, we might begin asking which relationships allow us to become more fully ourselves.

Instead of asking leaders how much control they have, we might ask how much freedom their leadership makes possible.

Instead of measuring strength by how little we need others, we might consider the intelligence required to recognise where trust belongs.

Because perhaps the ultimate expression of safety is not the certainty that nobody can touch us.

It is the freedom to stop living as though everybody might hurt us.

Not safe because we are untouchable.

Safe enough to be free.

MINE - Being human on purpose.

Reflection moment

Where in your life have you mistaken protection for freedom? And who are the people around whom you become more yourself, rather than less?