Choice as Quiet Agency

Choice is fundamental to being human. Not in a lofty, philosophical way, but in a very ordinary, day-to-day one.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), there are eight qualities of Self energy: Calm. Curiosity. Compassion. Clarity. Confidence. Courage. Creativity. Connectedness.

And then, thanks to Cece Sykes, there is a ninth.

Choice.

It doesn’t always make the lists. It’s not one of the first eight. But in my experience, it’s the one that actually changes things. It’s one of the most, if not the most, important.

Because nothing really shifts until we realise where we have choice.

In IFS work, there is a moment where a part realises something quietly seismic.
That it doesn’t have to keep doing what it’s always done.
That it’s allowed to step back.
That there is, in fact, another way this could go.

It’s rarely dramatic in the session; in fact, it’s often quite subtle. A pause. A breath. A softening somewhere in the body.
But that’s the moment therapy starts to facilitate change.

Not because anything has been fixed.
But because helplessness, obligation, and fear have cracked open.

Choice is fundamental to being human. Not in a lofty, philosophical way, but in a very ordinary, day-to-day one.

People tend to struggle most when choice is missing, obscured, or slowly taken away. When life becomes something to endure rather than participate in. When reactions feel compulsory. When the options narrow down to cope or collapse.

Choice doesn’t mean unlimited freedom. Bodies matter. Money matters. Health matters. Systems matter. Trauma matters. Other people matter. All of these create real constraints. Choice is not evenly distributed.

This isn’t the message that if choice is available everywhere, then people who are suffering just aren’t choosing well enough. Or that we can all self-actualise out of suffering. No, not that.

Some people have far more room to manoeuvre than others. Privilege, health, safety, money, citizenship, whiteness. These expand the field of choice. Living in a racialised body narrows it. Marginalisation narrows it. Chronic illness narrows it.

And still, the absence of fairness doesn’t mean the absence of choice.

There are often more choices available than a nervous system has learned.

This becomes clear to me through my own neurodivergent lens.

Before understanding my own neurodivergence, my life was organised around one central task: be normal. Fit in. Cope quietly. Push through. Override whatever needed overriding in order to function.

The question wasn’t, what do I need?
It was, how do I stop being a problem/too much/too weird/not enough?

Discovery didn’t magically make life easy. But it did something more important. Over time, it returned choice.

Once I understood that my system had specific sensory sensitivities, needs, and preferences, new options appeared. I could choose not to put myself in certain situations. I could choose to leave earlier. I could choose noise-cancelling headphones in an airport instead of white-knuckling my way through. I could choose to tune into bodily sensation instead of overriding it yet again.

Small things. Ordinary things.
But they add up.

Choice often hides in very small places.

Not in the big life decisions, but in the micro-moments:
choosing to rest instead of push,
choosing to leave before overwhelm tips into shutdown,
choosing not to explain yourself,
choosing to listen to what your body is already telling you.

They are often the ones that keep a system OK.

Choice slowly became a way of being in relationship with myself, rather than constantly negotiating my own disappearance.

And yes, sometimes other people don’t like those choices. Boundaries get misunderstood. Needs get labelled as inconvenient. Preferences get dismissed.

But even when they aren’t respected externally, having them internally still matters.

Choice doesn’t always look like changing the situation.
Sometimes it looks like choosing how close you stand to it.

Who gets access.
Where your energy goes.
What you let in.
What you quietly step away from.

This is as true in everyday life as it is in the therapy room.

When a part realises it has a choice, it no longer has to shout so loudly. It doesn’t have to hijack the system just to be heard. It can pause. It can consider.

And when a person realises there is choice, life stops being something that just happens to them.

Difficulty doesn’t disappear. Constraint doesn’t vanish.
But something essential comes back online.

Agency.
Dignity.
Aliveness.

There is something uniquely painful about life feeling like it’s just happening to you.

If you’re reading this and feeling a quiet ache, it might be because there’s a choice somewhere that hasn’t been named yet.

You don’t have to find it all at once.
Noticing that it exists is enough to begin.