The Prisons We Build Inside Ourselves

For years now, I’ve had the same recurring dream.

I’m in a women’s prison.

The details change slightly each time, but the setting is familiar — moving through shared rooms, the cafeteria, the routines you recognize from television. Sometimes the dream is vivid and realistic. Other times it feels hazy, almost symbolic. What always struck me was how disconnected it felt from my actual life. There was never a clear reason for it. No obvious moment in my waking life that explained why my mind kept returning there.

In the past, I took the dream very literally. I wondered if it was some kind of warning. A strange signal to “be careful.” But even that explanation never quite fit.

Last night, the dream came again — and something was different.

This time, the prison felt less restrictive. I was still inside, but my family could come and go freely. The walls were there, but they didn’t isolate me in the same way. I woke up, brushed it off as usual, and went on with my morning.

It wasn’t until I was out on a run later that day that the meaning finally surfaced.

What if the prison was never a place at all?

What if it was a state.

When old emotions resurface

Earlier that day, before the dream, I’d had a brief interaction that stirred something uncomfortable in me — a familiar tightening, a low-grade vigilance. Feelings that aren’t my daily companions anymore, but still know how to find me when conditions are right.

Fear. Comparison. A trace of jealousy.

They weren’t overwhelming, but they were present — registering more in my body than in my thoughts. I noticed myself scanning the room, my body reacting as if something needed to be managed or avoided. In the moment, I used my breath. I stayed grounded. And then, as motherhood often requires, I moved on — back to food, logistics, tending to little people.

There wasn’t space then to fully process what had surfaced.

And that’s often how it goes.

Emotions arise. Life continues. Nothing dramatic happens — but the feeling doesn’t fully resolve either. It lingers quietly in the background.

That night, it showed up in my dreams.

The realization

As my feet hit the gravel the next day, the pieces clicked into place.

The prison wasn’t about punishment.
It wasn’t about danger.
It wasn’t even about confinement by an external force.

It was about being held captive by unprocessed emotion.

Not because the emotions themselves are wrong — but because when we don’t let them move, they begin to harden. They build invisible walls around us. We become watchful. Guarded. Reactive. Smaller.

The dream wasn’t about avoiding these emotions.
It was showing me what happens when they don’t have somewhere to go.

And in the most recent version of the dream — where the prison felt more open, where my family could come and go — I could see the truth clearly:

I’m no longer trapped in the same way I once was.

The emotions still arise.
But they don’t isolate me.
They don’t define me.
They don’t take over my life.

Noticing is not the same as being imprisoned

There’s an important distinction here — one I see come up often in conversations with other women.

Thoughts and emotions will always appear. Fear. Sadness. Comparison. Anxiety. Even joy can feel overwhelming at times.

The problem isn’t their presence.

The prison forms when we believe we are those emotions — or when we fight them so hard that they turn inward and settle.

Many people aren’t imprisoned by their circumstances alone.
They’re imprisoned by their relationship to what they’re feeling about those circumstances.

I’ve noticed this in conversations where someone feels worn down by anxiety, sadness, or long stretches of emotional weight. Life can begin to feel fixed. Heavy. Hard to move within. The walls start to feel permanent.

But walls built from emotion are not solid.
They’re responsive.
They shift when we do.

Why movement matters

For me, movement has become one of the most reliable ways to let emotions complete their cycle.

Not to fix them.
Not to erase them.
But to let them move.

There is something about rhythmic, embodied movement — walking, running, gentle stretching — that gives the mind space to reorganize. It allows insight to arise naturally, without force. Without analysis.

On that run, I didn’t try to solve anything.
I just kept moving.
And the meaning came to meet me.

This is why movement has become such an important practice in my life — especially as a mother. When we don’t have long stretches of quiet or uninterrupted reflection, the body often becomes the doorway back to ourselves.

Movement reminds us that emotions are not places we live.
They are experiences we pass through.

A gentle return

The dream hasn’t scared me since.

If anything, it feels like a message of reassurance — a reflection of growth rather than a warning. A reminder that awareness loosens the bars. That noticing creates space. That freedom doesn’t mean the absence of difficult feelings — it means not being ruled by them.

There will always be moments that stir old patterns.
There will always be feelings that surprise us.

But we don’t have to build a home inside them.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is let the body lead the way back — one breath, one step, one gentle movement at a time.

Not by escaping what we feel, but by staying present long enough to set ourselves free.