In this piece we respond to the generous and generative commentaries by Marsha Levy Warren and Daniel Gaztambide. We reflect on Levy Warren’s appeal for greater theorization around the mechanism for how the sociocultural surround becomes internalized and propose Karim Dajani’s work to expand beyond the process of interpersonal internalization. We then respond to Gaztambide’s astute questioning of how our framework for “freedom” has been co-opted or colonized and begin to interrogate for ourselves a few registers on which this has occurred and why. We consider how this colonization has also contributed to our misattribution of the concept of freedom and autonomy to a white, global north value system and centering. We then revisit the issue of race in our article and address Gaztambide’s helpful offering of racial capitalism as a broader system in which we are implicated.