“I wanted to change my shirt but I changed my mind instead”

Winnie the Pooh

Have you noticed that every moment of your life is a moment of choice?

I know it’s hard to really get that because, most of the time, we’re on autopilot with our routines and our unquestioning acceptance of life ‘as is’.

We tend to forget that life ‘as is’ is the result of PAST thoughts, past choices and past beliefs.  If we want life to be ‘as desired’, then we have to change our CURRENT thoughts, current choices and current beliefs.

That means that we can choose to intercept our autopilot thinking, speaking and behavior.  More and more, we can make them moments of conscious choice

But perhaps you’ve decided that it’s easier to remain on autopilot, believing that being a conscious chooser can be hard work.

Take my friend, Beverly, for instance.  For weeks she agonized over a choice she believed she had to make.  You’d think it was a life-changing choice.  It wasn’t, at least not in the way we think of life-changing choices

It wasn’t about whether she should have an operation or not.  It wasn’t about whether she should marry her boyfriend or not.  It wasn’t about buying a house or donating an organ.  It wasn’t anything like that.

So what was this choice that she’d spent weeks agonizing over?

This:  “Should I exercise for five minutes every day or not?”

Yep, you can pick your jaw from off the floor now.  And no, I’m not telling you a porky either.

You see, poor old Bev was feeling dreadfully conflicted.  She believed it was the right thing to exercise.  She was afraid that if she didn’t exercise, she’d end up with medical and physical problems as she did spend most of her day at her desk.

But, the fact was, Bev didn’t like to exercise.  In fact, the very thought of it made her recoil with dread and pour herself even deeper into desk work.

For as long as she remained conflicted about what she believed was the ‘right’ thing to do and what she really felt, Bev could not make a choice.  And the more she procrastinated making her choice, the longer it remained unresolved in her mind.

Her ‘solution’?  Pour herself deeper into her work, distract herself.

But as you and I know, (because I’m sure we’ve had similar experiences), you can never completely distract yourself, can you?  That unmade decision is still tossing and turning in your subconscious mind waiting for you to put it to bed.

Without you noticing it, you start avoiding things, topics and people who remind you of it.  Sometimes, you go out of your way to convince yourself that other things are so much more important.

“This is trivial.  I’ll deal with it later.  For goodness sake, it’s not a matter of life and death!”

Or you convince yourself that you don’t have all the information you need and it’ll take you a while to gather it all.  In the meantime, distract yourself.

Yes, I know a lot about all these little devices that we use to get out of making a choice.  I’ve been a master of them!

The sad thing is, trivial as they may seem, we expend a disproportionate amount of time, mental and emotional energy in not making them!  Crazy but true.

And yet, most of these choices are really easy to make, once we know how AND once we understand why it is we experience such turmoil, resistance and reluctance to make them.

You see, they really do drain away our life energy for as long as they remain unmade.  They really are life and death decisions, slow death that is!

It’s much harder to resist or avoid anything than it is to allow.  Always!

Not making a choice is resisting the flow of life.  Making a choice, on the other hand, allows ‘flow’, it allows energy to do its work!

So, what are some of the things that you need to understand about why you find it hard to make choices and become a more ‘conscious chooser’ than an ‘autopilot’?

Here they are:

There are no ‘permanent’ choices unless you choose to make them so.  You need not condemn yourself to a life sentence of the choices you make

The best and most freeing choices are always open to review and revision

Not acting according to a choice you have made doesn’t make you bad, irresponsible or a failure.  It simply reflects your un-awakened state.  It is an opportunity to awaken, to observe yourself, to understand yourself and to take charge of your life.

There are no ‘wrong’ choices, only choices based on what you have and know best at any given time

You are a creative being whose creative process involves making choices after choices after choices – see it as a marvelous adventure in a field of infinite possibilities!

And finally, that empowering and liberating question that you can ask yourself whenever you are faced with a choice, regardless of how trivial or significant it may seem to you:

What do I most want now?

Yes, that is the only question you need to ask yourself every time and any time you want to make a choice.

Forget these types of questions:

What is the best or right thing to do?

What is the easiest thing to do?

What is the best gift I can give?

What is the best deal I can get?

None of these questions will inspire you and free you for three reasons:

1)     They are all about things beyond your control, based on arbitrary standards or values of others.

2)     They speak in absolute not relative terms which means they do not easily lend themselves to review and revision

3)     They are based on life ‘as is’.

But asking, “What do I most want now?” inspires and frees you to listen to your true desires which are not based on life ‘as is’ but which draws on your imagination, that creative genius which roams freely and is truly at home in the field of infinite possibilities!

Ask this question when faced with the most ‘mundane’ or ‘trivial’ choice.  Ask it when faced with the most trying and ‘critical’ choice.

Ask it.  Then listen.  Really listen.  Then allow yourself to be guided into an inspired, empowering and liberating choice!

Love always,

Lucy

Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you cantake control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedomthat comes from being in charge of yourself.

Robert F Bennett

Want to be a Happy and Successful  Parent? Learn ‘INSPIRED PARENTING’ from 5 teachers from The Secret. (Might be the perfect gift for Christmas :))

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Image from One India

Happiness is directly proportional to acceptance and inversely proportional to expectation

Quoted by Michael J Fox on Oprah

I have fond memories of Michael J Fox in his role as the pugnacious, conservative, sincerely insensitive, laser-focused and impossibly intelligent son and sibling in the series, Family Ties.  I think that despite the abrasive role he played, his natural charm was simply irrepressible!  And so he warmed and  won the hearts of many.  It was therefore with great dismay that his fans and almost everyone who knew him responded to the news of his affliction with Parkinson’s disease.

Speaking to Oprah, he said that he had successfully concealed his condition for many years but when he could conceal it no more, he found himself in the ironic position of having to comfort and console his deeply saddened colleagues.  I can’t help but think how much they must have also been under the spell of his boyish charm and indefatigable attitude.

Does Michael J Fox know anything about happiness?  I’m pretty sure he does.  When you have something so life-changing happen to you at a relatively early age, preventing you from living the life you had dreamed of, you tend to reach deeper within to find your greatness, or more of your greatness.  You tend to appreciate everything you took for granted and you ascend to heights of gratitude that you would have previously never cared to.  A great person becomes greater and I believe that is very much the ongoing story of Michael J Fox.

There were two things that he said during his interview that connected so powerfully with me.  The first is what MJF quoted and it appears at the top of this post.  The second is this and I shall paraphrase:

Alright, you may find that you cannot do certain things but you accept it rather than be devastated by it because while that is one thing that you may not be able to do, there are so many other things that you can still do, so many choices still available to you.

Put these two principles together and I believe Michael J Fox has a pretty good idea what happiness means and how to be happy!  I wish him every blessing and thank him for the wonderful, wonderful things he has done and continues to do not least of which is a documentary he is currently making on happiness!

Lucy Lopez

Naturally Happy! – Hire Me!

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This is the question that I asked people in a survey that I recently conducted at my other blog, The Mentor’s Method. In that survey about Happiness and The Perfect Relationship, I asked people to make a choice from one of the following:

- Happiness
- The Perfect Relationship
- Happiness even without the Perfect Relationship
- The Perfect Relationship even without Happiness
- I don’t know. It’s too confusing.

I have looked at the responses and written about my interpretations as well as looked into the beliefs and attitudes that underlie each choice. I think you will find the results and my interpretations worth reading. So do take a look here: Which would you prefer? Happiness or The Perfect Relationship? I would love to hear what your thoughts are regarding the survey, the results and my interpretations, so do leave a comment!

Anyway, aside from wanting to invite you to look at that post, my reason for mentioning it here is to explore, a little, the issue of choice. In particular, I would like to look at why we sometimes find making a choice difficult.

I distinctly remember times in the past when I would agonize over choices or decisions (which are also choices) I had to make. More than anything else, I was afraid of making the ‘wrong’ choice/decision. But there were also times when I struggled because I was afraid of the difficulty associated with a particular choice/decision. These days, however, I am less inclined to be fearful of either making a ‘wrong’ choice/decision or any perceived difficulty that I might associate with that choice/decision. Why do suppose that has happened?

I attribute this change to four main things:

1) My realization that there is no such thing as a ‘wrong’ choice/decision
2) My realization that any ‘difficulty’ that I perceive is a result of past experiences that have no bearing on future events unless I allow them to
3) My growing faith that all things, including choices/decisions and the outcomes of these, are just so – perfect
4) My growing ability to feel my way towards a choice/decision

I’d like to briefly discuss the first of these in this post.

There is no such thing as a ‘wrong’ decision

When I examine it, ‘wrong’ is a judgment I make about a choice/decision because its outcome is one that I do not want or like. This applies to any outcome including those that others may view as morally defined eg murder. The bottom line is that my choice/decision is an outcome that I am not happy or comfortable with, regardless of what beliefs, moral positions or past experiences underlie it.

In reviewing past and current choices/decisions, I have come to realize that a choice/decision in one situation may not be appropriate in another. In fact, I now find it important and necessary to view each situation as a unique one, calling me to make a choice/decision that is specific to it, allowing neither past nor future events to interfere with it.

This does not mean that I do not allow myself to be guided by past experiences or even projections about future possibilities. Of course I do, but I choose to use these judiciously, regarding them as possibilities rather than probabilities. Nothing is set in stone. Everything, including my beliefs and attitudes, is open to review and change. If anything, my past experiences and future projections provide rich data that enable me to examine my beliefs and attitudes. To me, this is critical, for after all, it is my beliefs and attitudes that determine the choices I make, not my experiences!

Thus, even if the actions that I take and the words that I say may appear similar to past situations, I am making them in full and free consciousness or awareness of the situation at hand and no other. When I do this, I am freed from the tyranny of absolutism i.e. viewing a choice/decision as always right/wrong. Instead, I choose to think in terms of what is useful, given the information at hand (which is never complete) in this particular situation and based on what I have set as my goal.

I also remind myself that judgments of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ are always retrospective. They are based on outcomes of past choices/decisions. These outcomes are forms of information themselves that we did not have at the time of the choice/decision-making! To judge them, therefore, as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is not something I consider useful. On the other hand, to consider if they have been ‘useful’ or ‘not so useful’ with respect to a particular goal that I had in mind allows me to review my choice/decision and its ensuing events much more objectively and freely.

Well, these are some of my thoughts on the matter of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ choices/decisions. What about you? Do you find it difficult to make choices/decisions sometimes? Why do you think you do?

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