Flourishing

Life is the sum of all your choices.  = Wayne Dyer

Do you ever feel like you don’t have any choices in your life?  Like you have no control over it?  Like you’re living this life that everyone else has decided for you?  Life doesn’t have to be that way.  You can have the life you want by first, being aware that you have choices.  Then make choices that will create the life you want.

I believe that God created us to be all-powerful, creative beings.  He gave us free will and, in our choices, lies our gift.  We are using that gift to create our lives out of the choices that we make every day, every minute.  We make choices about everything that we believe, think, say, and do, even our attitude is a choice.  Conscious of it or not, there is not a moment that goes by that you are not making choices.

One powerful choice that we make is how we respond or react to drama and other stressful things that come up in life.  We don’t have to feel like an emotional mess.  This was a powerful lesson for me.  When I learned that I don’t have to let drama and problems get to me, I can choose to have inner peace, no matter what is going on around me.  Knowing I can choose my attitude about situations was very liberating for me.  I don’t have to be angry or sad about things.  I’d rather look for a positive aspect of the situation. Taking the opportunity to grow from the lessons that might come out of any problem.

Most of us go through life reacting to drama around us without the awareness that we can choose how to feel and respond to what’s going on.  We can choose what our attitude will be.  Without realizing it we give our choices away for other people to make for us.

When we give our power away by reacting to people and situations that come up in daily life we’re going to live an emotional roller coaster.  When we live life from a reactive state it is natural that we would feel like we really don’t have a choice about the way we feel or the way our life is going.  We feel justified for feeling like we do because “look what they did to me” or “poor me, I have ____ or don’t have ____”.  When things go wrong it’s easy to blame someone else.   So then, ” ‘They did this to me!” becomes our mantra and we begin feel powerless over our own life.  We begin to feel like a victim.

What’s happening is we’re choosing to react to the drama.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t feel our real feelings.  That we should stuff them away without feeling and understanding them.  In fact, we should do those things to help ourselves learn about why we make the choices that we do.  The key to this is getting the ego out of the way to dig deeper into the lesson at hand.  Once we do, we will see the situation in a different light.  With a new perspective we can respond to the situation and not react to the emotions it brings up.

The good news is that we get to use our powerful choices to choose what our attitude will be and how we will respond to the dramas of life.  I know some things that happen in life seem like they are happening to us rather than by us.  It’s true that the choices other people make affect our lives.  It’s also true that we may have made choices that lead to being put in the situation for others to make our choices.  When we realize our choices are creating our life, we will have more power over our life that we ever dreamed. 

When responding to things that are out of my control the first thing that changes is my attitude.  I have a saying that I say that changes my attitude immediately: Why be miserable over things I can’t control and how can I use this as an opportunity to grow or learn something about me or the world?  I believe every difficult situation is an opportunity learn and grow.  Especially if there is a pattern of the same situations.

In the beginning it may be challenging to accept the fact that we can make choices that will impact how our life turns out.  With awareness and practice we can create the life we’ve always dreamed of.  Here are a few things you can do:

• Start by paying attention to the choices you make and the times that feel like you really don’t have any choices.  When you find an area where you feel like you have no choices, get out your journal (or start one) and write about the options you’d like to have instead and see if you can make one of those options happen, even just a little bit.  This will help you become aware of the many choices that you do have in any situation.  It will also help you to get comfortable with looking at things in terms of choices.

• Ask yourself why you feel like don’t have any choices.  Then ask if that’s really true.  Why is it true? This will help you see what you believe.  What you believe determines the choices you make.

• Choose to change your attitude about the situation.  Give yourself a few affirmations or motto’s you can say to yourself to help change your attitude on the spot when you need to.  Say what you would say when you are naturally happy.

• Choosing your words carefully when having inner dialog about a situation also plays a factor in how you will feel about things.  Choose positive, gentle words that will help you change the attitude of that inner voice.  Don’t be afraid to question any negative beliefs that the voice brings up. Remember what you believe determines your choices.

Be gentle with yourself when you start on your journey of self-discovery.  Take your time and keep your heart and mind open to anything and everything.

There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist or accept the responsibility for changing them.    = Denis Waitley