Personal Responsibility

How do we know how to make the right choices in our lives?

No matter what, we opt, always, for that which we think will be the most fulfilling choice for us, no matter how it looks to others.  We come up with justifications as to why we choose one thing over another, but, bottom line, feeling good is our motivator.

Even choosing chocolate chip cookies when you know they're not on your diet feels great at the time.  It's a kind of declaration of independence from the rules and expectations we impose on ourselves.  When when we make choices that feel good in the short run and bad in the long it's a clear sign that we're not feeling free.  So how can we set ourselves free so we won't rebel against ourselves when the (chocolate) chips are down?

We can decide to look at our goals clearly.

When we are faced with a choice, and we know it's a stepping stone on our way toward our goal, we know exactly where to step next to get closer to what we say we want. Following the diet analogy, let's say our goal is to lose weight.  Eating that chocolate won't help.  Why then, do we succumb to our overpowering urge to eat it?

Perhaps because that goal is a false one.  Do we want to lose weight for ourselves, or so we'll look a specific way in the eyes of others?  If we're doing it for societal approval, we're following a false goal.  Our teenage self recognizes the bullshit and goes for the chocolate (I'll show YOU!)

When we choose our goals based on the expectations or constraints of our culture, we will feel the opposite of free.We will only feel free when we choose what we want simply because we want it, no excuses, no justifications, and no reason other than our own needs.

How wonderful it feels to choose our own path, to go for a goal without regard to its "rightness or wrongness". It's a wind-in-your-hair sort of feeling that will make your heart sing.  Choosing an inner directed goal will always set you free.

Your inner teenager will be happy, and so will you!

Our Imperfect Perfection

Perhaps our flaws are gifts in disguise, and complete acceptance of who and what we are is a key element in ridding ourselves of the tyranny of our history.  It could be that what makes our history such a sticky part of the present is the painful remembrance of times when, in being ourselves, we were rejected and/or rebuked.  We go forward into our future trying to avoid similar pain by acts of self rejection, self improvement, self hatred, and self denial.  Perhaps if we practice total self acceptance it will help us integrate the parts of us we abandoned in the past when someone undermined our value and worthiness by telling us we were not as we should be.

We are and have always been exactly as we should be. 

Some Borrowed Wisdom about Choosing Wisely

Today I was once again struck by how often "Ask and it is given." actually works in the "real" world.  After a dispiriting day I realized I needed a little guidance. I found myself idly looking through an old notebook.  Inside were some ideas I had jotted down from a seminar with a wonderful teacher named Cheryl Malakoff.  I will paraphrase:

Our ego is the portal through which we manage our energy.  We interpret our present through the lens of our history.  Personal perception defines our world.  What is going on inside of us is reflected in the world around us. We can see where we are energy deficient by what freaks us out, or by what makes us suffer.  Suffering is like an energetic bio feedback machine. Therefore:

Do only the things that strengthen you, and eliminate that which weakens you. 

You can discern what to do in every case by using these principals.