Choose Growth
Lately I’m finding that the power of choice is more profound and more simple than I’ve ever realized. The most powerful shifts in my life have come from the most simple realizations. Over and over again I stumble upon truths that give me the same life altering wonderment as finding an unfamiliar shortcut in my hometown. It’s not that the shortcut is new, it’s that I finally became aware of it and now driving from here to there is just a little bit simpler.
It’s the same thing with choice. This month, life handed me an opportunity to choose between anger or love, a brick wall or a bridge, old thought patterns or new links. Instead of going on the defense, I chose over and over again to sink deeper into vulnerability. I’m not gonna lie, that’s not a place I willingly go very often, so it was hard. Nearly impossible. It stretched me so far beyond any recognizable communion with my ego that I felt like my insides were on public display. Each time I chose to let down my guard, I was met with awe and epiphany at how much wisdom I was gaining from listening more deeply rather than defending more intensely.
This act of choice was simple. Eat the cookie or don’t eat the cookie. Have road rage or let it go. Kill the spider or move it outside. Respond in anger or speak from a place of love. The choice is only hard when we do what we’ve always done, when we act out the normalized aggressive response society tells us is the right way, or when we don’t realize we have a choice in every single interaction we have with ourselves or others. Choice is simple, but it’s not easy. Saying no to the cookie is simple, but getting the no to come out of your mouth, or your hand to retract, or your taste buds to cooperate are usually the parts that entice people to give up on choice.
It was infinitely more difficult to choose growth over comfort. What’s more, the nature of my challenge offered me the option many, many times a day to make the choice between lesser and greater action. Did I score 100% at always bringing my higher self to the table? Not at all. Did I slowly begin to shift into a place where choosing my response in each moment came from my best self? Absolutely.
I even got to watch my dad make a pretty profound choice this month. In an energy healing session with him, we uncovered that his physical pain was more related to his anxiety about the potential of pain than it was to the actual discomfort in his body. He was unconsciously allowing his anxiety to manifest as a tangible sign of distress. Once we discovered this was his pattern, I led him through a visualization where he could unwind the link between these two things through breath and intention. Within five minutes, his pain subsided and a new pattern of conscious choice settled in so that next time he feels pain, he has an option, a perspective, and a plan. Will it be easy for him to choose visualization next time he feels pain? Probably not. Once he chooses it, will he be empowered in the simplest of ways? For sure.
