I remember when I started on my journey quest all those years ago, I didn’t believe I had a choice.  Coming from a religious background, my life was pre-ordained, destined and already written.  Looking back, I do still believe this.  The destiny written is to live from the space of pure love, peace, happiness, joy and connection, but our humanness creates what it does, and this is the mismatch that results in dis-chord, and unrest. 

The biggest lessons I have learnt over the years proves we have more choice than we realise.  As adults, we have a great capacity to

• choose who we spend time with. 
• the career we develop
• the clothes we wear
• how we use/, invest our time and energy
• how we feel about a topic, 
• the responses and reactions we give to situations. 
• The directions we will create in the future. 

You are likely saying an unequivocal no to the above if you are like me.  Believe me; I get why the no word is being screamed through your mind, and likely through your voice.  Individually and collectively within the society, we (choose) to live in suggests we have very little power of choice over many aspects of our life.  After all,

• We do need to live within the law, yet, we have the ethical/moral right to stand against unlawful and unethical acts.
  
• We need to provide for our family and interact within our community, but how do we do this and still own our personal choice and power?
• We are obliged to respect the social norms we are surrounded by, but what if these norms encourage the antithesis of the true nature – love, connection, peace, joy etc.
• How can we allow ‘bad’, abusive, obstruction, defamatory behaviour to continue in families, workplaces, and communities due to our low sense of worth, value, and lovability?

I needed to address these aspects during my journey to date.  I grew up in an emotionally abusive family, which created such a low self-value. I was willing to marry into a dysfunctional, trauma bonded codependent relationship, compromise myself in employment, and say no to great opportunities due to my disbelief of what others saw in me.   

To operate from a place of choice – the conscious awareness of what we do, from a place of personal power that creates one’s life on purpose.  But, how to come back to this position of personal power, when over the years, generational indoctrination we are taught to believe we are not worthy, deserving and less than the and therefore destined to live from a place of pain and disconnect.  I question if this is really what is meant for us?

Over the last two weeks, I have pondered this concept all the more in the articles written around choice. You might like to contemplate the topics and consider how your choices have, do and will create your life’s experiences.  

1. ‘I choose’ is personal.
2. ‘I choose’ requires curiosity.
3. ‘I choose’ = options 
4. ‘I choose’ is suggestive, not conclusive
5. ‘I choose’ is a mindfulness word
6. ‘I choose’, but ‘what’!!??
7. ‘I choose’ creates a container.
8. ‘I choose’ opens a gateway to healing
9. ‘I choose’ also means no
10. ‘I choose’ is grounded in the past, pivoted in the present and grafted to the future.

I invite you to explore the meanings you have given choices in your past.  Do they really hold true when measured against your personal ethics, dreams, and values?  If not, then when, if not now, are you going to walk in your truth?

What are the possible outcomes if you do or not dive deeper into your core, shedding the layers and BS (belief systems) accumulated over time, especially when most didn’t even start with you, but your family, culture, society and the era of your childhood?

So, the next time you find yourself in a crossroad moment, no matter how small, this way or that in feeling, thought or action, remember, you do have a choice. You can choose to continue as you always have, or you can choose to test, learn and practice a different way to become the person you choose to be, whatever that is.