BEing is a Choice
“’Doing’ is a means to an end but ‘Being’ is a choice.” This quote came to me as I was preparing for a meditation this month. I thought it was important because it embodies what I have been teaching for years now. Things happen and we react to what is happening by ‘doing’ something to change it if we don’t like what is happening. Even when our heart is in the right place we are still manipulating what is happening in our lives or the lives of others. We may try to fix, change, heal – but we are ‘doing’ something to manipulate what is happening. Doing is just a way to change our outside world. We may do things from fear or from a place of love – however it is still ‘doing’ something on the outside in hopes to change how we feel about what is happening on the inside. The outside world is dictating to us how to respond to a given situation. And this is backwards!
’Doing’ is a means to an end but ‘Being’ is a choice.
What happens to us isn’t a choice – how we respond to it is. How we choose to ‘show up’ to the world is a choice. How we choose to BE in any given moment is a choice. The outside dictates our reactions only when we are unconscious and stuck in linear time – thinking about the past or future and not in the NOW moment. We can choose to respond to any situation out of Love and Compassion. We can choose to BE happy or be angry when someone does something we don’t like. We can begin our day setting an intention of how we want to feel or BE during the day and make a conscious effort to remain in that energy all day regardless of what happens around us – because we have a choice! We are the only one who can choose how to ‘show up’ in our lives.
Let me explain the bit about being unconscious and stuck in linear time. When something happens – good or bad – we/our brain (ego) automatically reacts to situations from our past experiences and our reactions are mostly unconscious. This is our brain’s way of compartmentalizing various responses and how we create patterns. Our brain believes we have already ‘defined’ our experiences and our emotions and sees each event as similar to another event so our brain automatically responds the same way as it did in the past. This is typically where we get stuck – because we have responded to betrayal or an accident or pretty much anything that has ever happened to us in the same way as we have before. It is why we see the world the way we do. It is part of our ‘story’ and that story continues unconsciously until we begin to see the world for the first time again … as we stand in the present moment BEing fully conscious. Then and only then can we choose how we want to respond in any given situation. And also be aware that there is a choice in how to respond.
What happens to us isn’t a choice – how we respond to it is.
Let us consider our media – it is full of fear and promotes a world where fear establishes how we respond in situations and therefore we can be more easily manipulated towards buying certain products and reacting towards other life situations. Media seems to believe we need or want to stimulate our emotions through fear. How many shows, books, and news events are full of fear? In fact most newscasts are heavily permeated with events that elicit fear as a response. Of course fear is the opposite of love and consists of all the negative emotions like anger, frustration, envy, betrayal even hate. How many people are persuaded by the fear that is propagated via media? We believe that we are all victims just waiting for the next robber, murderer or other negative ‘event’ to happen. We are also in a world filled with organizations that believe they can help us by perpetuating the ‘victim mentality’. Our media elicits reactions from us by manipulating how we see, respond and share events. How many times have you changed how you viewed an event because media swayed your ‘feelings’ toward what happened or is about to happen? How many times have you made a decision on something like the legalization of marijuana (which occurred nationwide in Canada on Oct 17th) and you may have initially thought it was a good thing but then listened to the fear that the media proliferated and then you began to question your own beliefs and thoughts on the matter? This happens all the time and most of the time we are completely unaware why our belief may have changed. We don’t always recognize how fear manipulates our responses to situations where fear was not there in the past. We are manipulated to respond by outside influences and we react accordingly.
Some people even believe that fear is necessary to help us see the ‘truth’. There are many ‘spiritual teachers/leaders’ that believe that by revealing the truth – which is often laced with fear that this will assist us to grow. Maybe believing that only fear motivates change is how some may see it but I don’t adhere to that philosophy and I believe that no matter what is happening outside of us we have the choice to choose how we respond. In fact, I believe we can only change our outer world by facing our fears and choosing Love! Bringing us full circle – we have a choice – and we can choose Love or Fear within us first. By choosing Love we change what happens outside in the world. By choosing Fear we change what happens outside in our world. Events happen every moment of every day and bad things, bad events, can happen to good people – but are we ever really victims? I say NO because we can choose how we respond to any event. It doesn’t mean it won’t make us afraid – but fear doesn’t have to debilitate us. We can choose to move beyond the fear and do Great things by choosing to Love or by having compassion and empathy over living. Or we can respond in a fearful way.
I invite you to make a conscious choice how you want to BE and how you want to ‘show up’ in your life.
I invite you to make a conscious choice how you want to BE and how you want to ‘show up’ in your life. And as each day proceeds – we can make a conscious effort to BE how we want to BE! Our purpose is to Grow Up and this happens by our BEcoming conscious and choosing Love, Acceptance, and Compassion for ourselves and for others. Let’s create the world we want – not the world dictated to us through fear. When we ‘do’ something let’s be conscious of how we are feeling and BEing about it. Let’s do this from a place of BEing Love. My Heart to Yours. 