Understanding Our Choices
Understanding our choices is the topic I want to explore this month. This month has been filled with choices: some I found were sabotaging and others empowering. I filled my days during this Venus retrograde with new choices and becoming conscious of my sabotaging efforts as a result of those choices.
I have been preparing for my interview with the Hulnick’s on their new book “Remembering the Light Within” which has been very confirming of my work over the past few years and my work with this material brought up some of the key points I am working with in this article. These key points were further anchored through me and my clients in recent weeks.
How can we see that all the things that are apparently happening ‘out there’ are really just part of the ‘story’ we’ve created about ourselves and our situation? How can we see that all the ‘things’ out there are actually ‘neutral’ and we are the ones who choose to get upset with – or excited by – ourselves or others? And how do we see that we end up ‘judging’ ourselves or others from a place of EGO instead of the opportunity to come from a place of ‘acceptance’? It is always one or the other: judgment or acceptance! Unfortunately judgment seems to be ingrained in our behaviors, beliefs and actions and it is accepted that we judge ourselves or others because it is unconscious.
In their new book, “Remembering the Light Within” Dr’s Mary and Ron explain that the “thoughts you project and the story that you’ve created about yourself become a powerful attractor field that draws to you experiences that validate and thus reinforce your beliefs and your resulting story.” I’m going to give an example that will relate to this idea.
We have discussed in many blogs the concept of ‘our story’ and this story typically relates to one or more of our three basic core fears: fear of the unknown; fear of abandonment or separation; or fear of unworthiness. We often experience our core fears – and therefore stories – in our relationships. So someone leaves us or betrays us. This is our perception of what is happening which is a judgment. And this abandonment or betrayal happens because we have already established this story from our past experiences. So we are choosing to react judgmentally instead of seeing each event as neutral. We are justifying our reaction by saying something like “I’m unhappy because…”. It keeps the ‘story’ alive and then events are all perceived within the story. People do something and we are justifying what is happening as our story and core belief.
When someone leaves they aren’t leaving us. When something happens that feels like a betrayal it is because we have judged it through our experiences and story as a betrayal. Those people are just reacting from their own experiences and story; their own fears. Their issues very likely have nothing to do with us. But our ego can’t see it that way. We are too attached to our story and how we feel within the situation and we justify what is happening as what is happening to ‘us’.
Our choices come around recognizing that we are choosing to either add them to our story and judge the situation as ‘happening’ to us or … we are choosing love. And when we choose love this is when we can reframe our issues as blessings. We can take responsibility for everything that happens because it doesn’t happen ‘to us’ it is a neutral happening and we can know it has a Divine Purpose in our lives; that all of our struggles and challenges are opportunities for Blessings and healing.
A point that the Hulnick’s make is that “unresolved issues aren’t in the way; they are the way”. They offer us an opportunity to heal. How empowering is it to know that each struggle or challenge is helping us grow and heal? “Remembering the Light Within” like other great teachings suggests that these ‘challenges and opportunities’ will guide us to remember we are already whole and we just believe these things that are ‘happening’ to us show where we are ‘perceiving’ we are not whole but separate from Source.
When we can take responsibility for everything in our lives we move into a place of acceptance and we choose how we want to BE inside. We can choose to BE happy regardless of what is happening outside of us and know that when we want to blame or justify our reason for being unhappy that it is our own ‘stuff’ coming up as a gift for us to heal. Instead we often seek acknowledgement from others and share all of our problems in hopes to confirm our justification for being upset. We are allowing the outside to determine how we feel instead of choosing how we want to feel and letting that be how we respond to life.
Can you understand your choice in every moment is to choose Love, Compassion, and Acceptance that we are already Whole, Awake and connected to the Divine Source. We are a Soul having a human experience and our True Essence is LOVE!