THE POWER OF CHOICE
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
— Viktor E. Frankl —
One of the gifts I have been given during my “Midlife Awakening” is the awareness that I get to choose. While I grew up reading the Bible and its teachings based around the idea of God’s gift of free will—or, in other words, the human ability to choose for ourselves—I never fully understood what it meant until the last few years.
Through much studying, reading, and learning, I have come to understand what choice means for me and the freedom I have found in this gift. Choice is a gift; it is a freedom that we all have spiritually, mentally, and emotionally—although it is not a freedom we feel we all have in the physical realm. For the sake of today’s blog, I am concentrating on the spiritual, emotional, and mental realms.
It would also be helpful for me to clarify what I mean when I write of choice.
Choice can mean many different things and has a personal meaning for each of us. When I write about the “Power of Choice,” I am writing about the power of perspective, the power of energy, which includes our emotions, the power of our words, and the power of our actions. Our choices in each of these areas of our lives mean the difference between overall health, happiness, and abundance, and despair, hopelessness, and lack.
Don’t get me wrong, we all go through different seasons of deep, profound life experiences that include a spectrum of emotions, but our purpose in this lifetime is to live in a good and abundant way. Jesus tells us that he came so that we could have life and have it in abundance.
Up until I learned that I had a choice and power around what I thought, felt, and did, I lived with an overall belief that life was hard, a struggle, and dysfunctional and that while there were moments of feeling good, how I felt generally was overwhelmed, dissatisfied, and depressed. I didn’t understand that I unconsciously chose to stay in this energy. Granted, the internal structure of my circumstances may have looked great from the outside, but it was anything but.
The truth was that dysfunction, pretending, avoiding, and toxicity had been the name of the game for most of my life. I didn’t know it could be different...
until I did.
Once I began to understand the power of perspective—the power of choice—everything began to change for me. When I began reading John Randolph Price, Katherine Woodward Thomas, Louise Hay, Neville Goddard, and Florence Scovel Shinn (just to name a few), I began to become aware and understand that my mind was the tool to change everything in my world.
Lenka Lutsonska- an energetics expert, has a mantra that I repeat and embody daily...
“My circumstances do not matter;
only my state of being matters.”
Our state of being is our thoughts, words, emotions, values, and actions…
…and THIS is where the work begins.
So, if you are interested in gauging your perspective, I have an exercise for you.
It is a visual you will be very familiar with and the most basic and easy way to get this idea across—it is beyond simple yet extremely effective. Also, please note that this will be most effective if you lift any judgment of the outcome of this exercise. It is simply an activity that will give you information and grow your awareness.
Get a glass
Fill it halfway with water
Look at the glass
Now comes the fun part.
When you look at the glass, what do you see?
There is profound learning in this exercise.
It isn’t just about whether you see the glass as half full or half empty...
It’s about so much more.
· What type of glass did you choose?
· Is what you see before you a beautiful glass with clean, clear water?
· Did you choose a plastic cup that can barely see the water?
· Do you bypass seeing the water level and see disappointment that it is only water?
There is so much to this one activity that you can learn about yourself, where you are, and where you want to be who you want to be (the truth is you all already are that which you desire to be, and you all already have all that which you desire to have—but that is another blog). This exercise is about perspective, what you choose for yourself, and how you see it. This exercise will show you where you are in your consciousness and grow your awareness. We can all look at the same glass of water, and each sees very different perspectives. One may see a glass half full and be filled with gratitude because they have the luxury of going to the tap, lifting a lever, and having water instantaneously whenever they are thirsty. One may see that the glass is half full and that there isn’t enough to satisfy their thirst. One may see a beautiful glass as a piece of art that can hold liquid and create a gorgeous prism of light.
The simple fact in these scenarios is that we get to
CHOOSE.
We get to choose what we see, what we think about what we see, and how we feel, which will affect what we do. Even amid trials and challenges, we can shift our perspective to…
“How is this working for my highest good? What is the learning and growth opportunity within this experience?”
I believe that every single thing we experience is for our good in some way.
That doesn’t mean it will always feel good or that we will see the learning immediately. It doesn’t mean that we will always understand the why. Sometimes, God allows us to see the bigger picture, and sometimes, not.
But if we trust that the Divine is ALWAYS with us and is providing for us, sometimes that knowing is enough.
I LEAVE YOU WITH THIS QUESTION…
What is happening in your life that you are feeling called to look at differently?
That you may be able to let go of judgment or fear around?
See if you can’t step back and see a broader picture, a different perspective. And yes, there are definite seasons in our lives when doing this on our own may not be possible. If that is where you are finding yourself, I encourage you to reach out for support from friends, family, or a mental health professional of some kind. Sometimes, things can seem so dark that the light is too dim to see. But there is always help.
I hope some of these practices help grow your awareness of the power of your choice.
And if you need some help, that is what Sacred Freedom is all about—allowing your curiosity to take you to the place your soul is calling to, allowing yourself to heal in areas that need healing, and allowing the release that needs to happen in order to let go of that which is no longer serving you so you can move into what is truly meant for you, your relationships, and your life.
Ready to discover more?