Pro-choice

Life is full of choices, we can all agree on that. 2 or 3 cups of coffee, stay home or go out, positive or negative thoughts, what to choose from a diner menu. We know that life can be really hard sometimes. Whether or not you believe you are in control or not, you still need to make a choice.

Sometimes the option you choose will be wrong, but you still learn. We all know that gut feeling when making decisions that we try to follow, aka our intuition. Our intuition can be strong or weak depending on our self-awareness. When we have bigger choices to make, our intuition is usually stronger than normal. But what about the smaller choices we make daily? Like the way we talk to ourselves, stairs or elevator, and even which hand we brush our teeth with.

Without our awareness, these choices will be made daily regardless if they are the best option for us, becoming our habits. Some of these choices have even been made for us without us even knowing, where we grow up, our self-image, and many of our beliefs. Being true to ourselves and making our own choices can be more difficult than it seems. We are really great at adopting others’ opinions and making decisions for others, but we struggle internally with our own belief system.

One way to improve our awareness and decision making skills can begin with our daily smaller choices. We start with a list in our head of all the possible options and just think for even 10 seconds before we wake up and start our day. First decision: will today be a good day? This is the most important choice we make because it will control all of the other decisions and thoughts we have all day. We can also ask ourselves: Am I alive and breathing? Realize how fortunate we are to be able to make that decision for ourselves. Instead of giving up, we are still here.

Some of the other choices we face early on in the day that also have a big impact on our lives are: should I eat breakfast or drink tea, when will we open our phone and get distracted on Instagram for 20 minutes, what do we think when we look in the mirror. All super simple choices that we make every day without even taking a second to think about our choice. This doesn’t mean that we will always make the best choices, because we are human, but at least we will be aware of our choice.

We know that we probably shouldn’t eat a whole tub of ice cream in one sitting, but if we decide before we start eating that we know this isn’t the best option but we really want to prove our brother wrong, we can make whatever choice we want. Yes, we might regret our decision afterward, but we made the decision so we face the consequences.

Now, this might seem okay when it comes to personal choices in lives, but it is actually more important for ourself than for others in our life. If we can improve the choices we make about ourselves, we will make better choices when communicating with family, friends, coworkers, customer service reps, and even the workers at the DMV.

Everything we do is about ourselves, we are the only one in complete control of our life because we control our thoughts. When we choose to speak negatively to ourselves it is hurting only us, and when we speak negatively to others we are also hurting ourselves. Nothing we say to others can actually hurt them unless they believe us and take it personally. Gossip is a choice we make as humans, and for the most part, it is natural for us all. We do it so often that we rarely even think twice about it. Gossip isn’t only talking about other people, but it is also talking about ourselves. How many times have we heard ourselves or a friend say “Ew I look so gross today”? Then we or our friend reply “No you don’t!” or “That’s not true!” Probably too many to even count.

The truth is that we are not gross but we are only seeing a reflection of who we are. Our mind believes we look a certain way that might be completely different from others’ view of us. When we say these negative beliefs about ourselves we now open the floor to comparison. As the friend, we might think “Wow if they think they look gross today I wonder what they think of me”. Now we just created more negative thoughts about ourselves without even realizing.

In reality, the other person isn’t thinking we look bad because they are thinking about how they look, and if they think or say otherwise, they are only defending their negative belief of low self-worth and imperfection. If we all stopped believing what we think we are, or what others think we are, we will realize that we are perfect and we do not need to compare ourselves to anyone else because they are also perfect. Although this seems too simple, it can really make a huge impact on all of our lives.

So before we go back to making all of those simple everyday choices without blinking, let’s take a few deeps breaths to realize that we are alive and perfect just as we are. We do not need to overthink every choice in our life, but at least having the awareness that we can believe what we want and when we want to. This can be challenging as some people will think that their mind is the one running the show, but there is a deeper source of energy that really knows all, which is known as the truth. Anytime we create a new belief or make a choice, we ask our inner guide: is this true for me? Listen closely to who responds, if we can hear words telling us otherwise, do not believe them.

The only one who can communicate to us through words is our ego, so do not be misguided. The truth is something we cannot hear, but only feel. So please, do not listen to what I’m saying because this is only my perspective from what I have read and learned on my own. Let’s listen to our true self as it has been here all along. Then we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free.