Choosing for Yourself

The Union Path Podcast

Choosing for Yourself
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Interesting and useful to ponder the role and the power that choice has in our lives. To really look at the choices that we've made, the choices we tend to make, the choices we've made in the past, the choices we're making for our future. The choices we're making right now, and really become aware, really observe what we choose, and then look underneath those choices and really ask why.

Really work to understand the choices that we make and use this information to inform a little bit more about ourselves. Use this awareness of our choices to really create more self-awareness. Really create more of a sense of knowing not only of what we've done and why, but really more what is our process like when choices are in front of us? What choices are we making consciously, and what choices are we making unconsciously?

How intentional are we, with our life? How are we stuck in habit? How are we open? These are interesting questions to ask because not only can our choices tell us a lot about the lives that we've lived, but could really tell a lot about ourselves. So when we're thinking about choices, when I'm thinking about choices, one idea, one mantra that seems to come up over and over, is this idea of choose for myself, in a more general sense, choose for yourself. I like this idea because there's an inherent double meaning to it. The most obvious, maybe the most superficial meaning is just this idea of choosing for ourselves means making our own choices, not being overly reliant on things other people have told us to do, on habits we've leaned on in the past. Of really making our own choices, making up our own minds, taking what we know about ourselves and about life, about who we are and what we want, and making the best choice from that place. Having a level of sovereignty and autonomy and making our own choices, taking a level of responsibility for our own choices, knowing that our life, especially over a longer timeframe, can pretty much be boiled down to just the sum of all of our choices. Where we are right now, who we're being right now, largely what's happened to us up until this point, we can see have flown out, have flown through our choices. That our life as it is now, Is largely a manifestation of the choices we've made up until now.

That obviously begets an opportunity because we can always make different choices if we want change. If we want change to happen, we can choose different things. We can choose from a different place. We can choose different outcomes we pursue. We can choose different ways we ourselves conduct that pursuit. We're always making choices constantly, and we always have the opportunity to bring more intention, bring more consciousness, bring more awareness to our choices.

When we think about choose for yourself, it's another deeper meaning embedded in that too. Not only making your own decision, realizing these decisions come from your self. And so when we look at our choices, it's really important to look at what parts of ourselves are we deciding from? What parts of ourselves are we deciding for? What parts of ourselves are we aiming to serve? Are we aiming to satisfy, maybe even just aiming to placate? Because we have options here as well, we have freedom here as well, to choose which parts of us we care for, which parts of us we feed, which parts of us we ignore, which parts of us we neglect. We're always choosing from some part of ourself, and so it's important to look at our choices and look at which part of ourselves are we choosing from, which parts of ourselves, are we more in service too?

And if we want to look a little deeper, we want to really ask ourselves through looking at our choices, which part of myself am I really serving? And is that service really benefiting me, really getting me to where I want to go, really constructing a life I actually want to live. If the answer is no, or even if the answer is, I'm not sure, I don't think so, then we look for different parts of ourselves to serve. This is kind of a natural process with spiritual awareness, that the deeper, the more fundamental, the more real parts of ourselves that we discover, the more our service to ourselves tends to change. That awareness tends to get enveloped and integrated into our sense of ourselves, into our sense of who we really are, and that awareness naturally shifts which parts of ourselves we naturally serve. These kind of awarenesses can be really helpful and handy in times of conflict, in times of frustration, in times of failure, in times of stagnation, in times of discomfort.

Of course this isn't about blame. This isn't about looking for ways we can chastise or punish ourselves. It's looking for the truth. It's looking for the why behind the way our lives are and the way that we've been being within our lives and our choices. Our own incredible free will is the most powerful tool we have to create change.

Of course, we can't magically alter all of our life circumstance. We can't magically change everything that's happening to us and everything that will happen to us. We can always make different choices, and then when we do, watch our environment, our circumstances shift and change. Because now they're an answer, they're a reflection to different choices. In a lot of ways, especially over longer term, life can kind of look like a bit of a math equation. That the answer reflects the problem that we're trying to solve, and changing the variables embedded in our problem changes the answer. There's always a balance. We can learn to live with our awareness in the middle of that equation.

Look at the problems and then look at the answers and use that awareness, use that juxtaposition to inform us, to show us something, to teach us something, tell us the truth about what's going on, what's really happening. And from there we can endeavor to learn why our lives are an endless series of choices.

The more awareness we can bring to the choices that we make, the more honesty, the more intentionality, the more connection we can build with our lives, the more connection we can build through our lives, through a deeper connection with ourselves, a deeper connection with understanding, deeper connection with truth.

And so when there's times in our life, we want change, we feel stuck, we feel frustrated. We feel unfulfilled, unsatisfied. We always have the ability to look at our choices, look at the things we're choosing to get stuck in. Look for things we're choosing to engage with that are ultimately unsatisfying. Looking at ways we do things that are ultimately uncomfortable.

Look at the parts of ourselves that we're serving and look how life is serving those parts of ourselves right back. Oftentimes not in the way we really want, but that balance always exists, that relationship always exists. We can gain a really deep sense of ownership of our own life by really understanding and being aware and taking responsibility for the choices that we make.

If we're making choices based on parts of ourselves that perhaps we don't want to be feeding so much, we can use our choices to integrate other parts of ourselves. We find parts of ourselves that seem to actually be more meaningful to us, more healthy, more wholesome, more full, more real, then we can make choices that serve this part of ourselves.

Instead, we can look inside of ourselves and wherever we find wholeness, wherever we find a sense of completeness, we can choose to make choices that serve this wholeness, that serve this completeness. We can use this awareness to realize what things we need to pursue and what things we need to let go. And if these choices are really hardwired, we've really been doing them for a long time, or feel really important, feel really high stakes, then there can be a strong emotional charge around them.

We have reasons for doing everything that we do, and if we found that maybe our reasons aren't so great, the reasons themselves still exist. Disengaging from choices that we don't want to make anymore can be a multi-step process because we really have to look at not only the parts of ourselves that we were feeding, we were nurturing, we were growing through our choices, but then if there's some sort of unmet need or emptiness, more pain underneath that, then that part of us still needs attention.

That part of us still needs to be heard, still needs to be healed. It needs to be reintegrated, with the rest of us. We can use our freedom of making our own choices to serve these parts of ourselves in a better way, in a more wholesome, in a more healing way. In a way that leads to reintegration, that leads into more of a sense of wholeness, more of a sense of fullness.

We can choose to meet these unmet needs in completely different ways, in ways that actually feel like they have a chance of reconciling or rectifying whatever this void is, whatever this pain is. We may not get to choose everything that happens to us, but we can absolutely choose what we do with that information, what we do about it.

We always get to choose what we do next. No matter what happens to us, the next step is always up to us. We always get to choose. That's our freedom, that's our autonomy, that's our liberation, is in the power of choice, and we get to use how we utilize this power. We get to choose how consciously we choose.

It's always up to us, it's always on us, it's always because of us. When we can accept that responsibility, at the same time, accept that power, then we can find ourselves living in completely different ways. We can find living as a much more whole person, a much fuller person, a much more real and authentic person.

Because so much more of ourselves, has been integrated into our expression, into what we do and into how we do it. And the choice is always ours, the freedom is always ours. The autonomy is always ours, to choose how we respond or react next, to choose which parts of us we decide to feed, which parts of us get our full attention which parts of us drive the direction of our life.

It's always up to us. We're always choosing and we're always choosing for ourselves. And because we're always choosing, we always have the opportunity for change. We always have the possibility for change because we can always make different choices. That's our creative power. That's our creative gift, that we're the ones who decide what we do.

We're the actors in our own life. We choose how we perform, and even if there's been a lot of unconsciousness in what we've done, well, that's our choice there too. To take a look at that, to give that some attention, to expand that. It's always our choice to look a little deeper within ourselves, look a little bit more fully at our lives, at our circumstances, at our relationships, how things are, how things feel, how things seem to be for others, how they seem to feel as well.

We can use that information and integrate it with our choices. And the more conscious our choices are, the more conscious our life becomes, the more conscious our experience of life becomes. In this increased consciousness, this increased awareness can fuel more increased consciousness, more increased awareness, and we get to choose.

We get to choose what we do or what we don't do. We get to choose our reasons for what we do or what we don't do. We get to choose what outcomes we strive for. We get to choose what's important to us. We get to choose how we want to be and how we want life to be for us in every given moment.

And that's an incredible power, that's an incredible gift. We can choose to use that however we like. Beyond moralizing, beyond judgments, beyond prejudices, we get to decide what's actually important to us. We get to decide what it is we actually want and what we want to do in any given moment.

We get to decide when and how to change. We get to decide how we respond to what happens to us. Our choices are the most powerful lever for change that we have in our life, and we can choose to use that lever however we wish. And as we grow, as our awareness grows and our consciousness grows, our choices grow right along with them too.

With growth, change is inevitable, and we get to choose which direction we grow. And I believe what a lot of us are looking for is a way to integrate our choices with who we really are and what we really want. Well, that's a choice right there too. Doesn't mean it's easy. It almost never means we can do it in just one step, just one simple trick, one flick of a switch. It's a process, it's an unwinding, it's an unlearning, it's a relearning, but that's the process of life. Constant growth, constant change, and we are the architects of the change of our life through our choices, and we can choose to utilize this power, however we wish.

So if we want change, we want things to be different, if we want ourselves to be different, we want our lives to be different, then that's a really good time to not only get to know ourselves, get to know our true real deep on the inside fundamental selves, a lot better. Get to know what really matters to us, what really actually feels nourishing and sustaining and feels good, feels like a reflection of who we really are. We can use that awareness to make choices from and when we do, we'll find not only do our choices seem a lot easier, things seem a lot more clear because they're based on things that are more fundamental, more permanent.

We're not chasing around transient appetites and urges and impulses. This part of us is a lot easier to make choices from because it doesn't really seem to change that much. It isn't moody, it isn't demanding, it isn't flaky, it isn't idiosyncratic. It's stable, it's persistent, it's durable, it's consistent, and we can choose to engage as part of ourselves and make choices from this part of ourselves whenever we want.

And we can be aided in this process by really taking a look at how we've been choosing up until now. Really look at what it says about the part of us that we were trying to feed, that we were trying to support and grow through the choices that we've made and how those choices have actually felt. How good do we actually feel about the choices we've made up until now?

And do we want to feel better? Do we want to feel more wholly nourished, more wholly sustained by the choices we make? And if we do, then the obvious answer is to choose from more of a state of wholeness, more of a state of fullness. Choose from the place inside of us that nourishes us already, and then see how the results and the ramifications of those choices nourish us further.

Whatever part of us we choose from is the part of us that tends to be nourished and grow. And if we want to grow more of this deep, fundamental, authentic, true part of ourselves, and the more choices we make from that place, the more likely that is to happen. And we have the freedom to do this at any time. Choices small and large, choices important and trivial, we have the power, we get to choose. We have the responsibility to choose, and we have the luxury of the result of our choices, and we always have that freedom. We always have that ability. We always have that opportunity to choose.

And when we want to choose to live a life that feels more full, than it's up to us to learn to choose from a sense of fullness.