Choices

Hello everyone and welcome to my twenty-sixth blog.

This is a hectic topic and from the outset, I just have to say that I am a proper amateur on this subject. I am not a philosopher or psychologist or medical intuitive or anything learned like that, but little research that I have started doing has been fascinating.  I hope something in this, piques your interest a little!

For some of you who know me well, I have a few phrases which I overuse, misuse, and abuse. One of these is, “It’s all about choices” and another is “Make good choices”. The first used in our family for years about eating wisely and the second used when my teenage sons started going out and partying. Suffice it to say, both phrases are now used loosely and flippantly, but I still hope that they remain embedded in the recesses of my, now grown up, boys’ minds.

When I started thinking about choices, it dawned on me quite quickly that every single day of our lives from the moment we wake up til the moment we go to sleep we are making choices and many of them. Tiny ones, often unconsciously, medium ones, which may require some thought and then the big ones, that we spend a lot of time on, pondering and contemplating. We choose when to get out of bed, whether to exercise, whether and what to eat, what to wear, to name but a few. The power of all the choices we make have infinite consequences for our lives. Often, we are not aware what a little choice is and what a big choice is. We believe that a big choice is an obvious one, buying a house, getting married. These are actually small choices. The choices that matter are often the tiny ones done privately, the seemingly insignificant ones. Most often these have the most powerful impact on you, giving you the sense of who you are, your wellbeing, your life map.

Choice is actually a fundamental power of our human experience. It is in our very core and being. We are born knowing that choice is the most powerful thing we have, and for that reason, we are often terrified to make a choice. We are frightened of the consequences and we are scared of being made accountable for the choices. My mind says I think, my heart says I feel. So often we do not let the one talk to the other.  My mind uses logic but ignores how I feel, and my heart can guide me, but it can make mistakes. We need to try to think and feel at the same time. So very difficult to do. This choice story is deep. I decided after some reading and listening to use this making of choices to help me. To strive to make choices that I believe will enhance my overall health and wellness. These would include:

1. I would love to choose to live a life of authenticity and integrity based on my core beliefs and value system. I need to walk my talk. To tell the truth. To say what I believe. I am not going to betray or compromise myself. I need to be accountable for my actions, and I do not want to compromise myself if I can help it. Not so easy.
2. I would so like to choose to be kind to others. I would like to pass on energy and positivity, and not sadness and negativity. We all have pain, suffering, and burdens. Some a lot more than others. I just want to be able to chat to folk about it but then transfer light and love. I really hope I can do this. At the moment I am struggling, but it will happen in time.
3. I have chosen and will continue to choose, to take risks. My definition of risk in this instance is taking a chance on investing time, energy, effort, and money into something that may not have the expected outcome that I imagine. I have done this over the last year and it has been scary, invigorating, frustrating, exciting, and absolutely fulfilling. It has empowered me and enriched my life more than I could ever imagine.
4. I have decided to choose new words and to lose some of my not so good ones. The words we use have phenomenal power, what we say to ourselves and others. They can have the most tremendous impact, negatively or positively, on ourselves and others. I am trying to lose the words of criticism and judgement, and I am hoping to replace them with the words, kindness, and appreciation.
5. I am choosing to learn from my past experiences and the decisions I made, but I am endeavouring to teach myself not to dwell on them. The choices I made at the time came from an informed platform. Whether they ended up being right or wrong is immaterial now, and there is no point in beating myself up about them.
6. I am choosing to, very surprisingly for me and, I am sure, for all of you, to start moderating my use of social media. I do need it and it serves me hugely for my nutrition work, but I am spending a lot less time on it than before. I am also choosing to make myself aware of the events of the world through social media but only so much as is necessary for my health and wellbeing and that of my family.
7. I am starting to choose not to overthink and overanalyze everything. This has been wasted energy for me for years and has rarely served me. This is proving very difficult.
8. I am attempting to choose not to be a people pleaser, if this does not serve me, and as long as I am not going to hurt or harm others badly by doing this.
9. I am choosing on an ongoing basis to nourish my body with nutrient-dense foods, mostly. I am working very hard on treating myself mentally, physically, and emotionally with kindness and care.
10. My final choice is to get up every day and bless my day. I am alive. I am grateful for the life that I have. I will never have today again. Let me make the most of it, with the stresses and uncertainties of it, with the joys and laughter of it, in its imperfect entirety. We are living in very difficult, worrying, and stressful times and sometimes, even often this may be very tough.  My dream is to choose to shape the life around me with grace and beauty and to see the present with gratitude and love.

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Caroline Myss, the wonderful internationally renowned, best-selling author and medical intuitive for her amazing work. I have used some of her insights to help me make my list.

Tip number twenty-five.

As things start changing and our world starts opening up, let us not judge and criticize others for how they manage and navigate their way through our new normal, We are all different and let us just do the best we can in our lives and leave others to do the same.