MAKING LIFE CHOICES

Difficulties and life lessons enter our lives through many different doorways – accidents, illness, loss of career, relationship upheavals and so forth. The variations are endless. Each of us is presented with life lessons and experiences in order to grow and learn from them. The choices we make in everything we do have long-term repercussions - be they positive or negative to our circumstances.


Most often when difficulties appear in our lives we feel powerless, causing us to wonder how this could possibly happen to us.


We certainly don’t have total control over all the situations and events in our lives, but we DO use our choices to bring about many of our circumstances. Every choice we make, large and small, have long and short-term consequences. Every choice matters. This is why we anguish over all sorts of choices we need to make in our lives, in every moment. We can either choose what our intuition tells us, or we can make our choices based upon other factors. We can make our highest choices for our own good, or we can ‘settle’ for less than what we may truly desire. Either way our intuition and soul know our choice. The choices we make bring about the experiences that match that choice, be it in the long or short-term.


For most people, at some point in their life they have ‘settled’ for someone who was not really what they wanted in the relationship sector of their life. As humans we do this because of the dislike and/or fear of being ‘alone’. We would rather be in a relationship with an obviously unsuitable partner than spend our lives as what we perceive to be ‘alone’. When we do this we are ‘settling’. When we choose to stay in an unfixable relationship or situation, at some point the inevitable moment of ‘truth’ comes to light. Your intuition and inner wisdom always knows what is right for you, and when you go against your own inner-truths eventually something has got to give somewhere.


Whether you settle for less than you want in any area of your life, the knowledge that you have compromised your own intuitive truth and inner-knowing you will consciously or unconsciously sabotage your choice. It will not feel comfortable to your soul, and this will bring eventually force change.


Your soul will not allow you to live with the pain of self-betrayal and eventually an outlet for that pain will be found. This may manifest in the form of an addiction, an unsuitable partner choice, depression, resentment ... any number of negative emotion and/or behaviour.


This negative behaviour is a sign that the psyche is deliberately trying to get your attention in order to break out of the situation. The conscious-self may feel too overwhelmed, ‘stuck’ or too frightened to take charge of the situation directly, so you covertly take these steps through displays and feelings of anger, becoming depressed or taking your frustrations out through addictions of all kinds. It is a very loud indicator that a choice you have make, or choices that you are currently making, do not reflect your true soul’s desire and you have settled for less than what you truly desire, want or need.


Always getting exactly what you want is impossible of course, so settling for something less than what you truly want is something that can not be avoided. It is how you deal with them that counts. Each choice that you make has an affect of your life and every facet of it.


So how can we make choices that reflect our inner guidance and are not self-sabotaging?


There is a very subtle difference between ‘settling’ for something and ‘choosing’ something as a passive choice. If you know that you’ve settled for less than you truly wanted, then expect to feel compromised for as long as you are in the situation.


Take time to reflect upon what really matters in your life. Discern the difference between what you want and what you need in your life. Choosing what you need is your ‘soul path’, although what we need may not necessarily be what we want. The path of what we need often anchors us in challenges that serve our life purpose. We discover our greatest talents and inner resources when following the path of what we need in our lives. When making choices based upon the premise of ‘I may want to do this - but I know I need to do that’, you are able to discern your choice based upon your true value system that is in harmony with your true self. 

Choosing what you know resonates with your soul and such an approach to your life may not necessarily make your decisions easier, but wisdom and inner clarity makes navigating your life a much more fulfilling experience.

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Joanne Walmsley

Sacred Scribes