Saturday, July 23, 2016

Learning to listen with our whole selves.

Bad Choices

Trust yourself—your body and your soul—to know what's right for you.”
Melody Beattie (Journey to the Heart, page 294)

I've made some bad choices in my life. At least, I've made some choices that had seriously unfortunate consequences. The truth is, I usually made those choices in spite of my better judgment. Frequently, there was a voice inside me warning that this might not be the best thing to do, best person to be with, best job for me. I made the choice to override those internal warnings—those blinking yellow lights behind my eyes—that said, “Stop! Go no further! This is not right for you.” I ignored the warnings because there was something I wanted. Some glittering object like “the ring of power” (Tolkien) lured me and I didn't listen to my body and my soul.

I wonder whether you can relate. Bad choices are inherent to being human. We're going to make some mistakes—some small, some large, and we will experience the consequences of our choices. After one of those bad decisions, we always question ourselves—at least, I do. I ask myself a million times, “What was I thinking? Why didn't I see that coming?” The voice in my head says, “You did know better. Remember, I warned you and you ignored me.” We have the capacity within to know better—energetically, our bodies pick up on small clues, little characteristics, but our spin doctor head talks us into thinking it's just our imagination. There is always that shiny object that that beckons to us like a barker at the county fair. “ Come on! Give it a try. You, too, can win this one-of-a-kind...whatever.”

We must, if we want to avoid the pitfalls of our bad choices, learn to listen with our whole selves. Tune in to your gut, to your heart; intuition resides a bit lower on the body than the cerebral cortex. And, mistakes are not the worst things to make if we learn the lesson the consequences bring. The most important thing is to check in with all of you—your body, your soul and your brain. When all of them are in agreement, it's hard to go wrong.

                                                           In the Spirit,

                                                               Jane

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