Choices

I have been reflecting lately on the idea of choices. My entire 30's decade I believed that we make every choice , if you eat , drink or stay depressed or hurt yourself in anyway, its your choice, and you can choose to continue or stop. I have always believed  if you want to change it you just do, you simply make the choice to do so. In a very arrogant and at times hurtful manor i looked at those who actively choose to do things that were not at all healthy as making the wrong choices. I looked at myself this way many times,thousands of times, because it feed a self depreciating need is my guess. It was at the end of my thirties that through much discussion and self reflection that I slowly began to try and see things differently.

I understand that some choices are harder then others, usually those that involve the emotions of others, or make a change in other people's life.  Simple choices like how you act or respond in certain situations while automatic I think are also on some level a conditioned response but also I have always been fully aware when I shove a handful of chips in my mouth that I am not making the best choice, or every time I had a cigarette I hated my self for a split second, but I still made the decision to smoke, just as I made the decision to stop. (And then shoved more chips in my mouth) Part of my health problems are a direct result of me making bad eating choices, being a binge eater, being self depreciating, being cruel to my self. These were choices I made, and now I am dealing with the consequences of those choices.

With how I have been feeling lately around my health and my general overall state of being, I have realized that my way of thinking may not always have been the most true description of a situation or how I feel about things may not have come through as I have been at times recently been on automatic, going from one appointment to the next in a state of numbness and sadness and fear.  And in doing so have shut off consciously how I feel about all types situations and things. This seems  more of a conditioned response to dealing with the stress in my life, but in a way that is not healthy or productive at all. It actually appears to be a shutting off of my emotions and times rational thought!

This year I have made a promise to myself to be more present in my own life, making real choices, thinking things though being more aware of how my responses and how my choices affect me. I
made a similar promise a few years ago around doing this with how my responses and choices affect the behaviour and responding of others, I learned a lot during that time. I used a trick a friend taught me reminding myself to "w.a.i.t"  or ask myself Why Am I Talking? By doing this it at times made others uncomfortable, not putting myself in the fore front in meetings on a small team, was to some unsettling, it was to others on opportunity to be heard. Strangely enough it taught me that in my listening, I realized I did not want to be on the job I thought I loved and as a result I switched careers.

I have no idea what being in the "now" will bring, so far it kind of sucks dealing with uncertainty and fear,  and to be honest seems a little flaky! But of course I have bought a couple of books, and will do the research on how to live simply, be present in the now, and learn finally how to release stress, so I can heal not only my body, but my brain, and my heart and health.

today's task - reflection time and 10 minutes of breathing and not thinking.

Signing off as your anxious friend,the over thinker on a journey to enlightenment! (Even writing that makes me laugh, I must have a long way to go on this journey.)
Melanie Jane