Guided by our last posts engagements, let’s talk about the idea that what we don’t change we choose.
Consider this sentiment, challenging as it is true: No matter our circumstances, life is still a series of choices.
As some life-choice series seem harder than others, there is no way to equalize external circumstance. Instead, we work from a singular human baseline of navigating our own choices and being accountable for the decisions we make.
Spirituality at it’s core, requires an ability to reflect on ones circumstance and recognize the choices leading to the current situation. It is accepting that choices are only the best decision we can make at the time, even when we’re choosing between bad and worse. It is in aligning, as best we can, our choices with our highest self. It is the discernment between what we can control and what we must accept as circumstance. It is the grace of forgiving ourselves for choices we had to make and allowing those experiences to point us in the direction of our truth. It is in choosing to accept what is, without the tang of bitterness on our tongue. What is will be whether we accept it or not. Why not allow ourselves some grace with our being?
Spirituality understands that we find ourselves wherever we did, with the choices accessible to us, for a reason. Insert here, again, that thing called faith. The belief that, the challenge of our circumstance is what propels us closer to our highest ideals. That would mean we have to accept that our biggest challenges are too – our greatest gifts; because challenge is the magnificent facilitator of our change.
Contrast transforms our existence. If we can meet challenge with the reflection of mindful choice, maybe we can track the line to our highest self with a gentleness inside our being.
This is not to say that we wouldn’t be impacted by things beyond our control. But rather challenged to be responsible for our behaviors anyway. How we treat others informed by how we treat ourselves informed by how we respond to the contrast around us.
One of our most human natures is blame. It comes easy because life – lifes and in the lifeing we are collateral damage to the flinging whimsy of circumstance. But, life happens to all of us, and we become responsible for our own existence anyway.
This doesn’t mean that we ignore systemic barriers and personal challenges, but rather we focus on what we have the ability to control. In the controlling of our own selves, we find not only a path forward, but we may just find ourselves becoming an agent for change enlightened by our experience – in a more collective way. This is the path to a more fulfilled experience. The path of more than just a job to pay for all the things we think we need that don’t make the experience any better inside our skin.
The injustice of our own circumstance can saturate our experience with bitterness or we can, despite our circumstances, acknowledge our ability to create change.
What we don’t change we choose.
We center our existence. That existence is day to day, minute by minute. Within that, no matter our circumstances, we have to live our experience. Mindfulness is the act of creating the experience that we want to have despite the circumstances beyond our control. Because no matter the external influences, our experience happens inside our skin, yet we man the controls for what filters in and out.
This is the critical component of accountability. And spirituality requires us to embrace that there are no victims here. There are survivors of horrific circumstance who thrive, and people who have had every possible perceived advantage eaten by bitterness.
Why?
Because there is no qualitative balance of experience. Instead we look into the mirror and choose who to become.
What we don’t change we choose.
Even if that’s just our internal response to external circumstance.
By choosing mindfully we learn to:
- Reflect. Ask what am I tolerating that I could change?
- Reframe. Instead of thinking I have no choice, think, right now I’m choosing x y z.
- Small Actions lead to big change. Remember it doesn’t have to be dramatic to be transformative.
- Find people who support the change that you want to see. Coaches, friends, therapist etc.
- Commit to yourself. Your experience is happening to you. Only you can be the agent of that change.
What we don’t change we choose.
Accountability in no way makes us responsible for, or complicit to abuse or any circumstances beyond our control. Nor does it mean we have to forgive it. It simply recognizes our role in shaping our lives despite the shrapnel winging around us. It is the reclaiming of our power to make the intentional decisions, day to day, that weave the fabric of our experience.
What we don’t change, we choose.
So, in the spirit of collaboration with our own selves, what will we choose today, this week, this month? Ask yourself and then observe your behaviors. Be aware of your decisions and conscious of the ramifications of your choices.
What we don’t change we choose.
Will we step toward or away from who we want to be?
Because if we’re not changing it, we’re choosing it.
