The choices we make are so often created through a visceral and emotional trigger. Most of us are imperceptibly unconscious of these responses and consider them so normal we have no awareness of this process. We are unaware and unconscious of how we choose to choose what we choose!
Until we become aware of how we choose what we choose we are at the mercy of a system – patterns of being, which keep us stuck, resistant and pretty unfulfilled. And, we wonder why life isn’t changing for us, even though we really want it different. Little by little I’ve come to realize that there is a me that lives outside the field of emotions and thoughts. Rumi talks about this when he says “Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
In this field I experience myself free to respond authentically and directly from my essential self. There is no fear, there is no worry, there is no guilt or resentments. There is just ME – Miraculous Existence. Its a very nice place to be! If you, too, want to be in a place of miraculous existence, check out my book titled “ME … Indispensable Insights I didn’t Get in Therapy.”
As I become more experienced at knowing this field, I’m more aware of when I’m in it and when I’m not. This has been so crucial in the process of the spiritual evolution of me. And, I’m delighted to notice the waking up and the choice making process that follows. Trust me it gets better and easier – if that’s what you want!
Opening the doors of perception
The other morning, I woke up readying myself for a full and delightful day. Even before getting out of bed I like to start out wanting to know which warm and yummy beverage of choice I’ll be enjoying. It gives me a little inspiration to get things going. Will it be coffee or lemon juice in warm water?
So, still lying in bed, I asked myself: “Do I want coffee?” An immediate visceral response of guilt arose, and more than ever before I was conscious of this response. Then I asked myself: “Do I want lemon juice in warm water?” Another immediate visceral response occurred – this time it was the experience of resentment and a sense of being deprived.
Wow! I’ve never been so awake to the degree to which I’m living either in guilt, resentment, deprivation, or maybe other emotions such as fear or dread. Who knows what’s lurking in the recesses of me. We never know until we begin to open the doors of perception!
How do I choose to choose?
Coffee – I LOVE COFFEE! Especially with milk and sugar – two substances that I’ve limited in my diet – except when I don’t. I often feel guilty because “I know I shouldn’t have it.”
Lemon juice in water – It’s very good to start the day with this as it cleanses my system and supports liver functions. On this particular morning though, it brought up resentment and deprivation? Sometime it doesn’t.
After sitting in the midst of this awareness of these underlying emotions and how they influence me and my choices, I had a thought: How about choosing to choose from a place of no guilt and no resentment? How about choosing from love and joy? “Out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing….” Ooooh! I like that!
I don’t know about you, but I do now know that I can live without guilt, shame, deprivation, victimizing, and all of the other negative patterns of being and knowing myself. I can live outside the lack-based, fear-based paradigm created by consensus reality. How did I come to know this? Practice, practice Practice.
Training yourself to live without guilt
- Okay, so how do you live without guilt? Good question. For me, I first of all had to realize that guilt serves no real purpose. If you’ve done something wrong, apologize and move on. And, if this little bit of advice didn’t work for you, ask yourself, “How does guilt work for my good? Does it keep me from making the same mistakes? Does it make me feel good about myself? What does guilt do for me?” If you realize, like I did, that guilt really has no positive influence in your life you can then move on to being more committed to giving it up!
2. A practice that really works well for me is to remember moments when I was without guilt. In remembering those moments I experience the qualities of being that were present. In those moments I experience freedom, relaxed, peaceful, and mostly myself. I experience spontaneous and authentic knowing. My intuition is alive and I make choices from what inspires me and what is infinitely pleasing. Life is a lot more fun when I’m living in this reality.
3. When you can distinguish what it’s like to be in a state where there is no guilt and how different it is from the state where you are immersed in guilt, you can then choose to either let go of the guilt or stay in the yucky guilt-based feelings and thoughts, such as: “I’m a bad person. I don’t deserve to have a great life. I suck! No wonder life treats me bad. I’m worthless.” Something like that! You have a greater capacity to choose once you are aware of the differences. And that takes conscious practice.
4. This practice works with feeling resentment, deprived, or any other feelings, thoughts or sensations we all grapple with. Just remember a time where you were without resentment, deprivation…. In the remembering of it, it brings you into the experience of perhaps love, joy, freedom, spontaneous delight. I say this as if its simple and easy. Truth is, the more dedicated you are to having a fulfilled and joyful life the more attuned you become to when you are something other than fulfilled and joy-filled.
5. Choose what is infinitely pleasing!
So, you are probably wondering what I chose – coffee or lemon juice and water. What I did is I listened to my deep true self, where there is no wrong doing or right doing. I felt into what is infinitely pleasing, and coffee was the answer. No guilt, no negative triggers or shame. I thoroughly enjoyed every last drop!
You might be saying: “Yes but, you can’t live everyday like that. It’s not possible!!!” Well, only through experimenting with the possibility of living a life that is infinitely pleasing have I actually come to live a life that is so much more pleasing than I ever imagined. I truly want to know what is possible, so rather than saying I can’t change the way it is, I at least practice changing the things I can change. And who knows where that leads. What I know though, is that as I empower myself to experiment with little changes, the evidence is in itself empowering. That’s fun! I like myself more, and I trust that I’m taking much better care of myself then ever before! I want this – for me and for you!
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