YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE IT! EVERYDAY!

Barbara Ward-Finneran

What enables us to go from what we are today to who we want to be tomorrow?

All the options that exist in today's tech savvy and fast moving world along with all the decisions and choices open to us each moment don’t necessarily give you a sum of happiness and optimism at the end of the day.  How has the simplicity of that beautiful aspiration been lost along the way? Multitudes of options seemingly make life overwhelming, not easier.  Wouldn’t it seem like many choices would make life easier.  Rather the opposite is at times blindingly apparent.  With choice comes responsibility.  UGH!  Therein lies the problem.  Do you become trapped in not choosing rather then risk the wrong one?  

Although not easy to admit out loud, or in this case, write and read typed out, I’ve been making choices by default.  By spinning my wheels. YUCK!  I despise that - yet I have been lost in a cycle of it.  By not keeping your eyes on the prize and focusing on the outcomes you desire, you let life happen to you, instead of creating the life you crave and deserve.  I know better.  I do better.  So, WHY?  Why am I, why have I been floundering in a pool of potential?  

I’ve been putting in some time soul searching for that "AH-HA answer".  It’s not a black and white issue, so there isn’t a simple answer, but a spectrum of shades and tints to investigate.  Layers to peel away, acknowledge, and feel before you can escape the torture of life in the gray and once again look through those technicolor glasses.  I know I have those glasses!  Hell, I usually blind people when I put ‘em on. They have been just out of reach - like that lip gloss that you know is in the black hole of your purse.  Reach in feel around, pull stuff out, you know it’s 'freaking' in there.  Yet there is no getting your hands on it till later when you can get somewhere and do the “great purse dump” in a safe place with decent lighting.  

Seems my mind and heart have needed a “great purse dump”.  Yet like when looking for that lip gloss, sometimes you choose to forget about it, rather then finish the task of searching for it, or finding the time, energy, and place needed for the “dump”.  You use (choose the safety of) the chap stick that you have pulled out ten times instead or just go without.  

Bad enough to be all to aware of your own “funk”, but when your "Mary Sunshine" reputation suffers and your friends can’t help but notice to the point of needing to tell you “take the bull by the horns”, or keep asking “what’s up?”, there is no hiding that you won’t be nominated for that Emmy award.  The “funk” has spilled over into interactions of life and there’s no being numb to it when the world notices.  Ironically, I don’t want to be numb to “it”, or my own “life”.  I believe in the power of the positive.  I have faith in my own abilities to “make it happen” and have instilled the mantra to “keep the promises that you make to yourself” to the depth of my soul.  That old adage that you get by with a little help from your friends rings true. In recent weeks they have been there. (As always!) Spoon feeding me my own words and pointing out the obvious. (Hate that, need that!) Talking and texting through emotions and tears, and even sending a virtual “SLAP”.  All needed.  All necessary.  All leading to an AH-HA........

It’s recovery baby!  YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE IT!  EVERYDAY!  Think it. Dream it.  Act it. And, speak it into being.  MAKE IT HAPPEN.  All you need is within you.  Blink the tears away.  Force the air into your lungs, breath and do it. Stop being afraid and feel!

Feel it.  Act the part.  The rest will follow. Today I dressed for success.  My boys questioned where I was going?  They also were bemused when I told them nowhere despite the “dressy” outfit, make up and heels.  I laughed to myself - feeling better already.  Giving your head & heart a “great purse dump” and throwing on a great pair of stilettos will change your perspective.  Figuratively and literally - I highly recommend BOTH!