Choice or Circumstance

Let choice whisper in your ear; and love murmur in your heart. - Maya Angelou

We have all heard the adage regardless of what happens to you; you always have a choice. Our lives are filled with circumstances beyond our control, beginning with the family we were born into and our environment. 

It is virtually impossible to turn on news events without realizing they are beyond our control, from global wars to everyday shootings and climate change.

You have no control over how your children turn out, your spouse may react, whether your partner stays or goes, and more. As James Allen famously said, 'circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.'

Regardless of what happens to you; you always have the power of choice, or as Stephen Covey says; "our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions'. Response- Ability - suggest you can choose your answer.

Here is the thing: depending on our life experiences, whether significant "Trauma's or Little Traumas, these experiences affect not only our minds, emotions, and systems of belief but also the body. 

At the moment of a life threat, our animal brain instincts take precedence over reflective decision-making, allowing us to run, duck for cover, hide, fight back, or huddle and wait for it to be over - whatever best helps us to survive.

Decades after the mind knows we are safe; the body still responds as if threatened. When triggered by everyday normal life stimuli directly or indirectly reminiscent of the trauma, the same bodily responses that initially helped us to survive are instinctive re-activated. Our bodies used their animal brain instincts to negotiate a dangerous world that now feels like an enemy rather than an ally.

The thing about circumstance is, most likely, a similar experience; you see, whatever we survived in our lives {wounded-ness, betrayal, abuse, toxicity, personality disorders of others, etc.} is what we will continue to attract until that wounded - ness heals. 

So when choosing a new path, job, relationship, or even ourselves, it may not be as easy as we think because the work of 'shame' is to keep us in line.

While we can choose ourselves, new jobs, and relationships, we have parts of us that will override it because we are hard-wired to choose to survive, not thrive. Our nervous system integrates the outside world with our inside world to bring us into embodied integration, and if our inside world cannot connect to the outside - we will choose to stay the same over a new experience. 

Most of us were not attuned to or learned co-regulation with our caregivers, watched our parents impulsively choose, or heard our caregivers say, "I don't have any other choice'! 

It is because, in fact, in their bodies and their minds, there were not any other choices. 

Our circumstances do not have to be the end of the line or the end all be all to our experiences, but that requires us to begin practicing a new way of being. 

 Practicing presence within ourselves creates safety and attunement to ourselves; When our past intrudes, or we fear it may invade our minds or bodies; then we must land in the present moment. Once we can trust being present in our bodies, life becomes more manageable, and we can begin to choose.

Many people in the personal development or therapeutic world may say there are consequences to every choice. A person with a dysregulated nervous system only hears consequences and becomes fearful and freezes or runs. 

Until we can distinguish the individual sensations in our bodies and the stimulus from our anxiety or numbness, we will continue to choose our circumstances over a new experience. 

Here are a few ideas or tips for beginning the shifting of our circumstances:

Presence: I am here now in this moment. 

A higher power or spiritual framework is helpful because it can hold and support the cosmicology of something more significant for us to believe in and trust.

Simple breathing techniques like; little sips of breath and controlled breathing can relax you to the here and now and allow us to not get into the circumstances of what is happening and rather be here in the present moment.

Check in with your underlying beliefs or perceptions of yourself, and Remember, our perceptions are our past experiences put into our future. 

We often look at people who are in challenging circumstances or their lives at the age of 75 aren't full of travel and play and say well, they may have made poor choices; I would ask, 'Did the healed version of themselves make those choices, or did the unhealed part of them make those choices?"

Because likely when we are regulated, attuned to our bodies, available, and present, our choices would look much different than when we are unregulated, in anxiety, compulsive behaviors, and or in pain.

We are multifaceted beings with many parts to us, and we must stop excluding the nervous system when we are healing. 

Our lives are not created in a vacuum, and most of us have been challenged by many scenarios and life events.

 We cannot choose because choosing may relate to an old unmet need we had when we were younger. If we do not know our attachment style and understand how relationships with others and ourselves affect us throughout our lives, our choices can stay small. 

You will constantly choose to belong over your authentic self, leading to self-abandonment. Thus the painful cycle of self-betrayal. 

Our culture rewards us for staying the same; it is the foundation for capitalism. Thus, why to cancel culture is so influential; it keeps you choosing the narrative of belonging rather than you, your authentic being.

Our circumstances do not have to determine our future or our choices, AND that is the responsibility - the 'ability to respond' and choose differently.

While our circumstances do not tell us who we are - Our choices tell us a lot about our circumstances.

Much love and a life time of compassion,