Well, I’m back from my retreat, feeling so blissed out and relaxed last week that I made a choice not to write my blog straight away. My choice was instead to rejoin the rat race a little more slowly, give myself a bit more time to re-adjust to normal life. I am happy with my choice!
The Retreat was so wonderful, vegetarian food, Yoga twice a day, deep meditation, swimming in the sea (one of my favourite things!)… And then I came home, and went up to stay with my sister at the weekend, and jumped out of a plane – skydived to celebrate recent birthdays we had. You can have a look at the on my FB page! The last couple of weeks have been super exciting! The choices I have made have made me feel very happy and grateful for the life and friends/family and support that I have.
Sometimes of course we have to make choices that don’t quite feel so good, that not everyone around us will like, or that are more of a long term game – will feel great later, but right now sting a little bit. I also had to do this recently, over this same time period in fact. I made a choice about what my future will look like and who will be in it, and it is different to where I’m at now. This choice has been one of the hardest things I’ll ever do I think, but I am holding my vision, and I know in my heart that I don’t have a shred of doubt, regardless of how much it hurts right now.
Some people feel like they don’t have choices, that they have to just go along with what others want, to keep the peace, or please those around them. For most people this isn’t true. It’s a mindset. We all make choices about how we live our lives every single day, and a lot of people will say things like “I have to do this” or “she made me”, “I don’t have a choice, this is just how life is”. Here’s the big news: It’s your choice!
You can choose how you go to your job every day, telling yourself you hate it and it’s making you miserable, or you can be proud and grateful that you have employment and money coming into the household, whilst really figuring out either how to make that job work, or getting a different one.
You can choose how you want your relationship to be, staying in it because it’s the right thing to do for the kids and your other half and feeling miserable, or finding out what your options are legally so that at least you can recognise that this is in fact a choice you are making by staying.
Whatever the choices are that you are making, there are excellent reasons why you do it. Think about it, the little choices you make every day: “I’m too tired to exercise today” is your choice, but you know when you feel better. “Just one more cigarette/glass of wine” can feel like the right choice at the time, but your body may not thank you for it later. In the moment of course these are 100% the right choices for you. But we have to think about the longer game: what is it we really want for our lives?
