When we are very young, most of our choices are controlled by others. This is for safety, for convenience, and to adhere to the norms of the family, culture and society in which we are raised. Without realizing it, we are deeply assimilating many belief systems on how we should act, look and think. And we begin to fear that we have a whole lot to lose (at least in terms of approval) if we don’t make choices that align with these early lessons, some being beautiful and useful, and some not so much as we continue to grow as individuals.
As we reach our teenage years we begin in a natural way to want to separate from this control, longing for liberation, to be free to choose for ourselves. In the process to establish our own identity, we make some good choices and some bad choices and we begin to understand that with freedom to choose comes responsibility for our choices. This supports growth when we let these lessons inform us and do our best to be accountable for what we have set in motion with our thoughts, actions and words. But many times we find it difficult to fully make or own our choices even as adults, especially when what we truly want clashes or gets buried by these internalized belief systems of what it means to be successful, attractive, intelligent, talented, worthy. As we mature as beings of consciousness, our deeply ingrained desire for approval constantly collides with our longing to experience a self not so defined by expectation and societal/cultural norms.
Far from feeling liberating, freedom to choose now can carry a lot of weight if we keep selecting more and more of the same life experiences that support how we “should be” over who we “really are”, or not shifting our course when some choices no longer serve. This fear-based process can have us feeling trapped in aspects of the life fabric we have woven for ourselves, and not feeling very happy much of the time. So where do we find that freedom for which we long? Use the getting tired of this constant struggle as a juggernaut to choose a new way of doing things.
Ditching all our responsibilities (though perhaps appealing!) will not give us the long term ease and happiness for which we yearn. As yoga practitioners however, exploring where we fully show up in life by examining and owning our choices can begin to give some ease in this dynamic as we learn more and more about ourselves and our fears. Defending “my truth” becomes more informed in the space of a more eternal, universal truth. We learn how we might operate more fully present in our lives if we use each choice as an opportunity to learn what scares us, what excites us and what bores us and by not dismissing any of these out of hand. We can simply begin to examine each choice as an opportunity to move closer to what we truly long for, and make that a priority again and again in our words, actions, and yes, even which of our our thoughts we listen to.
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