Oooh boy, when it comes to making decisions, sometimes it produces a lot of stress inside.
What should I do?! Which should I pick?! What if I regret it?!
This past week I’ve talked with not one, not two, not three, but FOUR wonderful inquirers on this topic of making a decision….
….and how much it hurts.
The pressure, the worry, the fear.
Inquirers I spoke with either had a decision they just made that was painful, or an impending deadline with a big decision looming, or the hand-wringing decision where the list of pros and cons seems about the same, so you can’t decide.
But before I say more about inquiry and decisions….some of you have asked about upcoming teleclasses.
I’ll be offering my powerful 8 week Relationship Hell to Heaven teleclass starting Monday, Sept. 22 at 9-10:30 am Pacific time.
Any relationship will work as your starting point.
Anyone you’ve argued with or felt disturbed by. We start from the beginning to look deeply at that person, those conditions, those situations…and understand what really bothers us, what’s true and what’s false.
More on this later, but if you want to register, you can click the button at the end of the email. If you have questions, hit reply and I’ll answer.
So back to the decision drawing board….
….Ha ha, isn’t what I just did just like making decisions sometimes?
You start contemplating a problem, a dilemma, or a choice, and you begin to sort out a few ideas about each. You research and collect some information. You’ve got an idea in mind, why you’re even thinking about all this in the first place.
And then, you switch the subject.
Whatevah, I can’t make a decision right now…I’ll wait and see.
It doesn’t come easily. Your mind gets tired. You ask your friends and family to all listen to your dilemma and put in a vote.
A friend once told me about how she had so much trouble making decisions at one point in her life, that if she was presented with two options for events in one night, she’d get sick to her stomach.
She would start driving to one, change her mind and turn the car around to head to the other, then turn the car around again to head back to the first.
She wanted to be in both places at once.
This might seem minor, but the anxiety can be monumental.
The first thing to do is to see what your mind is telling you about this decision. It may not be very friendly.
- If I don’t say yes, I’ll miss a huge opportunity
- If I don’t say yes, I’ll have nothing
- If I don’t choose the right thing, something terrible will happen
- I have to make the right decision
- It’s possible to make the wrong decision
- I could ruin my life or someone else’s life if I make this decision
- What I say “no” to, I will lose forever
I think I drove my friends seriously crazy with that decision about homeschooling kids! (More on that one in a past Grace Note).
So let’s look at these core thoughts about decisions, and what the REAL fear is.
Is it true that you have to say yes, or lose something? Are you sure YOU *have* to make the right decision? Are you positive that if it goes bad later on, it will be because of YOUR decision? Are you sure you couldn’t handle a little disappointment, or new information, down the line in the future?
Well….no. Since you put it that way.
I have no idea what will happen tomorrow. Or next week. Or after I decide. Life will carry on, until it doesn’t.
How do you react when you think you’re in charge? When you think it’s all on you, your the one who has to make it happen? When your actions have to be right, not wrong, and your future MUST be favorable?
Yikes! So much banking on this future, so much fear of feeling bad later on and trying to avoid feeling bad or feeling regret or feeling like I lost something!
Who would you be without that belief, if you couldn’t think the thoughts that you need to make the right choice, it HAS to be good, you can’t make a mistake, you might hurt someone or yourself, you have to be very careful?
Woah.
Ha ha. Not so serious.
“You can sit there and think, ‘Oh, I need to do something with my stocks’, and then you can inquire. Is It True? No, I can’t really know that…..So you just let the process have you. You just sit there with what your passion is, and read, and watch the Internet and let it educate you. And the decision will come from that, at the perfect time. It’s a beautiful thing. You’ll lose money because of that decision, or you’ll make money. As it should be. But when you think you’re supposed to do something with your stocks and imagine that you’re the doer, that’s pure delusion. Just follow your passion. Do what you love, inquire, and have a happy life while you’re doing it.” ~ Byron Katie
Turning the thoughts around:
- If I say yes, I’ll miss a huge opportunity….if I say yes OR no, I’ll always have opportunity, as long as I’m alive
- If I say yes, I’ll have nothing….I love nothing, space, emptiness
- There is no right or wrong thing, and something wonderful will happen….it always does
- I do not have to make the right decision…there is no right or wrong decision, I can work with whatever happens
- It’s impossible to make the wrong decision
- I could save, create, build, expand my life or someone else’s life if I make this decision
- What I say “no” to, I will gain forever
Couldn’t these thoughts be just as true, or truer about making decisions?
And I love what one fabulous inquirer found just yesterday in playing with the turnarounds all the way:
“A right decision has to un-make me.”
Giggling! So true!
All my effort, anxiety, pushing, poking, weighing-in, analyzing….
….all of it assisting the un-doing of “me” as the boss of the future, when it comes to decisions.
“In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering.” ~ Tao Te Ching #48
And here’s the link if you want to sign up for Relationship Hell to Heaven, 8 weeks of doing The Work on People. Freedom!
Much Love, Grace