On Choices

[Essay inspired by Dr. Lara’s LIGHFBOX 5˚ Thought Experiment]

Take a moment to bring to mind an experience in your life that you wish had a different outcome. How would your life be different today if you made a choice other than the one you made?

There were choices that took me to different places, and placed me in front of people who challenged my sense of self; who I was and why I was here.  My choices allowed me to create friendships, take unique jobs, and introduced me to a broad based core of people.  

As I ponder what my life would have been like had I made different choices, many of my choices strike my mind. I regret how I treated someone. I feel  the sting of betrayal when I let someone who I adored abused my love and trust. I felt sad about how I let a beautiful friendship fade away. I am upset that I didn’t follow through on a call I planned to make because I feared rejection. I began to feel disconnected  and asked myself ‘Who was I then? Who am I now?’.

In my younger years, I truly believed that my kindness and trust of others would be returned if I was kind and loyal myself. Growing up in a small town, my parents, sisters, coaches and friends were people who I could count on, feel completely safe and supported by. Naively I believed as I left home, Hanover, NH, to attend college everyone else would be just like my close circle of people at home. 

The following choices I made reflected my nativity.

I could look back and wonder what if I had not accepted a scholarship to UVM? What if I had not shown up at that bar? What if I had listened to the few teachers and professors who told me I was smart? What if I had stood up for myself more often? Trying to answer these questions over my past experiences/choices is not how I want to spend any more time in my life.

“Sometimes we get stuck in thinking that if an experience had a different outcome it may have changed the course of our existence or the ways in which we operate, behave and make choices. The truth is, we don’t know.”

While wading through the sorrowful path of my regrets, something profound happened. I began to see my past self as someone other than an individual of accumulated choices that I could have better chosen, and began to consider why I made the choices I made.

This LIGHFBOX prompt motivated me to move past the frustration from the pain I may have caused others, the hardships I may have avoided; to move past my harsh self judgements and to self-acceptance. I realized the choices I had made were rooted in how I was raised: with love, trust and the suggestion to focus on the good in others. What I know for sure now is that hurt people, hurt people. I’ve been on both sides.

“Reflecting on your wish, your fantasy for perhaps a different outcome can help you understand how you might be keeping yourself stuck, whereby, keeping yourself small, and not growing into the greatness that exists within.” - Dr. Lara

With every choice there is a lesson to learn.

Through this exercise from LIGHFBOX Degree 5, I began my practice of letting go of an outcome that I can not change. I found it beneficial to allow all my feelings to emerge, examine them and then make a conscious decision to gain more perspective on what I would have liked an outcome to be. Then take that lesson with me everywhere I now go.

While I’ve wished I made different choices, especially with regard to causing another person distress or pain, I shall instead turn this lesson into a reminder to never to do it again. The undesirable outcomes from my choices were undesirable gifts wrapped in pain, obstacles, and/or shame that I needed to unwrap and dig through, discard and step into who I am today, and who I want to become.

The foundation for change is built on our experience, intentions and knowledge gained from our choices. Most importantly, focusing on how far you’ve come, what you’ve built, who you are now and how you want to continue to build the life you want, starts with a greater understanding of yourself.

Self-awareness, honesty and gratitude are powerful factors in healing. Defining the past as an education to better ourselves in the future, instead of allowing it to become an attachment that defines who we are for a lifetime, helps us to embrace the profound and extraordinary nature of the present moment and appreciate how far we’ve come. Reflecting on this growth may spark confidence and ignite courage to continue to seek the greatness that exists within you.

In the final analysis, our lives are miraculous with endless probabilities, possibilities and opportunities. Dr. Lara’s LIGHFBOX 5˚ question allowed me to realize that a limitless amount of love and gratitude lies beneath my self-doubt and self-imposed limitations, and marries my wonders not with sadness and regret, but with acceptance and understanding. Moreover, it broadened my curiosity to reflect on a new question in this moment:  How am I going to be a better person today?