Decisions. We make many day in and day out. Sometimes the answers seem apparent such as “I am hungry, so I choose to eat.” But many decisions, that we believe are no-brainers, are in fact, no-feelers. In order to avoid making mistakes, to avoid upsetting or being judged by others or because we don’t trust ourselves, we often hijack our decision-making abilities from our hearts (feelings) in favor of our brains (thoughts). Oh, but that sneaky brain is often most interested in self-preservation and nurturing the ego not in always doing what is best for our growth.
Within the spiritually-minded community is the belief that there are only 2 root emotions: Fear and Love. All other emotions are just subcategories of these. Fear can be jealousy, anger, depression, control, anxiety…all those uncomfortable fellas. Love can be joy, peace, amore and all those great feeling gals. If I am feeling jealous of someone, it stems from a fear within me that I am not as good or worthy as that other person as if life is set up as some sort of competition. If I am feeling anxious about an upcoming MRI it is because I am afraid of what the doctor might tell me (the culture of conventional medicine has created a lot of fear). When I am angry with my kids for being fresh sometimes it’s more about me fearing that I am not being respected and worrying that they will pull that same attitude out in public, with another adult – God forbid- and then I will be judged for not being a good parent. Sometimes I am angry simply because I am tired and don’t want to deal with pre-teen attitude. For this specific issue I still work very hard at raising respectful kids because in showing good manners to all people my kids learn respect for humanity.
Anybody with kids in school can probably relate to feeling like they ‘should’ help (fear of what others might think) with a fundraiser but don’t really have the time and thus end up depleted by giving what was not available to give. Self-sacrifice is valued but how many times is this done out of fear? Fear that someone won’t like us as much if we don’t help? Is it selfish to say no or is it self-love? In self-love we make decisions that resonate with our highest good. Selfishness usually exists when we actually have more self-loathing than self-love. We must learn to love ourselves whole-heartedly for exactly who we are before we have any love to offer others. Otherwise the act of giving depletes us. Compassion, charity, and love for our fellow men often significantly increases our feelings of well-being, but only when done for the right reasons. Not for ego, or fear of rejection, or feeling superior but for recognizing the presence of God in every person we meet.
Fear is based on what the ego craves – acceptance and safety.
My favorite definition of fear is ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’. When we base our decisions on ‘what ifs’ and on making the right impression, we short change our ability to trust our feelings – our intuition. We have created our society around fear. At a very young age we are taught that our parents, teachers, doctors, government, religious leaders and other authority figures know best what is good for us. We learn to pay attention in school, even though many parents I know believe our kids are often just learning to regurgitate facts with no time for creativity or different learning styles. We learn that we can’t possibly know if we are healthy by how we feel without a licensed professional telling us so. We learn that to be safe we need to allow others to listen in to our phone and internet conversations and take false comfort in knowing that we aren’t doing anything wrong so we’ll be left alone. Of course, that ship has long sailed for me because I have dared to question the official story on many topics…
Fear is a powerful motivator. Many choose to not voice their opinion or to challenge the status quo because they find it too uncomfortable to have others disagree with them. As you might suspect, I do not have this particular fear, rest-assured I have had many others, but it’s also why so many around the world live under oppressive regimes. I was recently watching a documentary on the rise and fall of the Third Reich (I know, I know, I broke my depressing media ban but I feel that the Nazi regime has so much to teach us about speaking the truth before it’s too late). It reminded me that German citizens, by and large, did not support the Nazi regime, however, they felt too afraid to stop it. I don’t blame them but I imagine that almost every German citizen still alive at the end of the war (having suffered through near starvation, loss of family members, loss of innocence, mass rape at the hands of invading Russian soldiers, lost limbs, not even to mention the horrors of the Holocaust) wished whole-heartedly that they had stood up to the oppression when the violence became institutionalized upon Hitler’s ‘appointment’ as Chancellor in 1933.
“All You Need is Love”
We don’t need to start on a global scale however. By starting with our day to day decisions, there is another choice: LOVE. I struggled with the word ‘love’ for a long time. It didn’t seem to make sense in terms of making choices. I always thought of love as that feeling I have for the people dearest to me. Then, I began to understand new definitions of fear and love that helped me to get at what I thought the true roots of the words meant. It comes down to a simple question: Do you believe that God (Universal Energy) supports you in whatever you want or do you believe that God (Universal Energy) fights against you? From there the choices that actually resonate with your highest well-being become much easier to make.
When I first altered my diet after my diagnosis, there were a lot of foods that I avoided including sugar, dairy, gluten and fermented drinks. For almost 3 years I (mostly) strictly followed these rules. But I did it out of fear. I feared that if I ate sugar, drank a beer, or ate pizza the tumor would grow. Then a dear friend of mine, who embraced her strict diet for another health issue, told me that she ‘chose’ not to eat foods that depleted her instead of looking at it as though she ‘couldn’t’ eat those foods. That’s a big difference in intention. On the one hand you have sacrifice (fear) and on the other you have power (love). It opened my eyes big time. I continue to keep to the diet that has raised my energy level and health so dramatically but now, every once in a while, I indulge and do so with relish. If I love myself and would love the taste of a small slice of pizza I have it without feeling the slightest bit guilty or fearful about it. I pray over meals. In doing so, I imbue the foods that I have chosen with life-giving energy. Mindless stress eating or drinking is, as you might suspect, a direct result of fear (escapism) so pay attention because that food will seriously deplete your energy!
I love my whole self now. I love my body and my soul exactly as I am. I even send love to the tumor on a daily basis for bringing me so many amazing lessons. Now, I make my decisions with the knowledge that God (Universal Energy) supports me in whatever I choose to do. I rarely feel guilt, anxiety and never feel hatred anymore. I used to hate the pharmaceutical companies for suppressing effective, natural, non-profit generating cancer cures (too many to name but cannabis oil and laetrile are just a couple). I used to hate Monsanto for poisoning our food supply. Now I focus on always being truthful with myself and in my conversations with others knowing that the message of empowerment and natural health is spreading rapidly. The global community is shifting toward balance and health and my only job is loving myself enough to always be truthful. I don’t need to control anybody else, nobody else controls me and nobody has to agree with me.
When you understand that God wants for you whatever you want, you begin to pay attention to every choice that you make. Now I make decisions based on knowing that I am protected and loved for exactly who I am. Not healthier, not wealthier, not more charitable unless those things bring me joy and allow me to increase the feeling of love for myself. When I am in a state of self-love I am then able to give of myself to others – which is an amazingly rewarding feeling.
How Can I Change My Decision-making Programming?
The process of making choices from love rather than fear is actually very easy. The tricky part is evaluating the motivation behind what we do. The first step is to simply ask each time you are presented with a decision “Am I making this decision based on love or fear?” And if you answer fear, which can be social pressure, fear of illness, fear of regret etc. decide what would happen if you followed your heart instead of your head/ego. The second step is to affirm that God (Universal Energy) supports you in everything you want. From here it just takes practice.
This process has become second nature in our house. Mike and I recognize now when fear motivates our decisions and we are usually able to switch course. I no longer fear cancer. I no longer fear death (as it doesn’t really exist but that’s for another post) and I recognize that I am loved, protected and the master of my destiny as you are too, so choose away in confidence and love.