I’m doing this series in hopes that it assists you to see that we all have choices even if we don’t think we do at times. This is the third post in the series on choices. In this one, you will gain a view into a time when I started to realize I had choices.
As the years went by, and life continued and my experiences mounted, I rarely felt like I had a choice. I worked to pay the bills, have a house, and have some fun. I remember the first time I felt like I had a real choice in my career was when I decided to open my accounting practice and work with several different organizations as their head of the finance department. Now I felt like I was choosing my life because I was doing something outside of the norm but it felt more normal to me. It was one of the best choices I ever made because it set me on a completely different path than I had originally envisioned for my career. However, after a while, I didn’t feel like I had a lot of choices as it became a job and I felt like my days were run by several people and my time didn’t seem my own. I didn’t realize I had the choice to say no.
When my first marriage ended I didn’t think I had any choices. The world seemed so bleak. However, I realized quickly I had a ton of choices. The biggest one being how was I going to move forward. What did I want my life to look like in the wake of this horrendous time? This time frame was a complete eye-opener for me on all the choices I did have. I was revamping my life completely and I learned very quickly all the choices were mine.
Out of that time I took steps to remember who I was inside and to get back in touch with my journey because I was way off track. During that time I learned so much about myself and all the choices I get to make daily. One of the most important choices I realized I had was how I’m going to show up in the world. What an eye-opener that was for me. Honestly, it had never crossed my mind before. I was so entrenched in my day-to-day life it never occurred to me I could choose to show up a different way. The other thing that I realized through this time is I had a choice on how I was going to react to things. I had read books and listened to people say that you can choose your reaction to things but I never felt I could. I always felt this was outside of me. I think I felt that way because I had lost myself along the way. I was buried so deep within there were no choices to be made I just allowed things to happen to me. Until the day I woke up and said no more!
How empowering to wake up and say no more, I have choices. It was an opening to a new way of life. In the next post in this series, I’ll discuss what it looks and feels like to have choices. I hope you join me for the past four.
