The Glory of Choice (and Free Will)

Our current circumstances are the result of the fruits of our choices.  

Yes, the news may say this about the President and his administration doing that, and everyone has opinions. But what are you doing with your life?  

Are you making choices to better yourself? A student called me the other day, upset and angry at the world, spouting, "There needs to be more light!"  And I said, "Then you need to become THAT light." 

I told them that being angry and negative is just adding more anger and negativity to the world. 

They heard me and applied for the Ritual Master path in the Modern Mystery School. They then chose to work on themselves to bring more light and higher vibrations to this world. We need more light, but it can only start with first bringing this light to the darkness of our hearts and daily lives.  

Are you making choices for yourself to better yourself? Turn off the TV and the radio, get off social media, and sit with YOU for a second.  What do you want?  What brings you joy? What unburdens your heart? Do you want to make your home, neighborhood, and family more peaceful? Do you want to be less stressed out? Do you want more abundance? Do you want purpose? Or do you want to enjoy tea in the morning while listening to the birds without racing your mind? Do you want to find your proper, indestructible, happy place? 

We all have a choice. Even if it is a situation in your life where you feel the odds are against you and all directions appear to be rivers of poo. YOU still have a choice.  The Choice can be to continue and sit in misery or we can choose how to face adversity. And we can also decide how we face the possibility of JOY within our actions. 

I once lived a life where I constantly chose to limit my joy. Because of my belief system, it had to be hard to produce results (as in non-enjoyable).  Now, hard work is important, but not at the expense of your health and family and living a joyful life.  We also cannot sit back and wait for things to knock on our door and for others to create happiness and abundance for us. We must take personal responsibility and action toward our goals. 

But that doesn't mean choosing the path with the most painful obstacles or the path you have deemed "responsible" is the best.  

I once chose a seemingly "responsible" path to become an attorney. I didn't choose this path because I was excited about the work.  I chose it because it was good, honest work that I knew could be well paid for, and I had the necessary skills. I knew I would be good at it if I could achieve it. So, in a way, I didn't choose to be a lawyer - I chose a path of achievement. Thus, when I completed my law license in Minnesota at 23, I looked around and said, "Is this all there is?". 

I didn't like being a lawyer. 

But it was a hard-to-achieve and honorable profession, so I dove in head first, working myself to almost a full head of grey hair and chronic fatigue by age 27.  I was well paid in a successful profession and ultimately miserable, but to the world, I was "successful."  Inside, I was full of anxiety and despair. I began drinking every single day to manage the deep-seated anxiety and dissatisfaction from the weight of other people's problems. 

So, I chose to run away from it.  I left Minnesota and ran to Seattle, Washington.  I thought life on the West Coast would be different, that lawyers there would be different, that everything would be different.  But wherever you go, THERE YOU ARE.  I was still me, and instead of choosing my joy, I kept choosing the path of what the world told me success looked like. I needed a change and began searching for a new career. 

It wasn't surprising when I found myself taking the job as a project manager. Yes, it was a new career, but it was still wholly based on achievement, and I was ready to put on my work boots and fully (get things done) again! And I was good at it. I got the same sense of accomplishment and superficial pride because I was doing lots of work - but it was other people's work.  Not my work. I was drinking less, but still too much. I was at least meditating with my Buddhist practice regularly. I achieved a state of OK, of just getting by, of occupying myself with the mundane. But I was still choosing to suppress my joy because I was ignoring my motivations for living. 

I was on the path of what I SHOULD do out of fear and scarcity and programming - and honestly, a complete unwillingness to face my negative ego that kept me a codependent functional alcoholic pretending that this is what life should be. 

Then, I found something that opened my eyes so wide that I couldn't continue to ignore my power to choose joy.  I found access to my source of power, my will, my courage, my higher self.  I found the ability to articulate what I enjoyed and what I wanted to create for myself. It was there all along, but I had buried it deep and ignored it for so long that the sound of my desire, intuition, and clarity was foreign, hidden, and masked to myself. My negative ego was louder - the voice said, "That's stupid. That's a waste of time. That is mumbo jumbo superstitious nonsense."  But then the voices began to fade once I took the risk and CHOSE to try the tools offered to me on the Path of Initiation within the Lineage of King Salomon as taught to me by my guide in the Modern Mystery School International. 

I am so fortunate to have had a good friend who chose to keep inviting me to try this path for years. Five-plus years, to be exact. First, we were roommates, and then we were neighbors. She kept inviting me to do these weird things, and this class was called Empower Thyself.  And I thought, "It costs money, and it's two days, and it's silly spiritual bullshit that isn't going to help me with anything."  But actually, it was exactly what I needed to do to break out of my programming.  What is the definition of insanity?  To keep doing the same thing the same way and to expect different results. That is what I was doing, making me tired and miserable.  

I am grateful to my friend who chose to stick with me and keep inviting me to this path because it took me a while to choose it.  But when I took the leap and received a life activation and attended Empower Thyself, I learned daily practices that could help me see clearer, dampen all the shoulds, and hear my true self when I said, "I want and desire to take this action, for the sake of my joy." I received an initiation that increased my willpower, so I had more strength to start making healthy choices like meditation over happy hour and complaint sessions with friends and colleagues.  Choices like yoga and working out to move my energy rather than eating a crescent to push it deep down within.  I started making choices like travel and taking trips to write about my experiences and the food I encountered for the pure joy of it.  I spent my money on myself instead of my codependent relationships (and trying to make other people happy).

And I started making more money. I saw a way to use my skills as an attorney to help people the way I enjoyed. I started introducing people to the tools of the mystery school lineage and offering Life Activations, which positively impacted me and those who chose to receive the energy healing modality I learned to perform. My life started to take on meaning. I was no longer getting by and surviving.  

I gained resilience, and my cup overflowed with joy—so much joy that I could share it with others.  

Choice.

We all have a choice.  Free will is the fundamental principle of our existence as humans.  We choose our reaction to the world.  We choose our actions.  We decide how we spend our time and energy creating and who we are around to experience that creation with.  

I acknowledge that we can find ourselves sometimes in challenging situations. Still, with some exceptions (of people enslaved and/or human trafficked or actual victims of violent crime) in every situation, we have a choice.  However, most of us today believe we are victims of our circumstances rather than take personal responsibility for them.  

If you don't even know where to start, I can help with that! Reach out, and let's clear the muck and activate your life, then onto the path of progression to figure it out for yourself. It is a choice for you to love yourself and make your world, starting with YOU—only better.