The Most Powerful Choice We Have in a Powerless World

Our days are filled with moments of choice where have an opportunity to exercise one of our fundamental human gifts: free will. When we choose life-giving actions, we are filled with goodness. When we choose depleting actions, we open the doorway to the next depleting action.

In Christianity, we could say that “original sin” points to that ill-fated moment when Eve exercises free will and chooses to eat the forbidden apple. In Judaism, we call the force that attempts to pull us off track “yatzar hara”, or the evil eye. In Buddhism, the spirit Mara is the tempter who tries to knock the Buddha off his path of enlightenment.

Let’s take this conversation about choice out of the language of “good” and “evil” and instead focus on “life-affirming” or “life-depleting.” Again, there are some actions that nourish the soul and others that take us away from the soul.

In Hebrew, the word chet is often translated as “sin”, but a more accurate translation is “missing the mark,” which, like an archer, are times when we veer off course. As imperfect, fallible humans, this can happen several times a day!

In The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav shares the analogy that our souls want to align with the Mother Ship, which we can think of as our inner North Star. When we’re in alignment, we feel connected, on track, nourished, safe, and we experience a sturdiness that helps us bend and sway in the changing winds of life without breaking.

Coming into alignment isn’t a one-time choice or a finish line that we arrive at from doing enough inner work. Rather, it’s a daily – even hourly – even a minute-by-minute practice! It’s the micromoments where we either make choices that nourish and align or deplete and set us off course.

And, like with food, there’s a cascade effect: healthy choices set into motion more healthy choices and unhealthy choices open the pandora’s box of unhealthy choices. That doesn’t mean we can’t course correct; we can and must. But we can make it easier or harder on ourselves to stay in alignment depending on the choices we make.

One Potent Moment

Let’s take a potent moment in the day: waking up. Many people wake up feeling off-kilter in some way. You may feel tired, anxious, or depressed. If you deny what you’re feeling or try to avoid it by reaching for your phone, you will amplify the negative. Neuropsychology now offers us the scientific studies to verify what we intuitively know: if you place your attention on what’s “negative”, the negative will grow. And, fortunately for the survival of our species, we’ve been wired toward the negativity bias, which means that a negative thought or awareness will register more easily than a positive one.

However, this no longer serves us the way it once did, and the good news is that we can hardwire our brains in the direction of noticing what’s working, what’s beautiful, what fills our hearts with joy. This is choice point: If our phone is within eyesight and arm’s reach, we’re likely going to reach for it. It’s our “yatzar hara” or Mara moment when the temptation is great to check and scroll. But, if we can resist the temptation and instead say a prayer of gratitude, or, better yet, sing a prayer of gratitude, we will notice a vibrational lift that connects us to a greater song that weaves through our world. It’s such a small moment, such a small choice, but it can have reverberating, rippling effects.

I imagine that every era has had its particular serpent that attempts to lead us astray or test our resolve to stay on course. In today’s era, one of our greatest temptresses is our screens. Given that for many people the phone, or even a watch, is now like an appendage, it can be very challenging to choose against this seduction. We might intend to begin the day with prayer or song, as shared above, but if the phone is on the bedside table, we’re likely to reach for it. We might want to course correct when we enter the kitchen with a plan to mindfully drink a cup of tea in silence, but there’s the computer with its allure of emails and the ever-present promise of a dopamine hit. It is no small feat to choose Self or soul instead of screens. We are being challenged!

Allies in Disguise

However, I am of the mind that the greater the challenge, the deeper the possibility to strengthen our muscle of choosing what makes us feel good. (Remember: we are already good, so we’re not choosing to “be good.”; we’re choosing to feel good.) The phone, the food that depletes (whatever that is for you), the alcohol, or whatever tempts us are allies in disguise, for every time we choose against the path that leads us away from soul and for the path of life, we become stronger inside.

Just like our psycho-emotional symptoms like anxiety, panic, and intrusive thoughts are messengers and allies in disguise, so the “serpents” that tempt us and lead us astray are also here for our growth. To view them as enemies will only push them into the shadowlands of psyche, which will give them more power. When we befriend them by naming and recognizing them as allies that push us toward wholeness, we reduce their power over us and instead are able to harness their power for our own good.

The Spiritual Practice of Pausing

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl

A great deal of our capacity to choose our response or action hinges on the power of the pause. Left to our habitual minds, we’re likely to choose our default response, which may be the one that leads us off course. But when we can pause, we can ask, “What will serve me in this moment?” Without the pause, we’re victims to our urges. The pause, so small, so subtle, is, in fact, one of our most powerful tools for inner freedom. Like everything else that goes against the habitual grain, pausing is also a practice.

When we pause, we notice. And when we notice, we open to the possibility of seeing the wonderment of this moment, which might lead us to praise or gratitude, which then leads us back into the flow of reciprocity, the web of belonging where we are held and safe.

Every Moment Contains a Choice

What might this look like in daily life? Let’s say you live in New York City and you need to get to work in the morning. You have a choice to walk or take the subway. You choose to walk, which means waking up fifteen minutes earlier. That’s the first choice.

Then you have a choice to walk through the park, which takes a bit longer, or walk on city streets. You choose to walk through the park. That’s the second choice.

Once in the park, you notice the wildlife – birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits – and marvel that there are so many animals in the middle of the city. You pause to marvel. This is the third choice.

You keep walking, and you notice a spray of white wildflowers leaning over a fallen log covered in moss. You’ve primed yourself to notice, and the beauty stops you in your tracks. Such a master artist you are, our Creator! Look at this display of beauty in my path! And you praise, “Thank you for this beauty. Thank you for the miracle of this earth.” This is the fourth choice.

The choice to wake up a few minutes earlier led to a cascade of positive choices. You have been filled up by awe, beauty, and gratitude (not to mention the aliveness of moving your body and getting fresh air), and you can feel the sweet goodness of these waters nourishing you throughout the day. Whatever uncertainties arise, you have set yourself up to handle them with more clarity and grace.