Wow, how fast time flies! I have wanted to blog about “choice” for the past 6 months, but for various reasons, have not. It seems I haven’t been able to keep up with the demands of life this year. And at various points and times throughout the year, it seems I have forgotten that I can choose. So, today, I choose to sit and finally write this dang’ blog!
Where to start, though? This concept of choice (“… all is choice, and all choices are valid… we are here to learn how to choose and to choose how to learn”), that is the essence of the Michael Teachings, is vast and can be approached from infinite angles that might be useful.
Obviously, this will be an ongoing exploration and discussion, but I must start somewhere.
I have decided to start with an area of choice that has been very personal to me this year and very critical to my healing and evolutionary journey in general: the choice to be kind and loving to myself and my life or to be cruel.
As I said about this year so far, I have felt like I’ve not been able to keep up with the demands of life. This is not the whole truth. Actually, I have been doing pretty well with the demands of life. What has been much harder to keep up with are my ideals and desires for improvement and expansion. In many ways this year, they have had to take a back-seat so that I could just “take care of business” and “do what needed to be done.” I know all of it is life, but still, this year it seems “life got in the way.”
All along the way, over and over again, I have had to make a choice about how I would relate to myself and my life while not meeting my own expectations and ideals.
The it-is-your-fault approach
I could choose to be cruel to myself in my interpretations:
“See, you just aren’t good enough to keep up.”
“You should just give up.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Life sucks and is unfair!”
“Why can’t you seem to get it together?
Now, I’d be lying if I said that I never had any of these thoughts, but they are not the ones I choose to focus on and amplify.
The I-love-you approach
I choose to focus on the kind and loving thoughts that I know are the truth about me and my life. These thoughts are coming from my unconditionally loving and wise soul:
“You are doing just fine.”
“There is nothing wrong with not being able to ‘keep-up’ sometimes.”
“You don’t have to give up, and that is not what you are doing. You are adapting and learning to be flexible, rather than rigid in the pursuit of your goals.”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Life can be challenging at times and messy.”
“You have actually been doing quite well with balancing all of the areas of life that are important to you, and you have become aware of what needs to change so that you can find a better balance.”
“Bravo! You are Living!”
Ah, the kind and loving thoughts feel so much better and encouraging! And they are not flattery or “going too easy on myself.” They are the truth, and the truth is loving. How do I know? Because these thoughts give me relief and allow me to be present and centered with what is in my life at this time. There is no resistance, just a simple acknowledgment of what is, and the truth that what is, is OK.
I feel safe and in partnership with my life.
From this place of kindness, I can continue forward making any changes in my life that I wish to make. I can continue to grow, change, expand, be flexible, meet challenges, gain insight, be more fulfilled-the whole nine yards.
So, what about you? Have you been cruel or kind to yourself this year? If you have been cruel, has it helped? Have you felt relief, felt lighter, felt more encouraged? Have you enjoyed life more? Has it served you? And if you have been kind to yourself, has that helped? If so, how?
I can honestly say that the choice to be kind to myself has not always felt like it got me closer to completing my goals any faster, but it has certainly helped me to enjoy myself and life more, no matter where I am with my completion of goals.
Michael’s insight into the choice between gentleness and cruelty
I have asked Michael to comment on the choice to be kind or cruel to one’s self based on how one assesses their level of fulfillment of expectations and ideals. Here’s what he replied:
Yes, we understand. First, we will say that it is absolutely your choice whether or not to be cruel or kind to yourself in your interpretations, in your assessments of where you are in relation to the fulfillment of your goals and ideals.
Some are quite “happy” choosing cruelty over kindness as they relate to themselves.
We do not want you to think that you must choose kindness or that there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to choose. If all choices were not valid choices from which to evolve yourselves, then it would not be true that all choices are indeed valid, and this would make our teaching invalid at its foundation.
You are free to choose cruelty in your assessments or kindness. We have no investment in you choosing one way or the other, as we know you will all learn to choose in a way that allows you to experience more truth, love, and energy in your lives. This is guaranteed. There is no other game to be played. You will evolve.
And you will evolve at your own pace, whether that be at a slower or faster pace.
Life is not a race, and you are free to go at your own pace…which is what you are doing anyway.
However, if you are wanting to accelerate your growth and evolution, then being kind to yourself is indeed the fast track. Any other way of relating to yourself would be a distraction from the purpose of life.
The purpose of life is to experience it fully, to learn and to evolve.
When you are cruel to yourself, you delay your learning and you end up only partially experiencing your life; for you are meant to experience ALL of life and not only one part.
We know our time is limited in this format, as our channel does not wish for this blog to be too long.
So we will close with saying that the choice to be cruel or kind to yourself, no matter where you are in life, is significant if you care about experiencing life to the fullest, learning and evolving at a steady pace and actually feeling pleasure throughout your bodies as you go along.
Otherwise, it is one choice among many, and will not make or break your evolution in the long-run.
It is your choice how you will learn.
~Michael Entity
And what do you think about all this? About my thoughts and about Michael’s? Do you want to comment on that? I wonder what is your approach.
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