CHANGE, CHOICE and PRINCIPLES

What I’ve been thinking about today is how to receive more understanding and more awareness each and every day so that I can flow with change, make good choices and live by sound principles. 

I’ve found over the past few years that the one thing I can absolutely count on is this:  As I grow as a person, as I learn to stay centered and calm, I get more and more guidance which serves me well. 

This is such an alien concept for me because I am a doer, an action oriented person……by nurture if not by nature.  My initial response to anything that comes to me in my life is “What can I DO now?”…..and I am learning to check that impulse and to take time to BE, FEEL and UNDERSTAND….that I have very important choices that precede the choice to ACT.

We’re all faced with choices at every moment of our life.  From small ones, like “what do I want to wear today”, to huge ones, like “what is my life purpose and how do I live it?”  The constants in life, according to Stephen Covey, are “Change, choices and principles”.  Easy to talk about, more challenging to live by.

Why? Because change is new, it’s scary, it’s unknown.  Choices force us to take responsiblity for our results, and principles can sometimes be inconvenient.  Yet all the great thinkers and achievers assure us of the same thing.  These three are keys to a satisfying and successful life.

Change is constant.  Maybe for some people it is easier to flow with, but for me it has been and is a challenge.  I want to KNOW, Iwant CONTROL, I want ANSWERS.  Living with the questions is an art that I am faced with every day.  And every day that I live with them, every day that I embrace them, every day that I flow with them……I become stronger and better.

It’s a trust issue for me: learning how to trust that everything is unfolding as it should, that everything is happening for my benefit, and that everything is leading me to something even better!

Can you relate to this?

As far as the choices thing goes….I like having them sometimes and sometimes I’d rather not!  That way I can blame someone else if things aren’t happening the way I think they should!  LOL!  And yet the fact remains, I do have choices….always and in every moment…….and the biggest one of these (the only one that can NEVER be limited by anyone else) is my choice of what to think, what to feel, how to respond to WHAT IS.

I perceive that we all struggle at times with WHAT IS.  Byron Katie says that this one thing is the source of all of our suffering and I know that this is so.  Once we accept WHAT IS as WHAT IS, it is possible to move forward into choice.

And our choices are always limitless.  It’s the nature of the Universe, which leads me to PRINCIPLES.

I am building my house on the rock of PRINCIPLE.  My first guiding principle is that there is a Power, a Presence that is bigger than me, that will lead me, guide me, instruct me and protect me…..if (and only if) I allow it.  Kind of what I always wanted my parents to do…..but which THEY turned into CONTROLLING me.  I experience this Power as my “ideal parent”, the one I wish I had.

So you can see where the challenge comes in there, right?  I learned NOT to trust the guidance and instruction of my earthly  parents, so I have the challenge of trusting and allowing the guidance and instruction of my Higher Power.  I want to rebel against it, tune it out, escape from it.  Illogical…..but human.

So I now conceive of this Higher Power as a PRINCIPLE……not a “being” waiting to sit in judgement of my slightest misdeed.  This is a comfort and a source of strength for me.  My Higher Power is the LIFE PRINCIPLE, which is constant and never fails me or anyone who tunes into it.  And the LIFE PRINCIPLE will always lead me in the right choices…….if I let it!

I call this ‘THE FIRST COMMITMENT”……it’s the commitment to PRINCIPLE first.  How much of my life have I struggled with getting the order of commitment mixed up!  I’ve tried putting myself first……..THAT created chaos in my life.  I tried putting my husband FIRST…that made me AND him unhappy.  The only thing that has ever worked for me (and I am learning every day how to do this more and more) is to put PRINCIPLE…..the LIFE PRINCIPLE………THE UNIVERSE………..GOD……….absolutely FIRST.  Me (and this includes my work and my life purpose) second, my husband third, my children fourth……friends next, then community, then world, etc.

I saw a book promoted on Facebook today called Universe Responding.  It looks very interesting, and it could just as easily be called “God Responding”.  God doesn’t care what name we use.  God is a FORCE, a PRINCIPLE that never fails.

In the book, as I understand it from the diagram, the author describes 5 components to life that allow us to live the life of our dreams.  Think, believe, listen, act and acknowledge.  I like this.  We get to choose what we think and feel (the free choice that God gave us)………then, we believe that the Universe (God) will hear and respond to our thoughts (which I think of as prayers)………..again, this is another choice for us!  The choice to believe.

Next, we LISTEN…………another CHOICE!  Then we ACT on what we receive, then we ACKNOWLEDGE the results!

Choice, choice, choice………..everything is CHOICE.

Are we back to that again????    LOL!

Hope these ramblings have been of use to you.  I am not where I want to be, but neither am I where I used to be. Success is a progressive realization of a worthwhile goal and dream……and mine is to become ALL I CAN BE and to encourage others to BE ALL THEY CAN BE!

Talk to you soon………….