Using "I choose"

When we think about what is happening, we don't always notice the choices that are taking place. For example we may think "I am sitting near my computer". But we could rephrase that to include the idea of choice: "I am choosing to sit near my computer".

As I've mentioned in the last few blog posts, it can be fascinating to see just how many times we are making choices when it seems like we were just doing something.

Similarly, other people are choosing certain behaviors too. Now why do I care to tell you this? Not so that you can hurt them back when they choose unpleasant choices. But rather to let you see that they are people with free will, and that they are making choices. When people do things, they are (nearly always) choosing to do it.

This is liberating because so many people think that others are "just born mean" or "can't help hurting". As a result, they see situations as desperate and unresolvable. They feel wretched, and they too make retaliatory choices that they are not entirely happy with, eg to take revenge, to get divorced, to be depressed. Hey don't slam me yet for that last one! It's also a choice, but I need to explain something further before you might believe me!!!

You see, let's say I meet a neighbor as I'm walking in the street, and she basically ignores me. I would feel bad. LOA experts might say I am attracting that behavior. I can shrug and say "I don't care". None of these options make me feel better nor give me an easy plan of action.

So let me try it this way for a second. I label "she is ignoring me". I then rephrase "she is choosing to ignore me". Suddenly, I can give credence to my feeling that she is hurting my feelings, while before, I had a certain amount of self-doubt as to whether she just didn't really notice me, and I was making a big deal out of nothing. No, I'll assume for a minute that she IS ignoring me. In fact, I'll assume that she is CHOOSING to ignore me. It is entirely possible. In fact, I can even go two steps further and say "She is choosing to ignore me, and that makes me feel bad" and "she is choosing to ignore me and she is (possibly subconsciously) choosing to act towards me in a way that many people would consider disrespectful".

When I look at this friend now, I have a whole new understanding. I mean why on earth would someone choose to make someone feel bad in this way?

Perhaps she is very goal-orientated and hasn't the least idea of how relationships can benefit everyone, including herself. Perhaps she feels she needs to assert herself by acting disrespectfully towards others. Perhaps she is trying to snub me for something I did wrong in the past. Perhaps she has an imaginary hierarchy of people who are VIPs and she doesn't consider me anywhere near the top. Perhaps she thinks I am older than her, so I couldn't be desirous of any positive relationship with her. Perhaps her life is running according to plan and she has everything she wants, and it's too scary for her to deal with people who look, perhaps, like they haven't yet got much of what they want.

Perhaps perhaps, there are a million possibilities, and maybe many of them are true, but one thing is for sure. When I see that someone is making a choice to act disrespectfully towards me, I feel safe to explore the reasons for their choice. I see it is more to do with them and their view of the world, than it is about me. Her choice to act disrespectful may be specific to me, but as I explore, I see how she hardly knows me, and is just using me as the receiving end of her feelings and stuck thought patterns. I don't think anymore that she judged me fairly and found that I fail. And maybe, just maybe, all the above ideas were more my insecurities and belief systems than anything else.

So when I say that she is choosing to be disrespectful, she is probably unconscious of this choice. But at some level, she could really begin take responsibility for some of her flawed thinking patterns, which would help her to act nicer.

People are capable of changing. They can challenge their thought patterns and realign them with reality. As a result, they will act nicer and feel happier.

I read today that when we have an experience that we don't like, we sort of say NO! in our thinking. As in "NO, I can't bear that". In such a case, our thinking is out of line with reality and we feel suffering. Saying NO to reality is often the cause of the pain we feel.

Long ago, I thought of an example of pushing a heavy object with a lot of force. Why don't we experience this as painful? Because we chose to do it, so we accept it. Yet, if that same heavy object would fall towards us with exactly the same force, we would feel pain. I think it's because we didn't choose it or expect it. Some of us like to think that we are in charge, and will only "allow" the things that we choose. If things happen contrary to our expectations and plans, we don't "allow" them - and yet they happen, so we feel pain! It's the pain of saying "NO" to reality.

In a similar way, if a person acts disrespectfully to me, and I don't "allow" this, then I will feel pain. But as soon as I can understand that she is she, with her own life history, journey, understandings, current thought patterns - and potential for change, my pain drops to zero.

And I can even go one step further, since I'm a believing Jew. I know that she, like everyone else, is here in this world with a possibility of having a great effect here in creating Kiddush Shem Shamayim (Awareness of G-d's greatness and how He's involved in the world). In order to create more than already exists, (I think that) one has to challenge existing stuck thought patterns, and let go of our NOs. If that's her potential, it's probably somewhere in her aspirations too, and I guess we're not so different after all.

Not only that, but perhaps I can become aware that she is likely already trying to break out of stuck thought patterns and emotions, in her own way, already. In fact, she probably has what to teach me too. As friends we can do so much more than as individuals.

I remember that a friend of mine once said: "but I don't like to be treated disrespectfully" - I wonder if it's because we really want everyone else to be perfect and nice, so that we can lean on them. Ahem.

So when my neighbor ignores me in the street, I first say "she is choosing to treat me disrespectfully". I then feel my own power coming rushing back into my body. I realize that in some sense, she still has inner improvements to make, and I can feel pity for that. And, a moment later, I can gradually help myself consider that she possibly does not mean to offend the real me and might even welcome a better relationship.

So I find I can (choose to) smile or even grin at her, and say "Hey, how are you doing today?" And who knows, I may even help build a new relationship today.