Dearest Readers,<\/p>\n
One of the things I have a hugely difficult time doing is making decisions. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. I once stood in the linen section of the Superstore for what seemed like hours trying to decide what sheets to buy. It took me a whole year to buy a truck.<\/p>\n
When I do the deeper investigation into what’s behind my indecisiveness I discover, of course, fear. In this particular case, it is the fear of making a mistake.<\/p>\n
Making the wrong decision would lead to all kinds of bad consequences. This is what the fear tells me. But is this really true? Of course not.<\/p>\n
A few years ago I went on Silent Retreat and during that time was given the opportunity to work with a Spiritual Director. I had a big decision to make and I was struggling with it. This wonderful woman (who is my SD to this day) said, “Why don’t we talk through each option and see what the outcome is for both?”<\/p>\n
So we did that. I imagined “going left” and talked through that scenario until I came to some kind of conclusion and then I did the same for “going right.” What I discovered is that both options had consequences and<\/em> rewards. Both options would bring challenges and<\/em> gifts. This was a revelation.<\/p>\n Knowing I couldn’t make a mistake, that either decision would be a learning experience, it then became a matter of deciding which consequences I was willing to live with. I still had to make a decision but I had more information and clarity with which to decide.<\/p>\n Today, it can still take me ages to make a decision and I readily admit that there is that old fear wrapped up in my hesitation. But there is also a commitment to clarity inside my waiting. If my Intuition isn’t speaking loudly enough for me to hear it or if the options are too many or the situation too vague, I wait.<\/p>\n This can be very inconvenient, especially if there are other people involved in the outcome. But this commitment to clarity assuages that old fear. It means I get to feel sure, safe and connected. This is important. These are my needs and I deserve to have them met.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if I cannot make a mistake because either way I’m going to learn something, then “Make a decision already!” would be a perfectly appropriate thing to shout at me next time you see me standing for hours in an aisle at the Superstore.<\/p>\n Inspiring Message of the Day: Despite my fear, today I am going to make a concrete decision about something. Big or small, I will decide and I will trust that the consequences and rewards of my decision are teaching tools from which I may learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dearest Readers, One of the things I have a hugely difficult time doing is making decisions. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. I once stood in the linen section of the Superstore for what seemed like hours trying to decide what sheets to buy. It took me a whole year to buy a truck. When…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[301,816,817,302],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-decision-making","tag-inspiration","tag-motivation","tag-overcoming-fear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}