In A Life Of Unlimited Options, Choose Love

We all have a choice.  We all can choose a path of intention, or simply choose to react to what is thrown our way.  I’ve covered so much on toxic attitudes at home, toxic relationships in our path, and acting in reaction with our negative energy.  We are hit with so many options in our lives.  Simply going to the grocery store can drown us in choices.  So I like to keep it simple.  If there is one tried and true rule in our house it is this:  Choose Love.

Choose Love

I want it to be so much a part of my identity that LOVE comes into factor in every decision.  Whether it is in work, play, or handling the mountainous to-do list, how can I incorporate love into all I do?  It sounds trite, and none of us can perfect it 100% of the time, but wow – what would change if this were your mantra?

• I’m frustrated at my kids for not listening.  They are fully engaged in imaginative play right now.  Choose love.
• That jerk cut me off on the interstate! Maybe he didn’t see you.  Choose love. 
• That mom needs to get a handle on her obnoxious screaming child.  You don’t know her story or what they are going through. Choose love.
• I have never dealt with such horrible customer service!  We all have our rough days.  Choose love. 
• I hate bugs – they are everywhere!  And amazingly, even the tiniest of creatures has significance.  Choose love.  
• I loathe exercise – but I have to get rid of this belly!  Your body is your amazing canvas to be showered with respect.  Don’t hate it into submission.  Choose love.

Shift Your Focus

I could go on and on.  It’s not always easy, and sometimes it seems downright stupid, choosing to love something like a mosquito or the asshole on the road, but it’s incredible how much the shift in your own perspective makes the biggest difference in your life.  Not anything that happens on the outside, but simply your intentional shift within to choose love.  

We have little power on other people’s actions.  We cannot control that which has nothing to do with us.  But we have full power over our choices, our perspective, and our attitude toward it all.  I can’t make it my mission to get everyone to see my way, but I can make it my intentional focus to choose love in all I do.  And that one little shift is enough to make a greater impact as I live by example and not by force.

My husband has set such an example with this when it comes to loving your body.  A while back, Nathan got a massage, and he described this experience as the massage therapist was working out an intense knot in his back.  He closed his eyes and meditated not on forcing it out, but simply loving his body and releasing the tension.  As he meditated, the massage therapist felt the knot dissolve under her fingertips.  “What did you do?”  she asked.  “I simply chose to love it,” he replied.

Labor Pain Can Belabor Pain

Twice I labored naturally with my children, and the first time I felt every second of pain.  My body tensed and the pain engulfed me.  The second time, instead of fighting the contractions, I relaxed my whole body and accepted the pain with love.  Weird, maybe, but wow – that pain was bringing forth a new human being!  I chose to embrace it instead of fight it, and it was a powerful experience.

With that second delivery, I really experienced the extreme of how much power my mind had over my body.  Once I allowed the love to shower over me and my focus to shift from the pain of the process to the beauty of the experience, it’s like my whole body went warm.  Yes, it still hurt, but it was almost euphoric – the process of such all-encompassing love taking over allowed me to connect with my body in a beautiful way.

After laboring naturally and then pushing for almost 3 hours, I went through the same “brick wall” experience I had dealt with in my first delivery (which resulted in an emergency c-section).  For this one, I knew the feeling and how my body was crashing, and made the call for yet another emergency cesarean.  My babies do perfectly until pushing time, and then they flat out do not budge.  Both girls struggled and got stuck in the birth canal.

With Ellie, I knew what was happening, and I knew I was dun.  At that point, all of my loving what is, relaxation, and deep breathing went out the window and the pain smacked me in the face like an explosion.  I couldn’t function for the extreme pain coursing through my body.  So intense, in fact, that my freaking out was enough to incur threats from the medical staff about putting me under unless I calmed down.

Our Minds Are Our SuperPower

Pain is powerful.  So is fear, negativity, perfectionism and anger.  Any of these can cloud your mind so much that you can’t function beyond it.  It can become who you are and the lens you see all of life through.

For this moment, put on the love lens.  Fake it ’till you make it, and just try it on for size.  Try to choose love today, just for this moment.  Look for it in the silly things, like taking out the garbage or washing dishes.  Look for it in the eyes of the people around you – those you know, and those you pass along the way.  For this moment, choose love.