The Choices We Make: Building Our Lives Everyday 

This post is from January 2015:

I just finished up a weekend course on Daoism, Chinese Medicine and Health. I love taking CEU’s. It gives me the opportunity to take a break, take a breath and refocus on my vocation. Why am I doing what I do? How can I do my best at what I choose? How can I make sure I am supporting my own health and happiness so I can create a space for others to do the same?

When we look for happiness in our lives, we want it and we want it now. We also learn pretty quickly, that life doesn’t work that way. Whether we are looking to get rid of shoulder pain or the deep, hollow feeling at the pit of our stomachs, there is no easy cure. But we do have choices everyday that allow us to build health and wellness for ourselves. The question is what are we choosing?

Each action we take, each thought we choose to nurture, lays a small thread that builds our present reality. If we are unhappy with our current situation, or even just a piece of it, we need to get curious about what brought us to this present reality. Then we get to choose how to change things. What will we nurture to bring about what we want?

In the class on Daoism, we were asked these three questions:

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Are you an idealist or realist?

Do you believe the world and people are inherently good or bad?

How do your answers affect your current place in the world and how you deal with what life presents to you? How do your answers affect your choices?

These are big picture questions. We can bring them back to our everyday when we accept where we are and how we feel about it. Then we have the opportunity to make decisions to build our futures. Patterns change when me make concerted efforts on a regular basis. Small steps.

We make lots of choices everyday. What would happen if we took 5 minutes on waking and before sleep to say what we are grateful for? If we exercised 4-5 days a week for stress reduction and health? If we got regular acupuncture or body work to work on health concerns or maintain our health? If we asked for help from our families and communities when we needed it? If we set an alarm daily to remind us to breathe? If we choose to be an optimist, even when things are bleak?

“You’re bound to become a buddha if you practice. 

If water drips long enough

Even rocks wear through. 

It’s not true thick skulls can’t be pierced; 

People just imagine their minds are hard.”

– Shih-wu (1272-1352)

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