Guest Post: Cheri Bennett (True v. False Choice)
Thanks, Jeannette, for the opportunity to write for your awesome tribe! I’ve commented before about true choice and even though my comments sometimes feel long enough to BE a post – I’ll expand on what ‘true choice’ means to me.
There are four different quadrants to explain your ‘beingness’ behind your choices. Deny choice, Avoid choice, False Choice and True Choice. You can be in anyone of these quadrants in any area of your life at anytime.
For the sake of brevity, I’ll describe False Choice and True Choice. In both False Choice and True Choice you produce results and people win. That sounds good, right?
The main difference is that in False Choice you do not feel fulfilled with your win. You work hard to get a goal, and the thoughts in your mind might be along the lines of:
- ‘Is this important to me?’
- ‘Why aren’t I happier?’
- ‘Is this all there is?’
That is because the choice is based on the expectations of others (family, society, looking good, supposed to, have to, they made me, etc.) The person in false choice often feels exhausted!
In True Choice you also produce results and people win (yah!). What is different is that you are fulfilled and life seems easy and joyful! (double triple quadruple yah!) From this place you take personal responsibility for your choices – you are doing what you want to do. Your choices are not coming from a place of ‘should’. You have no judgement about others. You are proactive and you find solutions. You are a leader of yourself and of others.
That sounds pretty straightforward – but I can hear you asking HOW to do it!
A while ago I realized I’d been living a lot of my life from false choice. I created many wins, but felt exhausted and unfulfilled. Something was missing from my life – I think it was ME!
Like many of us, I often put other people’s needs or wants ahead of my own. The ironic thing is that martyr vibration of giving doesn’t feel good to the receiver or the giver. I know when my husband does something for me from this kind of place I’m thinking ‘for heavens sake just do what makes you happy!’ I’d much rather be around a happy person. I decided to become the happy person I want other people to be!
False Choice or True Choice is not about the action. It is about the ‘beingness’ or the vibration in back of the action. It is all about feeling good – the vibration. But where a lot of people have problems is that they are not in alignment. Their vibration is not pure or a win/win. It is a mixture of win/lose.
Here’s an example that might help. Say you have a desire to get in better shape and you have started running. The time comes up for your run and you don’t want to go.
- Door #1 You choose to run (win) even though you don’t feel like it (lose)!
- Door #2 You choose not to run (lose) because you don’t feel like it (win)!
Most students of law of attraction understand the win/lose behind Door #1. The reason that Door #2 is a lose/win is because a part of you wants to get in better shape. You feel out of integrity in some part of your mind. You are honoring the part that doesn’t want to run, but not the part that wants to get in shape. That place is feeling bad. Both of these Doors are False Choice!
True Choice would be noticing that something doesn’t feel good and then shifting to a place that does feel good.
So in our example of the run – you can look at your desire to get in shape and your resistance to running at that time. And then start asking yourself some powerful questions while tuning into your answers. Maybe you discover you don’t like running alone, so you ask a friend to join. Now you’re excited to go and you are running (win/win). Maybe you discover you don’t like running but you can get excited about swimming (win/win). There are SO many options!
The key is living from a place of always wanting to do what you are doing. True Choice will change your life.
Welcome to True Choice – or not. It’s up to you!
Cheri teaches mothers how to fill themselves up so they have a renewed passion for life and can teach their kids by example how to live a life of fulfillment.. Check out her blog and connect with Cheri on twitter and facebook.
Well, how about chosing not to run because I don’t feel like it and because I know whatever I do that I don’t feel like will put me in a position to resist whatever it is I want – and simply trusting that there will be a moment when running will feel like bliss, and/or the universe will provide me with some other opportunity to get out of breath and love it today, and/or trusting that my Universal Manager knows myriads of ways for me to get in shape and that I do not need to orchestrate this?
How about making a choice based upon what I feel like and decide NOT to feel bad about it?
I would rather put t like this:
- run and feel bad about it (lose)
- not run and feel bad about it (lose)
- run and love it (win)
- not run and love it (win)
Cheri, I like the way you describe this … it reminds me of Martha Beck’s essential self vs. social self. Very important stuff!!
Bubbles, I was just talking with a client about a question Abraham took a while ago. The woman said she realized (through Abe) that it wasn’t the cookies making her overweight, but rather her thoughts about the cookies. So with this new realization she began eating cookies at will, and promptly gained weight. Her question to Abraham was kind of a “WTH?” (see last post).
Abe said something to the effect that it’s one thing to realize that the power lies in our thoughts; it’s another to quickly change those strongly ingrained ones.
For many folks it takes a conscious and committed investment to give up old thoughts that haven’t been serving us.
Now I’ve forgotten my point in sharing that example.
At any rate, I LOVE that you support looking for the easy win/win. “Not run AND love it.” “Some other opportunity to get out of breath and love it” – that’s pretty cool, too.
Thanks for posting!
Jeanette, thank you for your kind words!
I guess the difficulty may lie therein that often we are not able at first to eat those cookies and feel good about them or not run and love it. Because we are sooo used to think cause-effect in terms of action and not in terms of vibration.
Cheri’s hint to look at the two parts of the equation and ask ourselves “powerful questions” is brilliant, of course, because we might discover that we are still trying to trust the action journey more and discard the vibrational side – which is not just one side, but all sides, isn’t it?
Lots of appreciation from Vienna/Europe – I really like your blog!
Bubbles
“we might discover that we are still trying to trust the action journey more and discard the vibrational side – which is not just one side, but all sides, isn’t it?” Very well put Bubbles!
It gives me a new way to approach what feels best to me next time I don’t feel like jogging. I guess when it comes to exercising I trust the action journey more but in terms of health I know there’s nothing more powerful than my vibe and I’m as healthy as a horse:)
Bubbles I love your #4 of not running and loving it! For myself personally I have found that when I #1) notice I feel bad because I don’t want to do something and then choose #2) not doing it – I feel better. But not IN the Vortex ‘When Harry Met Sally I’ll have what she’s having’ kind of GREAT!
For me to get in the vortex after #2 it helps to ask myself powerful questions in order to vibrate at a higher level.
I might decide to take action or not – it’s really not about that. For me, it’s about being aligned through and through on both the subconscious and conscious levels.
Maybe I should have just said that and created a much shorter post! LOL!
These are great words of wisdom! The question of “Why aren’t I happier” when I’m doing something I “want” to do has been a prevalent one, and you’ve answered that in a very understandable way. It helps a lot to think of all aspects of the equation, as you suggest, and evaluate what could make ALL of them feel better, not just the shoulds and should nots. Man, so often I don’t feel like going after what I want but feel like I should, or I do go after it but don’t feel happy, like you said. What an epiphany to realize that I can expand those choices to be more in alignment with themselves and with me. Thank you for the paradigm shift!
I also like how this sort of makes the question of action irrelavent. “Action” seems like a dirty word to me these days, kind of like “work.” lol If I were in alignment with the steps that I’m taking, I would be happy about them and then I wouldn’t have to use either of those words to describe it!
*Irrelevant.
I knew I spelled that wrong.
Ta!
What is it that Dr Wayne Dyer says – change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. Yep I know he says it a bit more elequently than me
There’s a song by DB Boulevard called Point of View which pretty much says things look so differently if you just change your point of view.
This is my view from what Cheri wrote: We have loads of choices – and I think even the ones that don’t feel so great, if we just turn them around and view them differently, we can make them in to choices that do feel good.
It was a really good post – thanks Cheri
Great to read your comments Mitch! I know what you mean about action feeling like a dirty word. That’s what a ‘to do’ list feels like to me!
When I’m aligned and in true choice it’s all about ‘inspired action’ – which is much lighter and easier and actually fun because I’m in the flow with the Divine.
Missy you totally get what I’m saying! It is all about how we are thinking which leads into our feelings. As long as we are authentic and honest with ourselves it is possible to get to a place of true choice that feels really really good. I’m glad you liked the post – thanks for the encouragement!
You know, this is something I really need to look at. Because even in my chosen area (music), I sometimes find myself making decisions based on what I think other people want or like.
And I know for a fact, that when I just go with my gut, I get better recordings, better performances, more responses to my marketing efforts, etc.
I’m going to read this again, in fact!…
Thanks for your comment Michael! What you said struck a cord with me. (I’ll point out the musical humor in case you missed it!)
I had been wanting to paint a large canvas for a while. It had been blank for a couple of years actually! I went to an art fair and totally got that art is just whatever the artist expresses.
So, I started painting. I really was in the flow. Except for the middle section – which I totally ‘over thought’. So I went back and did that from my beingness. From my heart. Not caring what other people think.
I really love that painting. It makes me happy every time I see it. It really resonates with some people. Others – not so much. But that’s ok. It’s from my heart and what is true for me. Kind of like this post! LOL!
I’d love to hear some music that comes from your heart if you want to share. Blessings!