The Power of Choice & How To Make An Optimum One

Every choice has an impact to a greater or lesser extent, each like a pebble dropped in a pond; the ripples, the ramifications, spreading out into other areas of your life, the lives of others, and the future.

Choices are often seen as actions, but there are choices of attitude, thought and feeling, choices of principle, of imagination, choices for whole ways of being, and for whole possibilities and realities even. These and other higher spectrum choices influence and lead to the more visible ones.

I can think of times choices have felt clear and obvious, and other times I’ve struggled with them. The below inquiry process can be really helpful, revealing too.
There may be far more choices available to you than those you are aware of at a given time. Expanding your vision of ‘the possible’ can open you to more choices.
What choice could you make today that would change your life for the better now, or in the coming weeks, months, or years ahead even?

One small choice can shift your life radically. Even if by a teeny degree now, over time that can make a vast difference, opening you to new paths, possibilities, and experiences. It’s amazing where one choice can lead.

I’ve no doubt you can remember choices you made weeks, months or even years ago that altered who and where you are right now, for better or worse. Perhaps you can also think of choices you didn’t make and wonder how things may have ended up if you had.

There are no perfect choices, but there may be choices that are more or less serving at a given time. The choice-making process below is shared to support you with that.

Your beliefs, thoughts, feelings and overall state can all impact the nature of choices you make. Being conscious of those, and how they are influencing your choices at a given time obviously helps.

Love will always support any choice you make, period, so whatever helps you open to love will help you with choice. And you can choose love. Even if you’re not feeling love, or loved, or loving, you can make a choice for love, which in itself can help you open to love and your willingness to allow love to be experienced; the love that you are, the love that is ever there for you, and the love you feel for anything or anyone. Experiencing love may not be an instant flip-switch depending on where you’re at, but it doesn’t mean you can’t choose love regardless.

When it comes to choice, it’s the intention that matters most. Ultimately, choice sourced in love can only ever win. Even if you make a boo-boo choice, if your intentions are well-meaning, that alone impacts the energy and outcome of any choice. It’s better to be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons. And let’s not forget, on the other side of any choice, you can make another choice too.

In terms of specific choices, how do you make an optimum one? The below questions can support you with any choice-making process and enhance your awareness around given choices, underlying intentions, potential impacts, the circumferences of choices available, and so on.

Ask yourself the below questions with reference to a given choice:

• Is this a loving choice?
• Do I feel good when I think about making this choice?
• What does not making this choice feel like?
• What would things be like on the other side of choice? (Reflect, imagine, step into the experience or possible futures…)
• How does my heart respond to this choice?
• Does this choice reflect who I am?
• Is this choice aligned to my values?
• Is this choice in alignment with my principles?
• Is this a fear choice?
• Is this choice arising out of a constricting state (judgement, pain, hurt, anger, righteousness, martyrhood, victimhood, blame…)?
• Is this a ‘safe choice’ keeping me from going beyond my comfort zone?
• Is this someone else’s choice?
• What other choices are available?
• Which ‘me’ is choosing this? (Is it my child, adolescent, ego, adult self, or is it my Higher Self /a divinely inspired choice, for example?)
• Is this choice coming from negative beliefs and stories?
• Is this choice aligned with the future I desire to create?
• Does this choice take me closer to my heart’s desires?
• Does my intuition respond positively to this choice?
• Is this a true choice of personal desire, or one of sacrifice or obligation?
• Is this an informed choice?
• What are the possible short and long-term impacts of this choice? Does one cancel out the merit of the other?

Don’t worry if you aren’t clear on answers to all these questions, they are shared to aid reflection. Simply going through them may help you become clearer about choices, bring awareness to possible blind-spots, open you to new perspectives in relation to your choice, and shed light on possible limiting agendas that may be impacting your choices.

Lots of love,

Aine Belton