Choose Life

An inescapable fact of life is that we will all encounter environments that we will psychologically ‘stumble over’. And I don’t mean this in a “bad things happen to good people”, glass half-full kind of way. This isn’t a message about persevering when life gets tough and needing to dig deep, armour up and push through it. I am not talking about those times when we find the grace to resource and activate the best parts of ourselves to overcome the obstacle that stands in our way. In a sense, I think our daily, everyday life is a series of those types of challenges, so we resource ourselves through discipline, commitment and knowledge to prepare for them. Ultimately, those who are the most proficient at overcoming these types of challenges accrue the most “spoils” in our society. At least from a materialist point of view. 

A psychological stumble (which is just a name I am making up), is the kind of stumble where we are unable to access any of the best parts of ourselves, and it is our rejected pieces, our shadow side, the parts that we have hidden from everyone including ourselves that show up. This is our suppressed and unaddressed trauma getting activated in a survival response to the environment we find ourselves in. That is, the absolute worst parts of us show up to deal with the challenge at hand – literally the monster within that has been starved, banished, rejected and hidden from the world shows up and takes over.  The worst parts of ourselves then bring the worst possible response to the situation, and the “stumble” then has a possibility of turning into a catastrophic fall.  I have experienced the catastrophic hard fall. But the severity of it doesn’t really matter with respect to the choices we face going forward from the common starting point of humiliation, guilt and shame.  We are not taught how to resource ourselves from this place and our societal structures are oriented towards punishment and retribution. It is up to you to simply choose the path you want to follow.

Choose to be a victim. Choose to suffer. Choose Life – The choice is yours alone, between you and God.

Choose the victim. The victim seems like the path most travelled and may appear the easiest to walk. I can blame others for my trauma and hence not take any accountability for my actions. “I wouldn’t be this way if it wasn’t for my parents”, so I can deflect and blame and instead of trying to integrate and heal the rejected parts of me. In fact, I allow these parts of me to take over and demand sympathy from others when they do. The world becomes very small.

Choose to suffer. It sounds like a ridiculous choice until you are in it but believe me it, it can be very tempting. I was in a river of shame, guilt and self-hatred. When I fell apart, I caused so much pain to the people I loved the most that I started to believe that if I suffered enough, it would allow them to forgive me and heal. And in a way I think that our society is also oriented to this view - my suffering will be healed by your suffering. Suffering does not lead to healing.

I was grateful that a dear friend of mine, early on in my healing process, told me that the greatest act of love you can do for the people you care about, is to find a way to love yourself again. He also cautioned me that it is very likely most people will not understand it, and in fact, will likely resent you for it.  But you must find faith and take this path regardless. This is the path of choosing love, the path of healing and it is the path of choosing life. Victimization and suffering only serve to harden and close our hearts, and no one benefits from this. Choosing love and choosing life, particularly from a dark place, opens our hearts in such a profound way that I cannot describe it with words. When we choose to fully face and integrate the rejected parts of ourselves with courage and compassion, we open ourselves up to the field of unconditional love.  When we are tapped into the frequency of unconditional love there are no limits to how big our lives become and in turn how much of that love is shared with the world. Choose life, choose love and choose to heal the world.

I choose life.

The Way