I have often felt the urgencies of life keenly, and made decisions based on fear of missing an opportunity or of disappointing another.  These decisions often led to my own and others’ suffering.  I believed I needed to make things happen, and that if I didn’t they wouldn’t happen. So when faced with a decision I pondered, made pro/con lists, and worried about the decision and the outcome. I was uncomfortable with NOT knowing, which compelled me to decide.

The first time I made a decision from a different place was when I left my job in California to move back to Michigan to be with my husband.  It occurred after the radical awakening I experienced there, so I was open to seeing things differently.  I began to feel, in my body, that this stage of my life was ending, that I wouldn’t be in California forever as I had once thought. Rather than resisting that knowing, I was able to allow it to just be there.  How interesting I thought to myself.  No action needed.  I shared this realization with my husband and told him I did not know how much longer I would be in California.  I sat with that small seed of knowing, and for a month nothing changed.  I still felt entirely engaged in my job and my life, but could see that something else was on the horizon, approaching.

That small seed of knowing took root, and after a particularly dysfunctional company retreat a few weeks later I woke up the next morning, sat up in bed and knew I was leaving NOW.  There was no decision. No pondering, no worries, just pure clarity.  No guilt, no blame, just clarity.  I went in the next day and told my employers that I was leaving and offered a long transition since it was a sudden decision.  It ultimately was one of the best decisions I have made in my life for myself.

Since then, I have tried to live my life without the belief, “I need to make a decision,” because I have experienced life when the decision makes itself, and it is much easier.  I have learned that I cannot force clarity before its time.  My mantra has become, “I only act from clarity,” and I try to remind myself of this whenever the compulsion to decide comes.