Life will give you everything you need to go deeper. A decision will be made. If you act, the worst that can happen is a story. If you don't, the worst that can happen is a story. It makes its own decisions-when to eat, when to sleep, when to act. It just moves along on its own. And it's very calm and entirely successful.
Byron Katie( Loving What Is , page 196)
Hmmm! What do you think about that? Do you think it is you or Life that makes all the decisions for you?
I believe that most of us believe that our lives are all about making decisions and that we are responsible for them. Heck...that is what I teach...be responsible for your choices. Decisions are important, right? We need to make decisions and we need to choose correctly? Right?
Byron Katie, in Loving What Is, would ask "Is that true? Do you know for sure that is true?"
Do we really always have to make decisions? Do we really have to choose?
"Have to" and "should" are words that would get worked to death through this "inquiry" she teaches. The point is...there is nothing we "should" do and there is nothing we "have" to do. So even the decision to brush our teeth or not ...is something we don't have to make. We do not have decide? We just act or we don't.
Hmmm... according to Katie...we just have to brush our teeth or not brush our teeth without thinking about it. The decision about brushing my teeth is not the problem. The problem is the story we tell ourselves about it.
I may have this inner urge to brush my teeth. That urge is not a problem in itself nor is a decision required. I could simply follow that inner urge and go brush my teeth. Yet, if I stopped and put my finger to my chin and said, "Hmmm! Do I really need to brush my teeth? I just brushed them this morning. If I decide to brush them I will have to go all the way inside the house and into the bathroom. That will take another five minutes and I am already late. If I am late again, my boss is going to get so mad. Things are crazy at the office and people are getting fired left and right. I can't afford to get fired!!"
So I don't brush my teeth and go off to work. Then on my way to work, I remember my last dentist appointment and the warning I received from the hygienist about a cavity that is starting. I imagine the cavity growing...and me losing that tooth and all my other teeth falling out of alignment with the removal of that tooth. I wonder what people will say and my lack of attractiveness. I fear I will never attract a mate and be alone for the rest of my life.
The decision to brush the teeth was not the problem. It was made...Life gave me an urge to brush them. I either acted or I didn't; I either brushed them or I didn't. The problem arises not in the decision but in the story we create around it...in the thinking about it . We get lost in mind stuff rather than in simply acting in the moment. We get stressed out before we make the decision and stressed out after wards. It is all so unnecessary. I could have simply responded to the urge(Life making a decision) and brushed them.
Life doesn't get hung up on decisions...it just does. It just flows and goes along its merry old way inside these bodies we are in and these minds we are using. No big deal. Whether or not we act on the decisions or urges it offers us, is none of its concern. The only problem with it ...is what we create in our minds.
And it doesn't matter if we are making decisions about brushing our teeth or getting married....about investing in the stock market or whether or not to continue with life saving measures. Life just does and flows along. Our stories are the problem...not decisions. We really do not need to decide...Life will decide for us. And we will hear it...if we are not so lost in our stories that we lose contact with it. From there we will act or not act...and it doesn't matter to life if we do or don't. It just keeps chugging along.
That simple. Hmmm...something to think about.
All is well in my world.
Byron Katie (2002) Loving What Is. New York: Three Rivers Press
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