The Power of Choice

When things in life don't turn out the way you expected - that charming guy you were dating turns out to be an a**hole, the stellar job you longed for ends up bleeding your soul dry, or the dream home you bought winds up being a money pit - it can feel like you are helpless. Like you're the unwilling participant in a drama that you never wanted to be cast in. Stuck in an endlessly looping nightmare. A freefall downward spiral.....without a parachute.

When this happens, its easy to let the anxiety overwhelm you. And even easier to just crawl under the covers until the sh*t storm blows over. Especially when it feels like you don't have control over anything.

But even when it feels like you don't have the power to change the course of things, you can change things by simply choosing to.

Guy you're dating dumps you? You can choose to let it crush you...Or you can choose to learn from the situation, become a stronger woman, and move confidently forward.

Job sucking the life out of you? You can choose to become a bitter, angry worker...Or you can find a new element of your job that will once again inspire passion for your work. You can even choose to realize that the current job may not be right for you, and boldly decide to search elsewhere for a satisfying job.

Any downturn can easly be seen as a problem, a bad situation, or a disaster. Its not easy to see it as an opportunity to challenge yourself, to learn something new, to acquire some new wisdom, and use that knowledge and experience to become a better, stronger person.

This is the power of choice. And that is a power that each of us possess, and no one can take that away from us.

So go ahead and wallow in your chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream when life throws a monkey wrench in things. Give yourself permission to grieve, to feel the pain - this is what reminds us we're alive.

But then choose to move forward. The lessons you've learned today will make you that much more capable to handle the next monkey wrench that life will toss at you. And when that happens, you'll know that you can handle it - because you already have.