Making Choices from the Heart

Q: P'taah, I'd like to ask about the difficulty I am having making decisions and choices. It seemed much easier when I simply believed that I was guided and that when I tuned into my intuition, there was some pre-destined answer that I could just act on. Now that I believe that I am making the choices myself, I don't trust in the answers I am getting as much.

P'taah:  Well, you know, beloved, the only thing that is changed is your belief. You understand? Because there is really not pre-destination. However, that which is your intuition is of course always your most trustworthy guide to choices.

How does you feel? What is the passion? What is the fascination? This also is your guide and whether you call it your intuition or guides or angels, really it is always you who makes the choice. The only difference is before you trusted unquestionably and now you question everything.

Well, that's all right except that you put yourself into a place of great confusion when you disallow that which is your internal knowing.

Q:  I mean at the moment in my life I can't make out what my internal knowing exactly is. For instance, I feel I have, say, three choices and in each one of them, there is something that makes my heart sing but there is also something I am scared of. 

P'taah:  This is two different things, beloved, two different issues. One is what makes your heart sing. And the other is dealing with the fear which is there underneath everything.

Q:  But that's what I can't make out. It's hard for me to explain.

P'taah:  No, it is understood perfectly. However, what is difficult to explain to you is the fact that the fear is the fear and that must be dealt with. Whereas, if you can understand that by dealing with the fear, then indeed the choices will be much clearer. 

Q:  But in every choice there always seems to be a fear that you are making a wrong choice ....

P'taah:  Beloved, there is no such thing as a wrong choice. It's about a belief that does not serve you, to say that you possibly can make a wrong choice, because the truth is that you cannot.

That is one thing that you are forgetting. You cannot make a wrong choice. And for many peoples, the idea of wrong choice is terrifying and keeps you stuck, in a way, unable to move.

Q:  Yes, and the thing about wrong choice is, it's not that I am frightened of making a wrong choice in the sense that I have a judgment about the choice. I'm worried that it won't be what makes my heart sing.

 P'taah:  You are worrying about the result of the choice. Well you know, the result of the choice, in a way, is not important because whatever you choose will bring forth a situation. And whatever the situation is, it is something to deal with. Whether it is joyous and exciting or whether it is something that you would regard as dire, the truth is that, whichever way, it is then in that Now to deal with. 

And what you are doing is projecting from the Now. If you are making choices totally in the Now moment, for the Now moment, then it would not be so terrifying. What you are doing is projecting into some kind of nebulous future and the outcome could be cataclysmic, could be painful, etcetera. You are putting yourself in a place always in future, not in the Now.

Q:  Yes, I don't know how to make a decision in the Now actually.

P'taah:  Yes, you do.

Q: I do?

P'taah:  But of course you do! In the Now you are making choices regardless of what you might call outcome. You have just simply forgotten for this moment, especially in this last year.

Q:  Can you remind me? 

(Laughter)

Q:  Cause I feel that if I was really in the Now, I wouldn't need to make a choice. I mean I would be quite happy where I was probably.

P'taah:  You always are making choices, in every moment, even if it is a choice for what to have for dinner. You understand?

Q:  So what do you mean then that in the last year that I've forgotten?

P'taah:  Well, in a way, in the last year you have kind of turned your life in a different direction.

Q:  Yes, well, I don't know what direction. That's why I'm in this muddle. I don't know where I am going and what I am doing.

P'taah:  How does that feel?

Q:  Terrible! (laughs) It just feels very frustrating. I feel stuck at a crossroads with three or four different paths in front of me and I'm just standing there thinking, "If I take that one then I'll have missed that one, and if I take that one, then what would it mean on that one...'

P'taah:  We remind you, beloved, that in a way, doesn't have to be this or that. It can this and this and this!

Q:  Yes, and I don't know how to make that happen.

P'taah:  What you are doing is choosing for Now.

Q: Yes.

P'taah:  And then in another Now you may say, "Well, that was good fun but now I desire to change my direction a little so now I shall move over here."

Q:  I think, and again it comes back to all of our basic fears. It's just that down each path I see either a lack or a fear of not being good enough, or love not working out down another path. or not having enough money down another path. So all the basic fears seem to be around me, instead of me, as you say, living in the Now and recognizing that I don't have to be in that space of fear.

P'taah:  Only you can make that choice, beloved. Fear or love, fear or joy, fear or excitement. Nobody can do it for you.

Q:  After all this time, I still end up back in that spot. My choices are about moving to another country, buying houses elsewhere, going to live in another country with someone else. I mean they are not minor things and that's why the fears comes up. 

P'taah:  What is the alternative?

Q:  To not do any those things and stay where I am but I am not quite happy with that.

P'taah:  How does that feel? That feels terrible also!

Q: Yes, exactly! Boring!

P'taah:  Indeed, beloved, boring.

Q: Yes. Making decisions in life, I find one of the most trying episodes. I think the answer is also in what you were saying just now. I keep extending into the future that's really a fantasy. How do I know any of that?

P'taah:  You do not know what is around corners, beloved. And so how do you make choice? You make choices the way you always used to make choice. You go with what feels right, what feels exciting. You go with the inner feeling about it.

Q: Yes. Thank you, P'taah.

P'taah