I’ve been thinking so much about the idea that we really do get to craft, create, and choose the lives we want to live. It really is that simple. Maybe we don’t get to choose what happens, but we do get to choose our response.
In the end, our lives are built around choices. Lots of them. Who we choose to partner with. What we choose to eat. How we choose to see. When we react, don’t react, bend, hold on, let go, or forgive.
Here’s what I think. The wisdom lives inside how we choose. We craft and create our lives through choices. Tiny ones, big ones. I deeply believe that no choice is too small or insignificant. In fact, it’s the tiniest, smallest, seemingly insignificant choices that we make everyday that are often the places where we lose ourselves, but also where we can find ourselves alight. Why? Because every single choice is a mirror of our voice, a reflection of who we are. Choosing a paint color for your wall or choosing a brown couch over a red couch may feel like no big deal, but it leads to the next “no big deal” choice – the ones we make all day long in the grocery store, on the playground, in the dressing room. If we’re not leaning in to hear our own voices to inform those everyday choices we make, then we’re in danger of not recognizing our voice (aka our power, our light, our truth) when it comes time to make those big decisions in marriages, in work places, in the questions that keep us up at night.
Choosing takes practice.
We can practice everyday by leaning in and listening to what is calling us. Is it red paint on the wall that we really want but we’re deferring to white instead – perhaps because the person we live with doesn’t want red? That’s ok! But lets lean in to that tiny inclination. Let’s delight it with a choice. Where can we put the red? Maybe it’s in a red chair. Maybe it’s in a red vase. Either way, every time we see that red, we’ll see a tiny mirror, a reflection of ourselves. The conscious become subconscious – nutrition for our souls. Subtle but hugely important when we add up these micro choices that essentially inform who we’ve chosen to be over time.
Of course, it’s not really about the red chair or the red vase at all. It’s about listening, hearing and recognizing our own voice, but also – perhaps most importantly – it’s about choosing to delight that voice in some small (or big) way inside every possible decision that comes our way so that the essence of who we are remains fed, nurtured, validated.
Choices = who we’re saying we are. What do your choice say about who you are?
And then, with all that practice in choosing well when it comes to the small stuff, we’ll be ready when the really big decisions come – the ones that often define the course of our lives – we’ll recognize our voice, we’ll know it, we’ll trust it for the big leaps, the risks. And we’ll also trust it when we inevitably have to make hard choices to get us out of despair, heartbreak, and pain.
The wisdom lives inside how we choose.
Hi, I'm Kelly Rae Roberts!
Before I picked up my first paintbrush at the age of 30, I was a medical social worker. I followed my whispers and started playing with paint and everything changed.
Now I’m a full-time artist, author and Possibilitarian, who helps women explore and nourish their creative souls.
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What I want to know is just how you got into my head! I'm facing a huge decision that not involves only me, but my daughter. I find myself going back and forth. If it were just me, the decision would be easy. When it involves my girl, not so easy.
I believe this is eating me up inside and I'm just about ready to cave. All my life I have sacrificed to please others. Do I have that same right when it involves my child?
I struggle with that more than the initial issue. It's making me physically sick
Thank you
Love, love, LOVE this post. Thank you!
Kelly Rae, I've been coming to your blog for a daily dose of inspiration for the past 4 years, and I've never been disappointed once in all that time. I love leaning in and listening to all the truth you bring to the table. Love from Alabama 🙂
Absolutely completely and totally amazing. YOU are.
This is a great post Kelly Rae. I've been a bit "stuck" with my art work lately but struggling with anxiety so I wanted to create something to give myself an outlet. I allowed myself to "choose" something different to create and am creating a beautiful wedding scrapbook for my son and new daughter-in-law. I realized that I can expand my creative abilities and really enjoy myself while making something beautiful at the same time!
Thanks for the great thought provoking post, Kelly Rae!
Karen
Oh, yes, the power of choices! Thanks for attaching it to being able to recognize our own voice and knowing what to trust first. We have to deal with choices every day – small ones, big ones. Like you said, choosing takes practice and boy, do we get to practice it.
That's one thing I love about painting; how we are allowed to make peace with choice by playing with abandon. Who would have thought that by using our freedom to choose what we create we'd be able to see that we are already equipped to make the best choices. And isn't that what life is, a sequence of choices we make? Let's make it a happy one!
Thanks for the great post, Kelly.
So true! What's your take on indecisiveness? Sometimes I have the hardest time choosing one thing over the other! ~ M.
When it comes to choices I always lean into this saying
You have freedom of choice not freedom from choice.
agreed kelly rae! there is so much power in choice. after my car accident, i really struggled with a victim mentality for years!!! i believed that i wasn't in control of anything and therefore just let life happen to me. and it's true, i didn't choose to be in a car accident, but i could control how i chose to respond to it. my life really began to turn around once i found my voice again and started making small choices toward life. i chose hope and life and color and starting creating the life i had always dreamed of. we do have such powerful choices in this life!!!!
WOW! That's beautiful KRR! You really have a knack for putting insight into words that translate into wisdom for everyday life. Learning to trust yourself is one of the hardest things to do….but you are absolutely right about every decision we make is a reflection of ourselves…and if only we could take the time to listen and trust ourselves then we just might reach brand new heights. REALLY, REALLY beautiful! THANK YOU!
Wise words! I like to keep in touch with with lots of inspirational/psychology books and affirmations also. Keep spreading the light 🙂
great post! great timing for me, as i find myself making choices about my art and personal life right now. thank you. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this! It's so in line with what I'm going through right now! 🙂
Beautifully said. Our souls have so much wisdom if we just would be willing and still enough to listen to the whispers.
Reading this reminds me to add another layer of choosing nourishing actions to support my vision.
Thank You
I LOVE this…so well said. Thankyou!
Janet
My mom and I talk about the 'red vase' all the time, and you put our conversations into terms we can understand. I can't wait to tell her! Thank you!
Hi Kelly-Rae – This is so well written and insightful – thank you – as always – for the inspiration! Karen
Wow, this is profound stuff. I've been grappling with these tensions especially at work and in my marriage. At work – how to feel and express my authentic sense in the midst of a restrictive culture and one-dimensional role (which excludes my other selves). In my marriage the tension between the likes and dislikes, needs and wants of another. I think the awareness of our truths at lest, goes a long way to honouring ourselves. Thank you Kelly-Rae for the way you have articulated this.