HAVE to - CHOOSE to

Notice how often you use word HAVE TO. I have to wash my clothes. I have to wake up at 6am. I have to go to lunch with my friend.……. I am sure you can input yours HAVE TOs.

I invite you now to do an experiment. Close your eyes and repeat to yourself all the things that you have to do, have to have, or have to be today. Do it for a minute and then stop and notice how you feel. No judgement, no argument, no good or bad. Just notice.

Now take few deep breaths and shake it off. For another minute replace all those HAVE TO with I CHOOSE TO. Your mind may want to argue why you have to and how it is not choice for certain matters, like for example picking your child from the school. It is ok. Now is not the time for argument. It is just an experiment. Do it and see how you feel.

Now I invite you, if you like to do this experiment through one whole day.

At the end of that day see how you feel.

I would be very interested to hear about your experience.

Exercises like this have a potential to open us to new understandings and insights that are closed for us if we stay in our usual, habitual manner.

I would like to share my story with you regarding HAVE TO and CHOOSE TO. When I became aware of difference in the vibration between the words HAVE TO and CHOOSE TO I started to notice how many time I use HAVE TO. I would use it for almost anything and I did not notice it. It felt normal. Almost everyone did it, it seemed. I would say I have to go to this workshop or finish this lesson, I have to make lunch, I have to go and have coffee with my friend…..

Then I realised what I was saying was not true at all. It was habitual expression left over from my past stress driven life. I was choosing to do all these things. Most of it I really liked to do. As soon as I started to use CHOOSE TO over HAVE TO I became aware of my freedom. Suddenly there was so much more space in me and I felt happier.

The truth is that there are also choices we do not like. We do not like them so much that we do not see them as a choice. For example, I have to work because I need the money. Alternative of not having the money is not something we prefer. This way of thinking often closes us to consider that for example earning money by doing that particular job may not be the only way of earning money that is open to us. Or we stay in the unhealthy relationship because we do not like to be alone. Fear of being alone may close us not only to see that we make a CHOICE of staying in that relationship but it also closes us to an opportunity that we may meet someone else and have more life and fulfilment.

HAVE TO is really ONE WAY ROAD.

If we allow ourselves to see all the options for every choice we make we will find out that:

- It is not only ONE WAY ROAD

- It is not even CROSSROAD with two different roads

- It is a multiple CHOICE even if some of the ways are covered by mist for us.

An impulse may come and we will want to argue for our HAVE TOs. We may want to voice all that instances where we really felt that there was not a CHOICE at all.

I invite you to stay open. Why?

Because life always comes in multiple of choice and opportunities whether we are aware of them or not. Life is not linear but our mind can be. If we wish to change those matters that restrict our freedom, if we do not want to be a puppet pulled by strings of outside circumstances than we open ourselves to possibility to see life outside our current boundaries.

We take our singular glasses and start by changing our language.

Will that be enough? No. It can be a start if you choose it.

The strings may still be there but we do not need to be a puppet pulled by them, we can use it for something beautiful like dancing on it.