Choosing Your Response

“When I grow up I want to be just like my husband!”

For years I’ve said this jokingly. I have always admired his seemingly innate ability to be at peace no matter what he faces in life. Although I admired it, I neither understood nor fully appreciated it. If I’m honest, his ability to remain cool-headed at all times used to irritate me to my core. I would accuse him of not being passionate about anything, all the while working myself up into a bigger frenzy.

It wasn’t until my own over-committed schedule and constant agitation caused me to halt, reassess my life and journey inward in order to cultivate a more meaningful and intentional existence that I started to understand my husband’s perspective.

Things didn’t rile him up because he chose not to let them. He gives nothing power over his emotions. Disappointments and disagreements didn’t affect his psyche because he chose not to allow them to.

It wasn’t that he was not passionate about anything, as I had assumed. On the contrary. He was passionate about peace of mind and about living life fully, yet simply. What I had chalked up to be a difference in personality was, in reality, a difference in priority and intention.

As I studied this, I realised that living more intentionally not only concerned what I did with my life each day, but also how I reacted to situations around me, by choosing my response. I found that inner calm came not only by heavily guarding my calendar and commitments, but by also removing myself from emotionally draining relationships and situations. Not because I didn’t care; but because I tend to care too much.

Now, instead of being sucked into the overwhelming invitations to offense, fear, angst and dissension, I am mindful to decline, becoming aware that these have no place in a peaceful life.

And you can do this too…

When a relationship, either by blood or by choice, grows cold and distant, choose to see through the lens of love. Look past the instinct to offend and take offense and see the hurt behind the strong front. Rally for resolution instead of fueling the fire sparked by pride, a fire in which all concerned get burnt. And if, despite your overtures, the path to connection continues to burn, choose love anyway.

Your heart will thank you for it.

When life feels weighed down by ingratitude, disconnection and selfishness, choose to respond through the mouthpiece of joy. Purpose to take delight in what you do and see not just your job description, but see the people that you may assist, no matter how insignificant you perceive your role to be in their story, fully aware that everyone is fighting their own battles. Choose to be joyful in your interactions, knowing that a little spark of joy has the capacity to light a dark and lonely world. And if, despite your efforts, you are not met with the same level of joy in return, choose joy anyway.

Your conscience will thank you for it.

When the critic within seeks to level accusations of insufficiency; when, despite your best efforts, your failures and shortcomings seek to sentence you to feelings of inadequacy and guilt, choose to walk in forgiveness. Choose to know that you are enough, just as you are, regardless of what you do, or what you have left undone. Choose to acknowledge that your to-do list doesn’t need to be over-extended to be important, and that creating margin in your life is not only beneficial, it is necessary. And if, despite the decision to allow yourself the time and space to grow, the critic within continues to threaten that you will never be enough, choose forgiveness anyway. Over and over again if you have to.

Your past will thank you for it.

When life comes at you hard and seems to knock you over every time you find your feet. When billows of hardship surround and stifle the very air you breathe. When change comes at you rapidly, threatening to overthrow the comfort that you have managed to build in your heart and in your relationships, know that you need only hold on and choose hope. Choose to believe that there is a plan and a purpose in your pain. Choose to see the good in the little, seemingly insignificant happenings in your life. Choose to grasp the assurance that darkness only lasts for the night, but that there is great promise in the morning, no matter how long the night may seem. And if, despite what you see with your eyes or feel in your heart, you continue to feel as if you are sinking, choose hope anyway.

Choose to hold on to hope as if your future depends on it.

Because it does.

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2 Replies to “Choosing Your Response”

  1. That last part about hope made me cry deeply.
    During the last two years I have had close familymembers and friends die or become very ill, struggled with infertility and lost my job during the pandemic.
    I have a hard time finding hope that my life will ever be even remotely close to what I had hoped and dreamed, but this post is a small light in the darkness, thank you for writing it<3

    1. Dear Diana, Thank you for sharing from your heart. I pray that this small light of hope will continue to grow day by day.

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