choose your choice

“You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.”

- Epictetus, Stoic Philosopher

Hi + Welcome to Day One of Doubt Detox! This is going to be a great week and I’m really excited for you to shed anything that’s been holding you back. You know it’s time to let go and feel better, that’s why you’re here, and that’s what is going to happen over the next seven days. Let’s get started!

I love the quote above. These words remind us that indeed we do have the powerful capacity for choosing well. It’s all within out control. I also love the idea that in order to feel beautiful — or peaceful, or calm, or grounded — all we have to do is make consistent choices that align with those feelings. Too easy!

You can curate your life experience, and in fact you have been curating it, by a series of choices. The way you experience life is, in fact, up to you. Of course we can’t control what happens to us… but we can control how we feel it.

It’s that simple but of course life events, people, and mindset can sometimes make it feel pretty hard. So for today, I want you to start to get comfortable with the idea that things like choices, focus, and even the way we experience feelings can all be within our control. I want you to pay special attention to how your body feels when you make choices that you know are beautiful and true to you.

The first step then, is owning the fact that you do have the capacity to direct (and redirect) your focus. Over and over again. And yes, again. Because it takes directed focus to create change. Life is just a series of choices. And it’s okay if you get distracted, discouraged, or pushed and pulled in different directions. We all do. We always have within us, however, the capacity for not just choosing again, but choosing well. In other words, you got this.

exercise #1. Visualization Exercise - Art Gallery.

How you show up, what you say, how you act, how you react, and how you feel… it’s all hanging on the walls. Will the art be whimsical, adventurous, romantic, and engaging? Or, bleak, messy, and unfinished? What’s on the walls? Perhaps more importantly, what’s not on the walls? Take five minutes to journal or simply sit in stillness and contemplate the following question: how does my body feel as I walk through my art gallery?

#2 Preparing Ourselves To ‘choose our choice’

Tomorrow we’re going to do a really fun ritual I know you’re going to love. I’m going to tell you about it now so that you will have time to gather the ingredients you’ll need. Here they are:

• A splash of water

• A dollop of coarse salt

• A squeeze of lemon

Too easy. You’ll find out more tomorrow but make sure you have those ingredients on hand and 30 minutes of uninterrupted time. Yes, a full half hour of alone time! How blissful does that sound? Great. Let’s dive into today’s last exercise.

#3 Go for it: choose your choice

I want you today, in this moment, to commit to the type of choices you are going to make. This isn’t a specific choice. This isn’t a goal. This is an overall commitment about the way you’ll make choices. About the types of choices you’ll make. It’s a promise to only make choices that leave you feeling beautiful, calm, confident, empowered, clear, peaceful — anything you like. Pick only one feeling and choose how you want all your choices to feel. Choose your choice now.

Takeaways

1. Life is a series of choices.

2. Those choices are in our control.

3. We can not only choose again, we can choose better.

4. Notice how your body feels when you make beautiful choices.

5. Your life is an art gallery. Your choices are the art that adorn the walls.

great job. Tomorrow we’ll nourish ourselves to sustain our beautiful choices longterm. don’t forget the lemons!