The How from your Heart

Every time I sit down to pen my thoughts into time immemorial on the 1st of the month, I ask myself – what’s been getting me intellectually or rather psychologically excited lately?

On the back of bouts of illness and feeling sorry for myself in the midst of movement restrictions (I don’t even want the give the c-word any space in my post, I’m so upset about it), I came close to giving today a miss. Because I am so so tired.

The end.

Except I also have strong compulsive traits and I’m still breathing and strong enough to type words, so here goes…

It doesn’t matter what the outcome is, only How your Heart was when you decided.

This argument is kind of related to the age-old question of – Does the end justify the means? Philosophers can go ahead and babble on about that one. My short answer is: “It depends”.

My concern today is the state of your intention – how you came to decide – when you set about to do something. In the context of difficult decision-making and self-doubting, of major decisions, and to-ing and fro-ing about the “right” decision, I only want to recommend:

Make sure your heart is in the right place before you do it.

Because once it’s done, you can’t go back and undo it – “it” being the state of your heart. A thousand other people could probably have made the same decision you made, and achieved the same outcome by virtue of the domino-effect from an external perspective. However, you can never change the fact of HOW you (and only you) came to your decision; i.e. the inner workings of your Heart, that little place where your You-ness is shaped and defined, decision by decision.

I will do this/that because…

• It will benefit me, who cares if it hurts someone else.
• It’s for my good, and others benefit too.
• I’m scared of doing the other thing.
• I can’t be bothered trying the other way.
• It’s the easiest option right now.
• I want revenge.
• I want to be the greatest, at all cost.
• Everyone else is doing it too.
• It’s going to make a real difference in people’s lives.

Nobody but YOU gets to decide the HOW of your decision-making. Many factors like peer pressure, economic pressures, the weather, emotional turmoil (’tis a serious thing) and even how your tummy is feeling at the time, might try and weigh in to sway you one way or the other. But only You get to choose – with all the power of self-determination invested in you – what you base your final decision on. Don’t let your best-You down!

So that IF all goes downhill… you can then cue the best ever self-soothing line:

I made the best decision I could at the time.

And for those with a faith in a power greater than themselves, it’s:

I made the best decision I could at the time, with full trust and dependence upon my Faith-giver for the outcome.

Que Sera Sera!

That is, you made the best decision you could from the true-est, kind-est, brave-est, best-est, version of you, given all the mental, physical, emotional, and psychological capacity you had at the time. Sure, there are many things one can do to therapise and go over bad memories to re-write them. Email me if you want more information on that.

All that said, the question becomes:

Why handicap yourself unnecessarily by making decisions from a knowingly selfish, self-destroying place?

#reset your decision-making foundation.

#release yourself to choose from a heart with good-intentions for all, always.

My August goal: Breathe deeply for at least 10 seconds, 3 times a day.