You have a choice...

A quote that passed my inbox that I really wanted to share.


Eight years ago, sitting alone in a cold house in the middle of a week-long ice storm, I spoke a sentence out loud: “You have a choice.” It wasn’t a sentence I remember ever hearing. I had been weakly, dimly hoping for the strength to change myself, the power to change my life, without making the hard choices that would support the vision I held for myself. I thought, mistakenly, that I could change my life without rocking the boat.


I had to learn how to listen and trust that quiet voice. I had to clear a wide, still space in me where possibility could take root and dreams could hatch. Hearing my inner voice above the din of shoulds and expectations is difficult, and when I do hear her, what she has to say is often scary. “You have to take the full leap. Halfway won’t work.”


My inner voice invariably speaks up for the riskier option, which requires that I turn my life over to uncertainty. I can't know the outcome. The strange thing is that ultimately, that is the choice that offers the most meaning and joy. Every time I’ve trusted that inner voice my life has expanded, my creativity flowed and I’ve received the tools and nourishment I needed for the next step.


Ironically, the most difficult roads that this voice has led me down have offered the lessons I needed most. I learned to love more deeply. And I learned trust --trust in myself and trust in something greater than myself.


In Celebration of Possibility,


Ann O'Shaughnessy