Life Choices

I recently finished the book The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger, a Auschwitz survivor, trauma therapist, and life thriver. I felt an urgency to read this book last week. I haven’t felt an urgency to read something in a long time. I know when I hear this calling that I need to answer it. It usually offers me the sage wisdom that I need at a crucial time in my life. This book offered that and more. 

I am still studying this book. I took four pages of notes because I know I will pass this incredible book off to a friend soon. I haven't taken notes on a book since I was in school and writing a book report. (And let’s be real, you know I didn't take notes in school for any book report.) So this book, meant business. 

When we are faced with challenges and circumstances in our own lives it can often feel like we are left choiceness. However, as Dr. Eger sheds light on, there is always choice. They may by unfavorable at best, but there is choosing to do nonetheless. 

It can be so easy to become unrooted when we are met with confrontation. So easy to answer from our past rather than our present and who we have become. How often are we answering life’s questions from our wounds? What stops us in our tracks so that we may respond from the here and now?

As I look over each day, into my daughters eyes, they mirror myself back to me in ways that I could have never imagined. I want to respond to them and my life from my now. The woman that I am now. To teach them, not replay a story. I wish to have my past inform me but not be an influencer of my life. 

“I reminded myself that I was there to share the most important truth I know, that the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to take absolute responsibility for your life; the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are- human, imperfect, and whole.”

Dr. Edith Eva Eger

We all yearn to feel whole. To feel at peace with the choices we have made for ourselves and who we are as humans. We cannot control the circumstances, but we can decide how we want to show up in them. Life is a series of choices, I’d like to make the ones closest to my truth. It’s a practice. An art. Life.

Let’s rise,

ah 

Sitta Minut

Whether we have children or not, presence is a practice. Sometimes we need little reminders to be still and cherish the peaceful moments. Tonight my daughters were sitting together on the floor just before bedtime. As I walked by them, putting clothes in the hamper, one of them called to me and said, “sitta minut Mama”. Sit a minute. Isn’t that all anyone ever wants? To simply sit with someone and share space for a few minutes. Shared, undivided attention, space. 

I think life offers us these moments of grace if we are paying attention to them. Moments to stop from the hustle and bustle and remember to take a breath. Take a minute to sit with our children, family, friends, or strangers at the bus stop. Take a minute to breathe. To just sit. When do we ever just sit?

Lately life has felt like full steam ahead. Multi-tasking on speed. Because of this, I am always consciously trying to practice presence. My new favorite effort towards this is that I have learned to turn off email notifications. (Yes, you can do that!) So now, I choose when to look at my email. I am also choosing to put my phone down. (This one I also thank my daughters for because I simply don’t have hands.) I’m learning to text back later. To listen to voicemails later. To work when I can. I am truly learning to be conscious with my time, especially because I have two humans who are learning from my every move. They notice. Also, they deserve to be noticed. We all do.

Presence is a practice. It’s also an invitation.

I invite you to sitta minut. Perhaps even invite someone to join you. 

Let’s rise,

ah