How are you making your decisions?

There are basically two ways. You can either make decisions from love or from fear. 

The status quo is to make decisions from fear. It can be fear of what will happen in the future or it can be fear based on what’s happened in the past. Fear rarely has anything to do with the present moment. (Unless there is real and present danger, of course, but that is actually more rare than you would think.)

Some fears that get involved in the decision-making process include:

• Fears around money
• Fear about what others will think
• Fear about being judged (closely related to the previous fear with a subtle difference)
• Fear about time (not having enough, not being productive enough, wasting it, etc)
• Fear of the unknown

Fear doesn’t tend to be the best helper, though, because it’s often made up.

Love, on the other hand, is a great helper when making decisions because it aligns you with Spirit (aka Infinite Intelligence, which has a much greater grasp on things than our little brains, it being infinite and all).

So how can you make more love-based decisions? 

Here’s a simple 2-step process. (That’s right, just 2 steps!)

Step 1 - Awareness

Now that you have the awareness that you’re making decisions either based on love or fear, you want to bring that to the top of mind when making all your decisions. Pause before the final verdict, float up above the situation and ask yourself: 

“Is this decision based on love or fear?”

That’s awareness. 

Step 2 - Practice

As often as possible, make your decisions out of love, especially when they are seemingly little decisions. The more practice you get on those inconsequential decisions, the more you’re building the muscle for the bigger ones. 

Here’s an example that happened to me the other day.

I was out for a walk in the river valley near my home. Although it was a gray and cool day, I was loving life. The birds were singing, the river was rushing and I was doing my Central Channel Breathing, feeling oh-so-happy and satisfied.

Along the way, I was faced with a decision. It was literally which path to take (such a great metaphor, right?). One path was a more foresty experience and closer to the river. The other path was the bike path; still nice, but more concrete and less inviting.

The problem with the foresty path was that there were two women just up ahead walking a dog. In the split second where I was deciding which way to go, here’s what flashed through my mind. (Warning: run-on sentence coming up because my mind doesn’t necessarily punctuate.)

I would love to go on the forest path but I’m walking faster than those women which means I’m going to have to alert them that I’m there and then I’m going to have to pass them and sometimes when I do that, people don’t realize I’m there and then they get scared and I don’t like to scare people so maybe I’ll just go on the wider bike path because there’s no one there. Plus they’re taking up the whole path which means I’ll have to pass them and I just don’t want to scare them.

Yep, that’s what my mind said in a split second. Then I paused and asked myself, “What would I love to do right now?” (This is the Awareness Step. I noticed what was going on in my mind and noticed it was making things up. A fear of scaring walkers. Or worse yet... inconveniencing them! Gasp. Can you believe it? Oh that silly mind.)

When I asked myself what I would love, the answer was very clear. I would love to walk on the foresty path. So, I summoned up my courage and chose that path. 

It was gorgeous. The dirt path was covered in old leaves so it was soft and cushy and the river was much closer. I was happy with my little but monumental decision. 

And then guess what happened?!? The two women and their dog veered off the path before I reached them so their dog could go into the river from a little rocky beach. 

The fear my mind had made up didn’t even come to pass! (Which is almost always the case.)

This little example showed me that Love is always the best guide when it comes to decision-making and when you go with Love, things generally turn out better than you even expected. 

I encourage you to experiment with your decision-making this week and as often as possible, ask yourself:

“What would I love to do?”

And then do that. Even if there’s fear. Even if it feels hard or uncomfortable. It just takes awareness and practice.

Love is in your corner and is waiting to shower you with all sorts of goodness.

With abundant love and persistent courage,

Christina

>Creator of Courageous Self-Care

>Overcoming the fear of inadvertently scaring people, one walk at a time

>Another hilarious walking fear I had was turning around and going back where I came from because I thought people would think that the turning-around looked weird. Then I decided to make it a push-turn (like a dance move) (which of course is way weirder than just turning around) and somehow it made it so much better. So now I no longer have the turning-around-in-mid-walk-fear. Hooray! (Small victories.)

This recommendation is for those of you in Calgary or near enough to make your way here easily. You’re going to want to make your way over after you hear what I’m about to share with you!

There used to be an amazing little shop in Kensington called Pranic Forest. To my dismay, it closed at the end of 2022. Wah! I was particularly devastated (I’m pretty sure I even cried when I heard) because the best facials ever took place in that gorgeous space. 

They were called Cosmic Facials. Not only did they include oils and potions made locally by a wonderful herbalist with plants from her garden in BC, there was also energy healing, crystal bowls and a foot massage (a foot massage!) as part of the process. They were epic. I treasured every time I went.

Recently, a wonderful email came my way. Although Pranic Forest had closed, one of the lovely healers got permission to continue to give Cosmic Facials in Calgary! Hooray! I jumped up and down at the news! Oh joy! Oh rapture! Oh wonder!

I have one booked for later this week and I highly recommend that you get one in your calendar as well. You can find more information about this wonderful and healing experience at the link below. Once there, click on services. I promise you will come out glowing (from head to freshly massaged toes!).

Cosmic Facials at Dream Awake

I love this song. It’s called Kissing by Bliss.

The first time I heard it, I was in a lovely little shop in France in the early 2000s when my husband and parents and I cycled around the country for 5 weeks. 

I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized by the music. I loved it! I had to have it!

This was before the days of Shazam, so I ran to the counter and asked what music was playing. The person behind the counter kindly showed me the CD case and I memorized it. It was called Paris Lounge.

Every music store we found thereafter, I searched and searched for the green CD case. These were the days before the internet, iTunes or Spotify, so it took a concerted effort to locate the prized treasure of “Kissing”.

On the last day of our trip, my hopes were dwindling. It seemed possible that I might never hear this song again. I may be over-dramatizing this part, but I think we were even in the airport getting ready to leave. (If not, it was definitely in the last couple of days. I can still picture the epic size of the CD store… remember those days?)

Finally - FINALLY - I found the green CD case! Paris Lounge! I was so thrilled! Of course, I couldn’t listen to it until we got home but I finally had the song in my hands. I’ve loved it ever since. 

Have a listen. And be grateful that it came to you so easily!

Kissing on Spotify

Kissing on iTunes