There's No Mistakes in Life!

Have you ever looked back on your life and wished you'd gone in a totally different direction at some particular point? Maybe you made a decision to take a job in a certain location rather than another location. Or maybe you chose to ignore the urge to follow a totally different career path and now years later you have this nagging feeling that maybe you should have followed your instinct on that other career pathway. Maybe you've spent quite a bit of time beating yourself up over that perceived 'mistake' and felt quite burdened by your choices and the subsequent outcomes you've reaped from them.

This is something I've wrestled with for years, having made a decision not to follow a certain career path that I was strongly drawn to at the age of 21. At the time the career I was considering was way 'outside the box' for my family's expectations. When I thought about following this path, very quickly the family voice would kick in telling me "you'll never make a living out of that", "there's no way that you could make decent money working in that career" and so on. Needless to say I didn't follow the path I was drawn to and instead stayed in the job that would safely provide a regular and predictable income. It was not that I didn't enjoy my work. The problem for me was battling with my family programming which ultimately drowned out my inner promptings. Over the years I had held a silent grudge towards my parents for my perceived pressure to 'stay in the box.'

Recently I decided to do The Work on this judgment I was carrying about my 'mistaken' choice. The Work is a process of questioning the truth of your thoughts about life and requires that you turn around your thought to the self, to the other, and to the opposite. You also need to ask whether the belief you're holding is true - can you absolutely know that it's true?

So, if you had a belief something like "I failed to follow my true intuitive guidance for my life," you would turn the statement around to "I chose not to follow my true intuitive guidance for my life" and you would then find 3 ways that this was true.

Then you would turn the statement around to something like "I don't let others follow their inner guidance." Once again you need to find 3 examples of how this is true. This is an important step if you're holding a grudge against someone regarding this belief you're holding. When you can see how you do the very same thing to others, you'll realize why someone may have done this to you. You gain empathy and understanding of the other through this question.

Finally you would turn the original statement around to the opposite. So, for this statement I was working on, it would turn around to "I have always followed my true intuitive guidance for my life."
Again, you would find 3 examples of how this turnaround is true.

This questioning of your thoughts is a very powerful process which will bring you many deep insights and 'aha' moments that will liberate you from your previous painful memory of the event. Another very dynamic part of this Work process is to ask yourself "Who would I be without this thought?" For me, this was the part which delivered the greatest awareness and release from the tyranny of my previous judgments about this turning point in my life at age 21.

It's good to close your eyes when posing this question of yourself "Who would I be without this thought?" You need to observe and contemplate who or what you are without the thought. For me, the light bulb moment came when I felt this very deep connection inwardly with this place of infinite wisdom which I realized had always been directing my life. Beyond all the childhood programming, this powerful presence had orchestrated my life experiences perfectly for a greater life plan. I realized that the career path I had chosen perfectly balanced this other aspect of my life which I'd thought had been lost through my decision at age 21.

If you think there have been any 'mistaken' life choices you've made, think again! Run your judgement of this life choice through the questioning process above and you'll likely find that in behind it all there has been an inner wisdom guiding you to a full and balanced life view.

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