One of the cornerstones of mindful living is living a life where we make conscious choices and then take responsibility for the choices we have made. The opposite of this is a type of existence where we let life happen to us and experience our life circumstances as inevitable. Often this kind of living leads to feeling trapped in some way.

Learning to open up to the possibility that we have choices when it comes to the big picture circumstances of our life (like our relationships, work, health, etc.) can be a lifelong process and often becomes an important theme in therapy (of note – when I say that we have choices I do not mean that we have ALL the choice. No one chose to be born into poverty or with an illness and they cannot choose to be born again richer or healthier).

But what about what seemingly is the minutia of our lives? What about the myriad daily tasks we perform, the small promises we make, the emails we send, the tiny insidious turns of phrase that roll off our tongue multiple times a day? I have been reflecting on the fact that we often don’t treat these small occurrences as real actions, and therefore often do not treat them as worthy of mindful consideration. However, I have come to reflect that these small habits, despite, and maybe even because, they are so small and so easily able to fly under the radar, have the power to train our brains to turn in a certain direction – to view the world through a certain lens. In particular, I have been reflecting on how our mundane choice posses the power to turn us toward, or away from, a stance of active choosing in our lives.

All of this sounds a bit abstract, so let me illustrate:

Let’s use the example of a simple email. Suppose you have been asked to join some optional activity at work and you are crafting a reply to indicate that you will not be attending. Now think of the first opening phrase that pops in your mind. For many people, the go-to opening sentence would sound something like this:

“Thank you very much for your invitation. I would love to attend your event, but unfortunately I am unable to attend….”

This is a great way to reply to an email – if it were true. However, hidden in this sentence is a message that you have NO CHOICE but to skip the event, that you are SORRY about that, and that if you COULD attend, you certainly WOULD. In other words, that you are a victim of circumstances that are keeping you from what you want to do. However, what if the actual truth, if you allowed yourself a moment of honest reflection, is that you have no interest in that event, that you would rather not take time to attend it, and that if you really wanted to be there you would have been able to swing it – you simply are choosing not to.

Now, one might ask, “So what? What would be the harm in writing a polite email and making someone else feel good? It’s only a small, innocuous white lie – everybody does it!”

That may be true. But I have been reflecting that the danger of getting used to communicating like this is that the first one to get this message is our own brain. The person getting the email will soon forget all about it, but our own brain, through constant repetition, becomes imprinted with the idea that there is no such thing as WILL NOT – there is only CAN NOT.  Put simply – if you become subconsciously convinced that the only way to bow out of a lunch meeting is by having a massive headache, your body can certainly deliver one for you.

In my own life, I have been practicing using more honest and choice-based communications, that are still perfectly polite. For example:

• I cannot attend your event on Tuesday because of prior commitments (*note to reader: spending time with your partner is a perfectly legitimate prior commitment), but I hope that your event goes very well and that you have a wonderful time!

• It will be hard for me to meet you so early in the morning, but I have a lot of flexibility from 10am onward – is there any time that works well for you? (*Here I am resisting saying that I am really sorry that I cannot meet this person at 7am – I am not sorry at all about that. I am very happy in fact that I plan to be sleeping at that time)

Can you think of examples from your own life?

Other situations where this becomes relevant include:

• Telling your kids, for those who have them, that you CANNOT give them something they want because you are busy/not feeling well/angry at them when the truth is that you just want to read a book but are feeling guilty about that. Parents often feel that they need to find the justification for not doing something for their kids (the CAN’T), when maybe they could have said the truth – I can, but I don’t want to right now. This could have led to a productive conversation and taught the kid that they are allowed to take care of themselves too.

• Telling yourself that you didn’t clean/exercise/do laundry/reply to your friend’s email etc. because you just couldn’t, having been too unwell/stressed/busy etc. when the truth is that you COULD have done those things but chose not to because you just couldn’t be bothered. It might not feel nice to admit this to yourself, and in admitting this you do admit to a potential moment of less-than-exemplary behavior. However, in doing so you are also allowing yourself to live in the full glory of having had a choice and of having made a choice, and being free to make choices in the future. If you don’t like a choice you made, you can choose differently next time. If convince yourself that you were a victim of negative circumstances outside of your control there is less you can do about that.

First published here: https://www.mmcounselingcenter.com/mindful-living-blog/archives/10-2019

Copyright © 2023 Anna Braverman