Choices on the Spiritual Path – Choosing Love & Light

The path to spiritual growth is full of choices. Little choices I make every day that add up to greater and greater levels of understanding and enlightenment. The choices I make are where my spirituality hits the road, so speak. It’s where I put my spirituality into action.

I pray every day to be the will of God in action and to see everything through God’s higher truth and perspective. God is love and light. God and I are one. God/love/light are me. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s a boatload of human stuff …cultural conditioning, history, memory, past programming, perceptions, and karma …. dimming my God-given light.

My daily focus then is to become aware of and to release the all barriers to the love and light within me. One of the ways I do this is to be hyperaware of my internal reactions to people and situations, and to notice whether I’m reacting in love or fear. A Course in Miracles says there are only two emotions – love and fear. One is of God, the other is not. It also says that everything we see is either “love or a cry for love.” My intent then is to notice how I’m responding and to be sure I’m choosing love. How does this look in every day life?

Last Friday, I received an email from my ex-husband saying that his employer was changing insurance coverage and that he was therefore no longer responsible for my health insurance. My immediate reaction? Fear. A cold edgy feeling that washed through my body. Worrisome thoughts quickly followed, “This can’t be right.” “He’s trying to get out of this.” “How am I going to afford this?” And, then I caught myself. This is not how I want to respond. It’s the way I spent most of my life responding, but not anymore.

I stopped myself and instead affirmed,“I now choose love and I choose light. I don’t care what I see in my physical “reality” before me – I choose and proclaim that this is resolved for my highest and best good and the highest and best good of all concerned.” I then spent a moment envisioning the situation – the change in health insurance coverage, my ex-husband, the email, everything up to this point and all the actions that would follow – I envisioned them all being flooded with God’s love and light.

By just doing this small exercise, I felt a shift. On one level, the human level, the shift was small. On a spiritual level, the shift felt pretty big. Yeah me. The old me would have a fired off an email contesting the situation (before having all the facts) or just accepted it point blank (before having all the facts), often to my detriment. This time the new/present me did nothing. Instead I prayed, “Holy Spirit please guide everything I think, say and do so that I may realize the highest good from this situation for all concerned.”

Over the weekend, I reviewed our divorce decree. The language raised questions and I was inspired to contact an attorney to confirm to clarify and confirm the details. The attorney confirmed that due to the change in insurance my ex was no longer responsible for my health insurance. In response I felt a strange combination of both peace (knowing for sure) and deflated (now what to do). So, I once again affirmed that, “This is being resolved for my highest and best good.”

Prior to the divorce, my ex and I lived in New Hampshire, therefore our insurance was a New England plan. After the divorce I moved to Sedona and had to fly back to New Hampshire once a year in order to receive my annual checkups. I worked this into visits family and friends but it was a scheduling challenge and not exactly convenient. The situation was now unfolding to be an opportunity to enroll in an Arizona based plan. Yes, fear still occasionally bubbled up regarding choosing the right plan and the cost of the plan. I just kept affirming, “I choose love & light. This is resolving for my highest good” as I researched and reviewed insurance agent and insurance plans. I also kept choosing and affirming that as this is for my highest good then I’d have the income to pay for it as well. I didn’t force myself to feel good as I stated the affirmation or to look on the bright side. I just focused on love and light, anything else was non-negotiable so I didn’t think about it.

In retrospect, moving through this experience was a lot less bumpy than it would have been as the “old” me, in which I resisted, argued or forced my way through things. In fact, by choosing love and light (instead of fear), the situation unfolded with much grace and ease. Phew what a difference!

For me, this recent experience is another affirmation that I’m constantly creating my future reality and vibration with all the little choices that I make along the way. As I purposely choose God’s love and light, for big things and small, I’m creating a life infused with more Spirit, grace and peace.

Choosing Our Response in a Nutshell

When a situation arises that causes a reaction in me, I pay attention. I notice, “I’m I feeling good (love) or fear (anger, worry, frustration, etc.)? If it’s the later, I let fear move through me and thank it for trying to protect me. I let it know that I’m making a different choice now. I choose love. More specifically, I choose to see the situation through God’s higher truth and perspective. I claim everything about this experience will resolve for my highest good and the highest good of all concerned.

The Steps to Choosing Love & Light

1. I notice what I’m feeling. What’s my primary feeling? Am I feeling anything else? Give all the feelings a name.
2. I allow myself a few minutes to fully feel the feelings (fear, anger, worry, blame, etc.). Where do I feel the feelings in my body? I notice them and allow them to move through me. Resisting it or stuffing it down will only cause it to resurface later. Allowing our feelings to move through us allows them to fully be released.
3. Fear is not my enemy. I thank the fear for trying to protect me.
4. I now make a different choice. I choose love & light, and affirm, “I choose and proclaim that this is resolved for my highest and best good and the highest and best good of all concerned.”
5. I envision the situation filled with God’s love & light
6. I give thanks that it is done and affirm, “Thank you and so it is.”