It’s estimated that people make 35,000 decision a day. The majority of you reading this blog post are likely to not recall the last 10 decisions you made in the last 2 minutes. That’s because most of them are done unconscious, thank God.
You picked up your phone, opened one out four social media postings, you skipped three, you ignored an alert that pop up and open this posting. These are ten decisions in about 60 seconds. The brain has sat that in motion with our habits.
But how about the big decisions that we need to make which may take us to a whole new direction? How do you know if our actions are being led by fear or prudence?
First, let’s understand what fear is. Fear is a feeling induced by perceived danger or threat that we anticipate. It’s a safety mechanism. It’s the emotion that stops a little child from put the hand in the candle flame the second time or an adult from jump off a cliff.
Prudence is the ability to use reason, sound judgment, and exercise caution when facing possible danger or risk. It’s a skill, but some people are more natural at it than others.
When faced with a big decision, some people will use their emotions while others will use their logic.
Simply put, the people governed by reason will resort to making a list of pros and cons (even if in their heads) when making a decision. People who are guided by emotion will look at the emotional impact of the decision on the people.
Carl Jung spent years working on his Theory of Personality Types and how people prefer to make decisions. One way of making decisions is not better than the other. They are only people’s preferences. Both styles can be led by fear or excessive prudence. But there is one differentiator, this is when we make decisions with the heart.
The main issue with fear-based decisions is that it will keep us paralyzed. Our brains will do everything to keep us safe. Excessive caution will slow down our efforts and derail our creativity that can create magic in our world.
Anyone can be at any level of logical or emotional decision making and be off-center. If you don’t know which direction to take, remember that your heart is the compass. The heart knows our true intentions and is aware of everything. When we align with the power of love, we can’t go wrong.
How To Make Heart Center Decisions?
To make heart center decisions, we only need to:
One – Take three deep breaths,
Two – Close our eyes,
Three – Focus our attention on the heart center while asking for the answer,
Four – And Listen
In moments you will have a sense of knowing. You don’t know why, but you do. Some people see pictures in their heads, and a few will hear it, not out loud, but similar to the experience when you count in your head. The message is coming from you but with divine wisdom.
It seems simple, but it works. Once two of my nieces came for a visit. On the day their parents were to pick them up, my daughters asked them to stay one more day. Amanda wanted to stay, and Natalie was flipping flopping between staying and going home. I could see in her eyes that she was struggling by the pressure the other three were putting on her.
I sat the four girls on the table, I asked Natalie to close her eyes, take deep breaths, focus on her heart, and place her four fingers of her right hand on her throat.
Then I asked if she wanted to stay or go, and she said with authority that she wanted to go home. The other three girls respected her decision. Placing the hand on the throat helps us assert our desires.
Often we are influenced by what we think people want from us. By focusing on our hearts and connecting with our power of compassion, in this case, self-compassion, we can make decisions that are right for us effortlessly.
You will not change your default style of making decisions, specially when it’s really important to you or you are stressed. But it would be wise for you to check in with yourself and infuse your decisions with a the best kind of wisdom, your own.
