Three Choices (article) by A.J. Mahari on AuthorsDen

From A.J. Mahari's Soul's Thought of the Day Collection of Inspiration and Motivation: Choice determines our experience. Often people think they have to choose this or that as if there are only two choices. In reality, psychologically, as we seek to heal, to grow, to mature, there are three choices.

So often you will think to yourself, or hear people say, "there are only two choices", pick one. Many limit themselves by thinking that there is a right choice and a wrong choice - or a head choice versus a heart choice. There are not just two choices. There are three choices. The third choice is the least chosen of them all.

The third choice is the choice that in its making is surrendering to a resigned-willingness that accepts the unanswerable nature of paradox. Paradox beckons us to live the questions rather than spend all of our time, chances, and choices in the quest of the answers unknown.

The third choice is the path of least resistance. It is the flow of life that urges you to just mindfully experience the unfolding moment. The third choice is the choice that is made when all else fails. When no other choice fits, works, or brings relief or what is desired. The third choice is not a rational choice. It is not an emotional choice. It is a primal choice.

The third choice is a primal choice that is choosing death - psychological death. It is an absolute necessity of sorts when it is arrived at. It is often not arrived at very consciously. It is the choice that most closely reflects to us the greatest amount of humility because it is the choice in which we surrender to our wholly discontent. The exact spot in the conundrum where one needs God or one's universal conscience to reach out and bathe one in the nurturing Grace of surrender. It is the crossroads at which previously held and adhered to power struggles and self-defeating choices, that had become habits, must give way to our growing need for authenticity. The third choice is the choice of psychological death - a death that holds out the promise of finally learning to live.

This phoenix, this third choice of psychological death, is the harbinger of the phoenix seeking to rise in you. It is the sacred space within which and from which your soul can and will truly begin to breathe and possibilities then, are suddenly everywhere.