You have the power!

It’s no secret that past experiences shape who we are in the present. The person you see in the mirror is the sum total of everything you have experienced up until that precise moment.  Good or bad, happy or sad it all adds up to a hard-fired, hardwired human machine that is being constantly modified by life and intention.

Just how each and every life experience influences the shape into which you find yourself molded is entirely of your own choosing. You are just as capable of being broken as you are of growing immeasurably stronger as a result of the exact same event, depending on your choice of outlook and attitude. You can use it or allow it to use and abuse you.

The fact is that we are all operating under a status quo of free will (unless we have chosen to do something for which we must pay a consequence involving the surrender of our freedoms) and as such have the ability to determine our path in life. Each of life’s moments is comprised of a choice, and every thought, word and deed is the result of those choices.

Going left when in hindsight we may have been better advised to go right brings about a series of consequences, varying in size and effect. Another choice is made on the backside of that decision; that of how best to act as a result of those consequences. Do we ponder our misstep and curse the fates, allowing our joy to be washed away by bitterness and resentment? Do we chalk it up to life experience and glean every bit of knowledge and wisdom from our mistake that we can and leave it in the past?  I can tell you what might be the most ideal decision, but only you can decide which you will make.

For many of us, we understand this freedom of self-determination to be both the greatest gift and the biggest responsibility given us by our Higher Power. Others who may not readily subscribe to the belief in a Higher Power will still acknowledge the power and freedom of choice in our lives. You see, no addict on the road to healthy recovery will place the blame solely at the feet of the disease of addiction. Recognition of the choices we made and the subsequent consequences, reaction and possible additional consequences for the reaction are a large part of the moral, mental and spiritual house cleaning we must all undergo. We have to throw out the old junk and the old mentality and choose to forge a new way of thinking and a new way of living.

By turning the power of choice toward our past, we can reconcile with it and bring the books back square. We can change our perception of an event from that of earth-shattering destruction to an idea of mind-opening personal growth. From here on out, you have to decide: Will it break you or help make you who you were born to become?