The Power of Choice and Imagination

Last month I completed the closure of my retreat space, a space my clients and I loved for 16 years. I brought many of the inspirational art pieces home with me and find them not only comforting but quieting!

The one that is now in front of me in my home office is so simple, yet so powerful. It says, “We tend to seek happiness when happiness is actually a choice.”

So many of my clients would scoff at that idea when they first came to my center. As we worked together, the insight that we only experience our thinking began to give them access to this powerful notion of choice. This is not the wishful-thinking kind of “change my circumstances” choice, though circumstances do often change when we try choosing. What we are choosing, though, is what we THINK.

The Power of Choice Begins with Noticing Our Thinking

This begins with noticing what we are thinking. Many of us were not taught that we only experience what we think. That our thinking is not caused by our circumstances. (It sure looks like it though!) What we are actually experiencing is the thought we have about a circumstance AFTER the circumstance happens. This explains why sometimes in an emergency we don’t experience an injury until much later.

Or how, during World War II, American physician Henry Beecher ran out of morphine and substituted it with a simple saline solution while continuing to tell wounded soldiers it was the real painkiller. To his profound surprise, 40% of the soldiers reported that the saline successfully eased their pain, marking one of the earliest demonstrations of the power of thinking—and the placebo effect.

Choosing a Different Experience

As we practice noticing our thinking, we have a moment of choice. We might notice thinking like, “I am so blanking tired of being in recovery.” In that moment, there is a choice. If we notice how we feel while having that thought, we can try out others. For example, “I also notice that when I do my exercise, I feel so much better.” Or, “Thank goodness I am recovering.” Both of those thoughts come with a different experience attached.

This is not about affirmations. Trying to change our circumstances for specific ones we prefer just doesn’t seem to work. (Concentrating on fully healing without the work being done will only frustrate us, not heal us. But affirming our ability to heal, however that might look, can make a big difference.)

My husband reminded me of the power of choice this morning. He remembered when we were in the first years of our marriage and did not understand this power of thought. He was (and is) a golf nut and would often come home from playing a round in a frustrated state of mind. As he recalls, I one day said to him, “Tim, your job from now on is to come home happy from playing golf. If you can’t find a way to be happy, don’t come home until you do.”

As I recall, I was mystified that he loved the game and yet was almost always unhappy afterward! That must have caused a profound insight for him. He shifted to enjoying the game and even tells that story to other golfers! That is the power of choice.

One final quote my sister shared with me last week is also worth considering:

“Worrying is the worst way to use your imagination.”

Try this for yourself. And don’t start with your most frustrating circumstances. Build a little muscle in other areas first, then graduate to golf!

If you liked this article, you may also enjoy The Shifting Nature of Moods.