Any time you are faced with a decision, your inner male (intellect) and female (intuition or emotions) are not in harmony.  Heal the inner war, and the choice will become obvious.

A powerful time to practice letting go of your beliefs is when you are faced with a decision.  A decision means that you have one or more choices before you; and none of those choices appear perfect.  If one of the choices were perfect, you would not have to make a decision.

The True Self

Within everyone is a true Self.  People also refer to this as their divine or authentic self, Christ consciousness, God self, Great Spirit, or any number of titles.  This true Self has the big picture of your life.  It knows what is right for you in every moment.  It is the keeper of your destiny and your heart’s desires.  It knows only joy, freedom, oneness, abundance, unconditional love, truth, and wisdom.  It has no opposition.  All opposition happens at the level of the false self.

Since your true Self has unlimited vision, it could not possibly need to make a decision.  Therefore, if you are faced with a decision, or problem, the false self is running the show.  If you return to your true Self, the problem, opponent, or decision will magically resolve itself.

The False Self and Duality

The false self lives in a world that is not real.  Its world is pure illusion.  In the false world, everything is split into opposing pairs, i.e., good and evil, courage and fear, war and tolerance, or wellness and disease.  With each pair of opposites, one side is judged as right and good; the opposite is bad.  The illusion is created when the mind identifies with only one half of the pair of opposites.  The other half gets projected on to someone else who fits the bill.  The desire to return to unity brings us face-to-face with our projection.

Duality is normal in our world, and it is an essential component of creation.  You could not see these black letters without the white page behind it.  But in the true world, we accept responsibility for both halves of the creation.  So, we remain whole.

A thought must pass both of these tests to be true.

If it fails either test, it is a belief.

First, it must be win-win for everyone involved.

Second, it must feel good (calm, peaceful, void of emotion).

Discrimination is that simple.  And yet, the application can be difficult because we were trained to believe that something can feel bad and still be true.  We were taught that we couldn’t let go of our beliefs.  And we were taught that win-lose or competition is a normal fact of life.

So when you listen to the news and the President says there is an economic crisis, do you say? “That doesn’t feel good; he is lying.”  If the doctor says you have a disease, do you laugh at him and say? “You silly liar.”  We hear beliefs all day long; most of the time, we don’t discriminate.  We ignore the emotion that accompanies false remarks.  We don’t check to see if others are operating from win-win, especially if they are in a position of authority.

Back to Decision Making

Making a decision is difficult when we operate from the false world.  If we listen to our beliefs (which came from others early in life), we will alter the course of our life to suit them.  We will miss out on the great adventure that our true Self expected and planned.

Let me give you a real example.  Recently, I met an older man during one of my cruise ship gigs.  He was confined to a wheel chair and had many physical problems.  I got him talking about his passion, which was flying.  He went on and on about planes, flying, and air currents.  Even though I could not care less about flying, I was gripping his every word.

Of course, I had to ask him, “When was the last time you flew?”

He responded, “When I was twenty.”

“Twenty, twenty? What the?”  He was at least eighty or looked to be that old.

So I asked him, “Why did you quit?”  I held back my strong desire to punch him.

He responded with pride, “It made my mother nervous.  She asked me to quit.”  He was quiet for a moment and then added, “I made the right choice.  I made her very happy.”  It was clear to me that his false self’s pride and martyrdom made that decision.  And his true flying Self was now confined to an earth-bound wheel chair.

He chose to be good, to please mom, instead of choosing to be true.  Sixty some years later, I felt emotions well up in me as he spoke his decision.  But he ignored the voice of emotion and did what felt bad.  He followed his intellect and made mom happy.

Now he could argue that it was not win-win for him to continue to fly.  After all, his mother would have been scared.  It appeared that someone had to lose.  His clever mind turned his lose into a win by saying that he was good and loving to give up his dream for his mom.  To him it looked win-win.  But win-win would have been for his mother to let go of her fear and for him to fly.  Real win-win brings both people back to truth; it fulfills our heart’s desires.

But let’s not blame mom.  For her to let go, he had to trust that she could let go of her fear.  He had to let go of pleasing her for love.  He had to let go of his fear of flying.  It is likely that she felt the fear he was ignoring.

The man appeared to have a win-lose decision whereby he could not make both himself and his mother happy.  Given this situation, some people will choose to win; others will choose to lose so they can avoid guilt.  But the truth is that there is no win-lose.  There is only lose-lose or win-win.  This man chose lose-lose.  He didn’t believe enough in his mother to challenge her ability to let go.  He saw her as fragile and fearful; he condemned her to that state of mind for life.  The mother and son roles were defined by their beliefs; and neither was willing to force a change.

As you can probably see this is not just a Sunday afternoon job. We have been observing others since we were babies.  People have taught us their beliefs; and put “Do Not Enter” stickers on top of them.  We come to accept their worldview as real, true, and unchangeable.  Our intertwining roles keep us in prison.

How Do We Undo This Mess?

1. First, we must accept that both roles are within our own mind.  This is the key.  The man had fear of flying within him that he was ignoring and projecting on to his mother.  The mother probably had the belief that to worry about someone is love.  The man didn’t have to change his mother.  He needed to change his mind so the two roles could no longer magnetically attract.
2. Next, we look for all the win-lose thoughts or beliefs within the exchange.  That would include the beliefs that he has about his mother, himself, and flying.  We notice which beliefs don’t feel good, and we let them go as untrue.
3. We continue this process until all beliefs are gone and what remains is pure truth.  The decision will also be gone, and the answer will be obvious.

Using our mind in this way has unlimited potential.  It literally has the power to return earth to heaven.  It can solve all of life’s problems since it puts the power in the true Self.

The true Self never sees a problem or decision because it sees only the proper path.  It will never harm another.  However, it can make people very uncomfortable.  The true Self pushes us to let go because it knows the power and potential that lies beneath our beliefs.  It puts us against our perceived opposition so that we will free ourselves.  Our problems, opposition, and decisions are nothing more than a chance to see what blocks our path, an opportunity to return to wholeness.