"Our greatest power is the power to choose. We can decide where we are, what we do and what we think. No one can
take the power to choose away from us. It is ours alone. We
can do what we want to do. We can be who we want to be."
-- Author Unknown

When people listen to me relate stories of my childhood, most
often they ask, "How did you do it? How did you get to where you are now?"

My response to that is two-fold. First, I learned to trust my wise inner voice; second, I learned that I had a choice in how I felt, what I thought and what I believed.

Several memories come to me about how I did that. Having read more than 1000 books over the course of my healing journey, there were certain words that would jump off a page and "land" with me. I remember reading, "You have access to every thought that was ever thought since the beginning of time." Standing in the middle of a bookstore, I would (silently of course),ask questions and listen for answers to questions like:   "What makes people feel lovable? How have others overcome what I have had to experience? What do people believe who are happy, wealthy, loved and feel like they belong." I was so aware that I did not have the thoughts or feelings or beliefs to allow myself to feel loved, like I belonged, like there was hope and discovered that the more I took on the beliefs of others who were living lives I wanted to emulate, the more my life changed.

One day I was meditating and heard the words, "Pat, Joy is not achieved, Joy is not caused, Joy simply is...choose it." As someone who has walked a path through the metaphysical, spiritual traditions, bodywork and alternative ways of thinking and utilizing human capabilities (and someone who had been stuck in survival for so long that the pain just had to end), I read everything I could find on creating reality, using visualization and affirmations and have now truly landed in a place where I can consciously think "I choose unconditional happiness today" and that is my experience and my choice -- and being pulled from that state of being is like being hit with a two-by-four. Joy has become a state of being for me I can
now invoke.

I discovered books and tapes and workshops that taught me of the power to "invoke" a feeling, an essence, a person to speak with in my imagination, a vision of possibility of the future and then allow myself to imagine that it was happening to me.  I was amazed and I lived in awe of how my body was capable of taking on feelings of joy and peace and celebration and excitement that it had not experienced in this lifetime, not because joyful and happy and wonderful things were happening outside or around me, but because they were there for me -- untapped -- within me.  I learned that once I could focus on and learn to “hold" a feeling, then I could invoke it again and again.

I learned to stop responding to life and start creating my experiences from within. I learned that I could choose my reactions and my feelings no matter what others around me were thinking or believing or reacting to. In "my world," life could remain trusting and serene and peaceful and hopeful. I learned to stop taking things personally and to allow others their own experience even if it was quite different from my own.

For 45 years, I had lived with core beliefs that told me I did not belong, that I was not welcome in this world, that I was inherently bad and wrong, that I didn't deserve love, that my behaviors were punishable -- and it took years of feedback from others to help me see myself as someone who was courageous and brave and faithful and trusting. I had to re-create myself based upon who I wanted to be; to learn to see myself as someone worthy of her own love and appreciation; to give up the overwhelming sense of responsibility I felt for what happened to me as a child.  I had to choose to forgive and then let go and move on. I had use my mind to imagine a future for myself that I wanted to experience.  That way, my choices each day felt like they were taking me somewhere I would eventually choose to be.

The Toltecs call it the transition from the dream of the first attention to the dream of the second attention. Spiritual traditions call it coming home to the Self. A spiritual mentor called it the integration and dance of Spirit and Personality choosing wholeness.

I have come to believe that people stay stuck in old ways of being because taking responsibility for who they are and who they want to become means giving up blaming others and giving up being a victim. I chose NOT to be a just a survivor. I chose to thrive. I had to befriend my anger and despair and disappointment and all that never was and stand for a while in a place called Nothingness where the past no longer exists and the future is but a dream. And I learned that if I choose that place on a daily basis, miracles happen. I had to choose to give up control. To give up "making things work." By giving up "making others happy" and giving up settling for less than I desired, a Joy within me seemed to bubble up for no reason at all just when it felt like my whole world was crashing in on me.

I chose ME and I taught myself how to feel joy and peace and abundance even when I was broke and still not in a loving, committed relationship. I learned to choose to believe I belonged even without a family as society defined it. I chose to trust people. I chose to believe there were people with whom I was safe. I took risks that few women are willing to take. I taught myself that I am the cause of my life and never gave up.

A spiritual reader at Esalen in Big Sur told me in 2000, "You are afraid you lost your childhood. You didn't lose it. You saved it -- and now you get to have it. You are like a vessel untouched by love, and for the next two years you need to start filling yourself up one teaspoon at a time, then a tablespoon, until you are filled with your own love. You need to start seeing and feeling the love that is there for you with people in your life that are not your family. It is all there for you but you can't see it or feel it. You have to teach yourself to feel loved and worthy. Only then will true love find you and will you feel what you have never felt."

I did it. I taught myself that I am good and bad, right and wrong, innocent and wise, knowing and stupid sometimes. I taught myself that I can love myself and expect to be loved without being "perfect," without having all the answers, without always being as giving as others may want. I stopped betraying myself and started living from my heart. I learned to stop listening to those voices in my head which so want to keep me stuck. I learned to be different...to be uniquely me. And, I am now learning to create life experiences that allow me to be with people who will accept and honor and love me...all of me.

Since this article was written in 2002, in the Edge News,Pat was featured in an article in Self Magazine, and has completed certification as a Therapeutic Coach with a master certification in NLP, hypnosis and various therapies.  In May 2006 she will become a certified trainer of Louise Hay’s Heal Your Life workshops. She is living her dream to create a full-time career coaching, healing and leading workshops on transformational issues. You can contact Pat at pat@accesspossibility.com ©Copyright 2002 Patricia Beck