The Gift of Choice

“Julie, you are SO negative!”

Suddenly, when my friend Juan said that, I realized that I had the CHOICE to change my attitude… that I had that sweet power just clicked into my brain! Regardless of circumstances, I could think different thoughts.

At rock bottom a year earlier, at age 30 in the worst physical pain of my life, my knees hurt, my left hip hurt. My neck demanded constant emergency visits with the chiropractor. Migraines stole days of my life. And exhaustion controlled me.

A succession of new pain points and severe fatigue defined my twenties. TERRIFIED of old age as much pain as I was already in, it started with quitting competitive sports, my lifeblood, as one body part after another betrayed me. In anguish, now about to finish graduate training, what if ten-years preparing for a public health career in Africa were for naught? I DEFINITELY was in no shape for that now.

At wit’s end, contemplating suicide, Juan cooked me macrobiotics for 10 days, a self-healing diet with grains and vegetables … and I changed.

Psychologically — anxiety evaporated. Mentally — overwhelm and distraction shifted to laser focus. Energy-wise — fatigue nosedived. My supervisor promptly asked what happened, what my secret was! The rheumatologist told me to keep doing whatever I was doing. I even spontaneously reconciled with my estranged father three months later! With this 180, I finally had a path forward!

But now I needed a mental diet, one to police negative thoughts, because Juan was right. I needed attitude rehab. — a change in the system within me that gave facts unnecessary power — new laws that I would enforce by catching and arresting negative thoughts. Nope, you don’t have to accept what you think. In fact, you have the right AND responsibility to change it when impulses don’t serve you. My new goal — achieving emotional freedom.

Chronic pain can turn you sour. It produces a cacophony of negative internal voices talking about pain, fear, and emotions connected to loss. Juan’s remark, about a year after starting macrobiotics, is the day I decided to change which thoughts I’d allow to inhabit my mind, and thus create new emotions, in spite of reality.

I replaced being mad about how health interrupted dreams and desires and laser-focused on moving forward. That means aligning your thought patterns, belief system, emotions and actions with your goals, consistently. It requires looking forward, not backward. Overcoming adversity by always looking ahead.

And the road forward was bumpy. Feeling tremendously better physically and psychologically, I was bombarded with negativity about my macrobiotic practice. Hot under the collar, insulted that I “rejected” their food, people attacked me. They didn’t hear my side of the story, and unlike my supervisor and the doctor, seemed to overlook my improved demeanor.

And training myself to see the glass half full was harder than changing my diet. I’d started a form of mind control with positive affirmations a few years earlier, and picked up the pace after Juan’s comment.

I learned to police my thoughts, replacing negative ones with positive ones, since negative thoughts never disappear. I updated dreams to fit with the present moment. This new skill really helped when bowing out of working in Africa, and in spite of lingering physical pain, and emotional pain around losing athletics.

It was hard to focus on the positive while grieving the losses, and while still living in a delicate body cramping my style. Because joint pain never completely resolved, and energy and maintaining my immune system takes a lot of cooking in isolation to keep in check.

And so my journey continues. I still have mindset issues. In my twenties, with no other options, I learned to settle. And now, it’s just easier to let up on effort and accept being “just okay.”

But the best thing I learned out of my struggle is that grace exists. And to see challenge in a different light — that adversity is actually our greatest asset. It is our common human dilemma — forcing us to grow … or to spiral downward. And with growth, understanding and compassion are available, creating empathy, connection and meaning.

I learned that life is 1,000 joys and 1,000 sorrows, that sorrows are gifts cloaked in mystery, and that they exist to define and catapult us to joy.

I understand that life gives us lessons. And the more we tackle these lessons, the more visible and available our purpose becomes, where meaning and joy lie — that which makes us complete.

I learned that in life there are no mistakes, only choices that reveal more truth. And that only by taking action will next steps forward be revealed, and only few at a time — that things aren’t meant to be known before their time, that you can’t push the river.

And now I know to make decisions based on choice versus circumstance, and that our only trap is our mind.