[elliemay]

I ran across a quote, I'm sorry I can't remember the exact wording. In effect, it said that everything in our lives now is a choice. If we want a different outcome, make a different choice.

I must admit, I largely agree with this statement, especially the "now" part as I acknowledge that when I was a child my choices were markedly limited.

However, even as an adult, it's hard to remember to recognize the choices that can be in play. Sometimes those choices are radical and require a lot of courage, but they do fall under my control. I steer this ship.

On the other hand, I think, wow! choice shifts the responsibility of my situation 100% back to me. If it's my choice, then it's my fault. There has to be some accountability for and from others.

What do you think? Empowering or blaming? Is the key being able to forgive the choices you make, learn from them, and make better ones in the future?

[Bill3]

If it's my choice, then it's my fault.

Why necessarily fault? What if you said If it's my choice, then it's my credit?

[lostwonder]

Empowering, we do have choices as adults. It took me some time to learn this. As a child I was victimized, I do not have to submit to anyone anymore. I choose to submit at times to my husband, professors, therapist, and even clients. I do however have a choice and do not have to submit if it would make me a victim. I fully reconize I am coming from a place of privilege in saying this, as a upper middle class white female, but I have a decision in what I do for work, who I spend my time with, what I study, and where I live.

[venusss]

Empowering.

Everybody makes bad choices. Or choices that don't turn out well because you don't know better at that moment. But that does not make you a bad person or a loser. It just makes you somebody who made a mistake... from which one can learn and grow.

As a human being with all the complexities that entails. I don't dwell on choices to much. I tend to just deal with whatever comes to me, be my 'fault' or not. I mean, our unconscious plays a part in our everyday lives. Sometimes choices are not free choices.. Just live the life thst happens in any given moment

[HazelGirl]

I think we have things inside us that hold us back. And those things aren't our fault (like past abuse), but not working to correct those things are our fault. For example, you may not be able to stand up to someone because you were harmed as a child for asserting yourself. Your choices as an adult are now limited through no fault of your own. But it's your responsibility to work towards reclaiming those choices. That's part of what therapy is about. I am hoping that makes sense.

I recently had a similar realization and found it very empowering. I'm still working on acting on said empowerment, but I felt it - that was the first step I guess!!

[anilam]

I do have to disagree- not everything in life IS our choice- now or ever. The hard part (at least for me) is that they are several things happening to us that we have no (or only very limited) control over.

[venusss]

Originally Posted by anilam

I do have to disagree- not everything in life IS our choice- now or ever. The hard part (at least for me) is that they are several things happening to us that we have no (or only very limited) control over.

but one almost always has a choice about how to deal with it.

[elliemay]

Originally Posted by venusss

but one almost always has a choice about how to deal with it.

I think this is important - actively looking for the choices that we CAN make.

[JustShakey]

Sometimes the right choice is really hard to make. Sometimes it's hard to know if it *is* the right choice. Sometimes the right choice seems like a terrible decision. I don't blame anyone for taking the easier path at times.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[justdesserts]

We have choices, but we can't control the consequences of the choices. Even if I make the best choices possible given my current circumstances, there are still things that are outside of my control that will impact my life in ways I don't choose.

[SnakeCharmer]

EllieMay, you're talking my talk here. I find the idea exceptionally empowering. I've been practicing this type of therapy in my own life for around five years, along with REBT.

The idea that everything in our lives is a choice and the choices are taking place right now is from Dr. William Glasser's Choice Theory. Dr. Glasser was an M.D. psychiatrist. He also created Reality Therapy.

Choice Theory says the only person we can control is ourselves. Other people do make bad choices and, as Venuss said, the choice we have is how we deal with what those other people do, which may, indeed, be harmful, destructive or wrong.

Choice theory says that all long-lasting problems are relationship problems. It also says -- and this was hard for me to take in -- the problem relationship is always part of our current life. When I studied Choice Theory, I realized we carry problematical relationships from the past around with us in the present, even if we haven't been in the problematical relationship for years.

Choice Theory says that what happened in the past has everything to do with what we are today, but we can only satisfy our needs right now and plan on continue satisfying them into the future.

I use Choice Theory in my own daily life, often stumbling and falling back into old ways, but pulling myself back up again and going forward. By using Choice Theory, I was able to heal the most problematical relationships in my life and start feeling a lot better.

Dr. Glasser recently passed away. He developed Choice Theory in the late 1990's and dedicated the rest of his life promoting it. I don't know if he trained enough therapists for it to continue on and grow, but I know I'll keep using it in my own life, going back to the books to refresh myself when I begin to lapse into old ways. Obviously, I find it empowering. Finding fault and blaming is considered one of the Seven Deadly Habits that destroy relationships and happiness. If we make a bad choice, one that doesn't work out, Choice theory encourages us to accept it and learn from it.

And, yes, it does recognize that people often make many bad choices before they figure out how to make better, more life-enhancing choices on a regular basis. Choice Theory therapy is exceptionally non-punitive.

I wrote Dr. Glasser several times, asking him questions. He always responded helpfully.

Here's some info and a link to his website.

In practice, the most important need is love and belonging, as closeness and connectedness with the people we care about is a requisite for satisfying all of the needs.

Choice theory, with the Seven Caring Habits, replaces external control psychology and the Seven Deadly Habits.

External control, the present psychology of almost all people in the world, is destructive to relationships. When used, it will destroy the ability of one or both to find satisfaction in that relationship and will result in a disconnection from each other.

Being disconnected is the source of almost all human problems such as what is called mental illness, drug addiction, violence, crime, school failure, spousal abuse, to mention a few.

Choice Theory - William Glasser Institute

[Lauliza]

Originally Posted by elliemay

On the other hand, I think, wow! choice shifts the responsibility of my situation 100% back to me. If it's my choice, then it's my fault. There has to be some accountability for and from others.

What do you think? Empowering or blaming? Is the key being able to forgive the choices you make, learn from them, and make better ones in the future?

There are many instances where the concept of choice is not applicable - your childhood experiences, random events- things that happen to us, etc.

So the point of this this philosophy isn't to blame victims at all. It acknowledges that bad things happen that are out of our control. But where people do have control is how they choose to live their lives in spite of (or because of) the things that have happened. For many people this part can be empowering - taking control away from the events or people that may have hurt us and putting it into our own hands. I think it can be very freeing to not feel like a victim of circumstance. It also explains how different people can have such varied reactions to the stressful events - why some seem to be more resiliant than others. CBT is based on this concept, but unfortunately if the message is delivered the wrong way, it comes across as dismissive and simplistic instead of empowering.

[unaluna]

My problem has been, which voice in my head do i listen to? On the one hand, on the other hand, on the OTHER other hand...! Which decisions get support from the people around you, and what are THEIR motivations? Are they in your best interest, or in THEIR best interest? If you do what's in your best interest, you're killing your mother. Yeah, that's empowering. Thats not just me, that was in the nytimes recently, a new comedienne they are calling "Latina Fey" (is that great or what?) with a new tv show.

Anyway, just saying, choosing a new path is hard. Or maybe, choosing is easy - actually travelling it is hard. But it gets easier the further down the fork you go?

[Depletion]

I think that choice is a very empowering idea, and ideally I would want people to have as many choices as possible, but I think the idea that we grow up and suddenly have choices is a bit naive. Choice is limited by the material opportunities we have access to, and the social isms which prevent people from having access to those things.

For example, a person may wish to get help for their mental Illness, but they are poor, and the number of therapists that they can see is limited. Thus, they have a hard time finding someone who is a good fit, this results in the person getting subpar care and they aren't able to really heal as well as someone who can find the "perfect therapist," where money is no object. This person may also have to work multiple jobs, and may be exhausted whenever they go to therapy, and they can only come once in a while because of the cost. There is in this situation much less choice available to this person.

This kind of limitation also extends into other areas like sexism. After I was assaulted I gained some weight. My therapist theorizes that this because I have fears that my body was "too attractive," and caused my assault. She's not wrong, a lot was made of my body and appearance when I was assaulted, and I have felt uncomfortable in my body since then. But I want to lose weight. My weight exacerbates some current health problems that I have, and I generally feel unhappy at my current weight. But losing weight isn't as simple as making a choice. I have to realize that if I lose weight I might be subject to more street harassment, which I never get at my current weight, and general feelings of being hyper-sexualized. Because of this I wonder "is it safe to lose weight." Because I worry about my own safety in my choice to lose weight, I cannot really say that it is a free choice.

One thing that this kind of choice theory does get right is that people's choices are limited by the abuse they suffer while growing up, but what this theory fails to understand is that abuse is not confined to the bounds of the home. There are many kinds of social abuse which degrade a person's feeling of self worth, and which limit a person choices. Trying to find a way to make choices is probably a beneficial part of healing, but it's important to realize that choice is not a free and open concept for most people in the world.

[SnakeCharmer]

Hankster wrote:

Anyway, just saying, choosing a new path is hard. Or maybe, choosing is easy - actually travelling it is hard. But it gets easier the further down the fork you go?

It's not actually about choosing a single new path. It's about making many choices throughout the day to treat ourselves and other people in ways that don't keep repeating the abusive and disastrous scenarios that left us messed up and scarred in the first place.

For me, it did get easier with practice, but I still fall down on a regular basis. But I no longer berate myself for messing up. I spend that energy on cleaning up my part of the mess and working not to repeat it endlessly into the future because I learned to act that way in my abused past.

If anyone is interested in knowing more about Dr. Glasser's work, I recommend the book Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom

[vonmoxie]

I think it's a powerful but also an extremely double-edged sword, the amount of responsibility we ascribe to the existence of personal choice. Yes, belief in the power that individual choice wields can be quite empowering, but an over-arching belief that everything in our lives is chosen by us can be very poisonous, when we can end up with no option as a result except to feel unquestioning responsible for even dangerous and traumatic events that may occur and can certainly be entirely out of our control.

There's an example that Barbara Ehrenreich gave in this talk about her book Smile or Die, about an occasion when Rhonda Byrne, the author of The Secret (re: the Laws of Attraction) was asked about the Indonesian tsunami in 2006, and she had responded that the people living in that area must have been putting bad tsunami-like vibes out to the universe in order to have drawn that event upon themselves, because nothing happens to us that we haven't attracted into our world.

A horribly discompassionate example if ever I heard one, showing the faultiness of this kind of thinking (but also the lengths people will go to in order to maintain unfailing public commitment to their own personal cash cows). Having grown up in the 70s with all kinds of ridiculous "you chose your own parents"-level thinking around me, I have had to work quite laboriously to extract the fallacy of such unfortunately absolutist thinking from creeping through my own psyche-memory.

[StressedMess]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

For example, you may not be able to stand up to someone because you were harmed as a child for asserting yourself. Your choices as an adult are now limited through no fault of your own. But it's your responsibility to work towards reclaiming those choices.

Every post I read today touches something in me.

I was told by a "friend" today that I was the perfect child, complacent to the point that as a middle-aged woman I still have no voice.

She said it is my choice to continue to live this way because I haven't made a choice to live differently. She also said she would wish a plague of hemorrhoids upon me every time I say something negative about myself, because the only person who can raise my self esteem is me. Basically tough love, stop bellyaching until you grow a pair and make changes.

It's hard and painful and dizzying and somehow terrifying, for me to stand up for myself. The reward is not worth the cost, at this point. She said I'm doing it wrong, that I have to learn how to stand up TO myself before worrying about standing up FOR myself.

But still for someone with a victim mentality (which isn't healed up and gone away) the idea of choice is just another way to say I screwed up again.

Refusing to make a choice is the same as making a choice to do nothing.

[Favorite Jeans]

By all means let's recognize that though we often cannot choose our circumstances, we can choose our behaviours and our attitudes in every circumstance and we can strive to choose integrity, dignity and compassion whenever possible. This is sometimes the only control we have, the last choice that cannot be taken, and relevantly, the reason that therapy can be very helpful. (My favorite book about this is Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl--an oldie but a goodie if ever one existed.)

But let us be very, very wary of taking this reasoning to terrible and lazy places. Very rarely do we have much say in the deciding the broad strokes of our circumstances. There is a reason that the great majority of people die in the same social class into which they were born. There just isn't that much mobility in the world and yet we love (in our popular discourse and in public policy) to blame people for their misfortune and to celebrate the "wisdom" of the wealthy and the fortunate. We need to call bullshyt on this type of thing and on any type of therapy that suggests that with enough resolve, we can simply empower ourselves out of any problem and that therefore, if we fail to, we have only ourselves to blame.

[elliemay]

Do you guys think we can choose to be happy?

[StressedMess]

Originally Posted by elliemay

Do you guys think we can choose to be happy?

I'd love to. I'm in therapy by choice, facing some quite embarrassing and shameful things about myself, trying to get better. Wish I could believe myself happy.

I do choose to keep doing the hard work, crying when required, learning and growing. Hopefully all that leads to happiness.

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by elliemay

Do you guys think we can choose to be happy?

Dunno. Jury's out.

[SnakeCharmer]

Nah, Elliemay, I don't think we can choose to be happy.

The best we can hope for is to choose to do those things that make it less likely that we'll be miserable and more likely that happiness might come along as a by-product of the daily choices we make.

So many really bad things have happened recently in my life -- objectively bad -- cancer, severe injury, deaths of loved ones, loss, loss, loss. Those external things that happen to everyone are not chosen. They happen. All we can choose is how we respond. The best I can manage on some days is choosing to avoid acting like a miserable s-o-b who treats herself and everyone else like crap because she's scared and in pain and the future looks bleak. That sort of thing is a recipe for misery. So ... I try to avoid choosing that.

[Lauliza]

Originally Posted by elliemay

Do you guys think we can choose to be happy?

I don't think so. I think we can choose to make the best choices we can and find fulfillment for ourselves. How we feel as a result of those choices is probably a toss up. It also depends on a person's definition of happiness and if they even know what it is. I think it can be a scary thing to face if you haven't felt it very often.