How do the words in the title impact you?

When I first read those words, I felt annoyed - I certainly wasn’t choosing a lot of what was going on around me! And yet, yes, within a few minutes of the words sinking in, I absolutely was choosing.

The fact that I was allowing others to consistently take first position in having their needs met, meant I was making a choice. And I paid for it in everything else that followed, in terms of my own wellbeing and connected mental health. 

By nature I’m a giver, it makes me feel good to help, to pull with people and help them tick a box, especially if it’s been long awaited or much needed.  (That giving is also one of my own mental health tools.) It also meant I wasn’t filling my own cup, and the dehydration began.

I haven’t yet worked out how to change and choose better. It’s never as straightforward as just saying “no”.  But at least I’m now aware that I am a little empty, and thirsty.  

“What you are not changing, you are choosing” still has potential to make me cross, but I’m hearing it.  

Does the phrase hit you anywhere?

Love from 

The room above the garage

A Moodscope member