I often get this question from my friends and yoga students: how do you take an important decision?
We all have some moments in life, when we are confronted with unexpected change and we have to cope with it. Even better, we are challenged to take a decision that is going to change our life. It can be a decision concerning our job, our family, the place we live in etc. It can be very stressful. We may feel fear to take the “wrong” decision that will have bad consequences in our life. We feel a lot of pressure and weight on our shoulders.
Before practising meditation, I felt the same anxiety on failing to take the best decision. My mind was racing all over the place, constantly moving from one option to another, always finding good motives sustaining either one or the other choice. This was very confusing and at the end, it didn’t help much. Sounds familiar? I think that probably we all react that way, because our minds function pretty much the same way. The pressure coming from the importance of the decision adds even more stress and confusion in our mind.
So, the logic of writing down pros and cons to each option, leads to more confusion, in my experience.
Now, my answer to that question is different, I reply: “meditate on it”. I discovered that with a regular meditation practice, the clear answer is coming from our inner wisdom. The brain connects to the heart’s desires. We know that: “when the heart speaks, we have to take good notes”.
The answer that will change our life for the better comes from our intuition that is behind the chatting of the mind. If we do not go into silence, we will not be able to tap into this valuable resource. The right decision to take will become an evidence. It may take one session of meditation to get the answer to our question or more sessions, it depends on how complex the decision to take can be and on the impact on our lives. This way of taking decision is a “no regrets” approach. When you tap into your inner wisdom, there is no error possible. This happened to me. I used to be scared to have taken the “bad” decision and often it was justified, because I took it out of the confusion of my agitated mind. Now, it does not happen any more. I know that it was the best decision for me, out of my meditation practice.
Of course, meditation is not only about taking decision, but it certainly helps to clear the fog in our mind, especially with no stress or fear involved.
Start meditating! Check my course, coming soon on 25th March on Tapas for Life platform.
Chiara
