The Choices I Make

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”  Romans 7:15  NRSV

Last night I made a bad choice in eating something.  My sweet tooth was activated, and we have Girl Scout cookies—I’m a troop leader and our daughter sells them, so trust me, WE HAVE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES !! J  

That may not seem like a huge problem, but I’ve discovered in the past 3 years I can’t eat gluten, as it somehow affects the POTS.  Most days having regular cookies around isn’t a huge problem, but last night it was.  I won’t make excuses, because I chose to eat them, even though I knew I shouldn’t, and I knew it would have an affect on me. Afterwards I thought of St. Paul’s words, “I do not understand my own actions.”

Do these words sound familiar to you?  Perhaps following a set discipline is not a challenge for you.  I do know of people who can strictly follow some very challenging food restriction, or health restrictions. I have not been one of those people.   If you are, I admire you—and the rest of this post may be a bit foreign to you. 

Do you find that sometimes you ‘do not do what you want, but the very thing you hate’?  I confess that I do. St. Paul says that he did.  So what do we do?

A clue St. Paul gives us is to ‘understand’.  Understanding our actions, to the best of our abilities is a helpful step. When I goof up and make a bad choice, my first reaction is to start blaming myself and thinking about how bad I was.  This reaction is only helpful for a few seconds as it helps me realize that I’ve taken a misstep. After that, self-blame becomes an energy drain and is not a motivating reaction.  Self-evaluation is more useful.  Questions like :  “am I tired?”  “Am I in pain?”  “Am a feeling upset about something?” “Am I angry?” are good places to start.   Yesterday I realized I had some strong feelings about not being able to work that I need to still sort through, and when I was tired, I also became vulnerable for a bad choice.

When we can evaluate what’s going on, and really work with what’s behind the choice, it is a good step toward recognizing and stopping this in the future.

The next piece to evaluate is how easy or difficult have I made it to make a GOOD choice.  If I choose to eat something, do I have good healthy options, or am I out of  fruit or Gluten free sweets?  If I’m tired or in pain, did I push myself past my limit, and if so, why? 

Next is planning for the next time.  What things would help to give me better options next time?  Choosing to go to bed earlier?  Planning on a good day to make a batch of cookies I can eat?  Having my journal ready and choosing to write next time before I take the step to eat? 

Taking a look at our vulnerabilities, how we’ve set ourselves up to make bad choices, and planning to help ourselves make choices that will help our bodies and minds be nurtured in healthy ways are important and effective tools.  A bad choice is an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and it gives us good information that we can use to take smart and compassionate care of ourselves in the future.

Dear Lord,  Thank you for the freedom of choice. Today I thank you for the freedom to make bad choices, for they open up the possibility of learning and growing.  Help me today to support myself in good choices, and give me the love and care for myself to make healthier choices.  Amen.