To view more of Sophia's art go to

www.sophia-elise.artistwebsites.com/ or

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www.fineartamerica.com/shop/sophia-elise.html


If you see an artwork on this website that you like but it's already sold - please contact Sophia as she does commissions.





Sunday, March 20, 2011

Today I am grateful for Choices

Why today in particular am I grateful for this? After re-reading the post below I realised that the essence of what I was saying was that we determine the direction of our lives by the choices we make. 

Having choices available gives us possibilities and with that comes hope.  Sometimes when we make a choice it can be clouded by fear or the desperate need for external approval.  It's really important in life that we learn to make authentic choices which resonate with our core - ones that will move us in the direction of our goals and dreams. We need to love ourselves enough to take the time to examine options, to be still, to be honest with ourselves so that we make the right choices for us.  When we make choices that are in alignment with ourselves we feel a sense of ease and and increased energy.  When we go against our true self it has the opposite affect; it increases our anxiety and drains our energy. The most important thing when making a choice is to be true to yourself. Afterall you have to live with yourself 24/7.

And even in times when we feel that we have no choices available to us - there will always remain our power to choose our actions, attitudes and responses.



As Viktor E Frankl said "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." For those who haven't heard of Viktor  Frankl - he is an inspirational Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist and survivor of the holocaust. 

"If you can't change a situation - change the way you look at it"

"Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now how could I help him? What should I tell him? I refrained from telling him anything, but instead confronted him with a question, "What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?:" "Oh," he said, "for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!" Whereupon I replied, "You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it is you who have spared her this suffering; but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her." He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left the office."- Viktor Frankl

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