Headspace studio. Hi there.
Keisunga here. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to this wonderful Wednesday.
I'm curious if anyone out there has experienced living in a hectic household.
For me and my household, it usually shows up on Friday evening.
That's when the family comes together to rest and relax after having a busy week.
Sounds perfectly cool right?
Yeah, to me too. But without a doubt, hecticity shows its menacing head.
And usually, it's in the form of choices.
My beautiful daughters first start arguing about what kind of food they want.
And then the arguing carries over to what movie or TV show to watch.
Finally, either my wife or myself steps in and makes an executive decision, which is often followed by the girls being magically united in the opposition to what we chose.
And that creates a very tangible tension in the house.
I find it so incredibly interesting how choices can create so much stress.
I guess the question is how can we make the process of decision -making less stressful?
Oftentimes, it's due to the stories that we create in our heads about the choices that we make.
Or not trusting and listening to our intuition, especially when there are important decisions to be made.
Case in point, I remember when I finished graduate school with my masters in health science and acupuncture.
The next step was for me to find work.
I was married and we were thinking about starting a family, so I definitely felt some pressure in my decision -making process.
It eventually boiled down to two choices.
I could open up my own private practice from scratch, or I could join what's called an insurance mill.
With insurance mills, I can place one needle in a patient and call it an appointment and then build their insurance for full payment.
In this model, I would potentially see 30 to 50 patients a day versus private practice, which had a high quality of care, and I would only see at most six to eight patients a day.
I remember I was truly conflicted and fully stressed at that time because I really needed money fast, but I didn't want to compromise my integrity.
I was indeed telling myself all sorts of stories.
Keisunga, if you don't do this, then you're a failure.
What kind of man are you?
You're going to suck as a businessman.
And the stories went on and on.
At the same time, my intuition was telling me to be brave and not follow the seemingly easy road to fast, abundant money.
In the end, I listened to my intuition, and I opened up my private practice.
It wasn't an easy path by any means, but hindsight being 20 -20, it was definitely the right decision.
So with all that said, I want to leave you today with two tips when it comes to making choices and decisions.
First, bring awareness to the stories you are creating in your head and asking yourself, is this true?
This simple question can create some space between you and your choices and helps you to zoom out and examine the issue at hand.
For me, I was creating a story of being a failure when I was clearly getting closer to achieving my goal of becoming an acupuncturist.
Asking myself if the failure story I had created was true would have helped me to recognize how far I'd come and that my decision of how to move forward with my career was the next logical step to create the life that I wanted.
Secondly, follow and trust your intuition.
Most of the time, that gut instinct that we all have will guide us in the right direction and in making the appropriate choice.
Awareness plays a big part in this.
Journaling, meditating, asking yourself what you really want in the moment will all help you tap into that intuition and give you the clarity to see what's best for you.
And also remembering to show yourself some self -compassion during the process.
On the app, there's a video called a non -striving approach that I think would be really helpful.
Okay, thanks for listening today.
Please continue to send me your questions and feedback on my Instagram page, at kegiscombay.
I look forward to being back here tomorrow.
Have a healthy and happy day.
