How to make the right decision… the spiritual way

We make decisions every day. Most times, these decisions do not lead to a significant change in outcome. For example, we decide whether to have sandwich or pizza for dinner, or we decide whether to watch a movie or go to the park this weekend.

However, some decisions can lead to big changes in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Changing career is one such example of a significant decision. Relocating to a new house, neighborhood or country is another. Deciding whether to continue with certain therapies or not when we are unwell is also potentially life altering.

When it comes to making big decisions that will likely change our lives significantly, we are often faced with doubts about whether we are making the right decisions or not. How do we decide? What are our criteria? What is our motivation?

For me, I have come to realize that when I make decisions, I should look at my motivations. If the decision made is motivated by fear, most often it will turn out to be the wrong decision. However, if it is motivated by unconditional love or faith in the universe, then it will invariably turn out right. By unconditional love, I refer to the absence of ego.

I now use this as my yardstick when making important decisions in my life. So far, it has worked very well for me.

For example, when my father was diagnosed with cancer of the rectum, my family looked to me to decide where to send him for his surgery. As a doctor, I am automatically expected to know who was the best surgeon and which was the best hospital for treatment. My first thought was to refer him to the most reputable hospital in the city, which was also the most expensive hospital as well. On the other hand, I knew a very competent and compassionate doctor who has just the right competency for the job, although he is not “famous” and was working in a small hospital.

When I examined my motivation for that initial thought, I soon realized that it was based on fear and ego – fear that if I do not send him to the best hospital, I might be blamed if the surgery was not successful. In addition, there was the ego that seems to say “What would others think if you sent your father to a small hospital?”

In the end, I decided to follow my heart and referred my father to this competent doctor in a small hospital, and it turned out to be a blessing. Not only did he operated successfully on my father, he was so patient and friendly to all of us that the whole family felt confident and comfortable with him. Eventually, my father was discharged uneventful. It was a huge relief for me.

When we live a spiritual life, and especially when we have faith in our spirituality, decisions that are based on unconditional love and faith in our spirituality, that goes beyond our selfish ego and needs, are often the right decisions.

When we have the courage to make those decisions, we will often find them to be most beneficial for our spiritual growth. In addition, they reinforce and validate our trust in the benevolence of the universe.

The Daffodil Principle

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over.”

I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead.

“I will come next Tuesday”, I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there.

When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house, I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

“Forget the daffodils, Carolyn!  The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!”

My daughter smiled calmly and said, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.”

“Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading for home!” I assured her.

“But first we’re going to see the daffodils. It’s just a few blocks,” Carolyn said. “I’ll drive. I’m used to this.”

“Carolyn,” I said sternly, “Please turn around.”

“It’s all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, “Daffodil Garden.”

We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped.

Before me lay the most glorious sight.

It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron and  butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

“Who did this?” I asked Carolyn.

“Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.” Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. W e walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster. “Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking”, was the headline.

The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read.

The second answer was, “One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.”

The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived.

One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.

That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time, often just one baby-step at a time and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

“It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said.

She was right. It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use today?”

Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting…..

Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house
Until you go back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a divorce
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you die…

There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

So work like you don’t need money. Love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one’s watching.

Motivations, Needs and Wants

Have you ever wondered what motivates us to do things, say things and behave the way we do? Psychologists believe that our motivations come from our needs that needed to be fulfilled. We can grouped our needs into two big groups:

1. Spiritual Needs
2. Physical Needs

Spiritual Needs

Spiritual needs are inherent in us as we are essentially spiritual beings. They are not truly needs but more our natural tendency. It is our tendency to grow and evolve spiritually to as high a level as we can imagine and create. There is no limitation to our growth at this level.

Physical Needs

Physical needs are not really needs. They are imaginary needs based on the false belief that we are purely physical beings and therefore is based on a self-limiting belief. It is based on the belief of our separation from the whole and therefore we are not whole or complete. There is therefore a belief in lack. With that belief comes the need to work for and get what we lack – wholeness, security, acceptance.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

Abraham Maslow introduced his hierarchy of human needs. The 5 levels of needs, starting from the bottom, are physiological needs, the need for safety, the need to be loved and belong (social needs), the need for self esteem and achievements and finally the need for self-actualisation. Everyone starts from the basic physiological needs and move upward. When a need is deficient, it becomes the priority of our focus. The first 4 levels are called deficiency needs. When they are deficient or perceived to be deficient, anxiety is experienced.

Anthony Robbins’ Six Human Needs

1. Certainty/Comfort.
   • We all want comfort. And much of this comfort comes from certainty. Of course there is no ABSOLUTE certainty, but we want certainty the car will start, the water will flow from the tap when we turn it on and the currency we use will hold its value.
2. Variety.
   • At the same time we want certainty, we also crave variety. Paradoxically, there needs to be enough UNcertainty to provide spice and adventure in our lives.
3. Significance.
   • Deep down, we all want to be important. We want our life to have meaning and significance. I can imagine no worse a death than to think my life didn’t matter.
4. Connection/Love.
   • It would be hard to argue against the need for love. We want to feel part of a community. We want to be cared for and cared about.
5. Growth.
   • There could be some people who say they don’t want to grow, but I think they’re simply fearful of doing so—or perhaps NOT doing so. To become better, to improve our skills, to stretch and excel may be more evident in some than others, but it’s there.
6. Contribution.
   • The desire to contribute something of value—to help others, to make the world a better place than we found it is in all of us.

Lester Levenson’s 3 Basic Human Wantings

1. Wanting Acceptance
2. Wanting Safety
3. Wanting Control

Needs versus Wants

Needs are what we considered to be required for survival and life while wants are what we would like to have but can do without in life. From the spiritual perspective, what we considered to be needs are in actuality also wants because as a spiritual being we do not lack anything. So it might be more practical to see wants and needs as parts of a spectrum, from no needs to needs to wants.

It is our perceptions of needs and wants that motivate us most of the time to do the things we do and behave the way we do. In short, it is what makes us who we are.

If we can define ourselves and live as spiritual beings, we will be able to live with lesser needs and wants. Only then can we truly live a creative and expressive life that we are truly capable of – a life that is free from fear, full of creativity and joy.