"Second-Guessing Ourselves"

There are too many times in our lives that we second-guess our decisions. This wishy-washy behavior causes some of us to question our readiness to take care of ourselves.

On many occasions, we feel ill prepared to make the tough, pressured decisions stemming from the stressful situations we find ourselves in. In these types of stressful situations, the stress seems to overpower us and render us powerless.

Sometimes, during stressful situations, we cannot act the way we want to and that's from positions of high resolve. We feel too victimized by the stress to do much of anything except reaction to the tensions driving us to do something, anything, to free ourselves. These are the times when we forget that we are making the decision without thinking clearly.

After the stress has subsided, and we're able to think without the looming dangers, that's when we begin to second-guess ourselves by wishing we had done something different. For most of us, these are just moment of wishful thinking, because we don't seriously plan to change our behavior.

Similarly, if we do desire to change our behavior, we are fully aware that we must be willing to examine the actions causing us to second-guess ourselves. And, unfortunately, we don't really want to travel down this road.

Some of us know, at least viscerally, that there's something causing us to feel like victims in certain situations. Moreover, something is blocking our visions to perceive the other options available to us.

We clearly know, after-the-fact, that we could have made different decisions. We are now cognizant of the alternatives that were available for us to use. 

Unfortunately, when we're blinded by stress, we don't think outside of the box. We make our decisions based on a decision-making process that we've used for years. This is not a formal process or anything of that sort, it's just the things we do whenever we place ourselves in stressful situations.

One of the key responses to stress is anger. And most of us become particularly angry with ourselves. We denigrate ourselves deeper into depression while searching for others to blame for creating the stress in our lives. This is how we keep the stress alive in us long after the stressful situation is over.

While anger might not be as pronounced as our fears and self-doubts, it's equally as powerful. Some of us can usually pinpoint the fears and self-doubts because they're the more obvious culprits responsible for the way and manner we make stressful decisions.

Meanwhile, few of us ever complain about anger being responsible for second-guessing our decisions. Yet there are obviously some situations where stress is caused by our anger and our responses to it.  In these situations we can usually apologize to the individuals and then move on. 

Nevertheless, during the moments of great anxiety, and in those not-so-personal situations, we're unable to solve the problems by simply apologizing for our behavior. There's more at stake than bruised egos. We must face the beliefs and values we use to make our decisions.

And for us to do this, we must engage in self-discovery. Self-discovery means taking the time to fully examine the origins of our beliefs and values and creating the awareness to change them.

While we are responsible for our beliefs and values, we frequently don't fully understand how we obtained this responsibility. We know most of our beliefs come from our parents, teachers, friends, environment and society itself.

Although we don't remember when we first began using them, we know they're the ones we live by.

During the current social, political, and economic turmoil we have had numerous experiences with deciding what to do about home foreclosures, unemployment, debt, and fears of looming destruction from wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, and so forth.

In most of  these real-life situations, we find it difficult to know what's the correct thing for us to do. If we decide one way or the other, we inevitably think about it later by wondering if we made the correct decision.

Unfortunately, the decision we made to remove the suffering only exacerbated it with more suffering. At the time we made the decision, we thought we were acting empowered.

However, the realness of the problems and its corollary fears only plunged us deeper into the abyss of self-doubts and second-guessing ourselves.

The solution to second-guessing is a simple one. We must remain mindful of the power we have to make decisions that affect our lives.

We must use our power to construct beliefs and values that enlighten us to change how we think and act in certain situations.

The power of enlightenment is limitless. It has no boundaries or limitations. We limit ourselves by embodying beliefs and values that diminish our worthiness to use enlightened beliefs and values.

Our world begins and ends with our self-awareness. We are our beliefs and values.