Embracing Choiceless Decisions

In this episode of Spiritual Unraveling, hosts Ashley and Nate delve into Sara Landon's book, focusing on Success Principle #10: the concept of making choiceless decisions. They explore the challenges of trusting the process, the importance of stillness, and the emotional blocks that prevent individuals from embracing a choiceless approach to life. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, they discuss the significance of living in the present moment and how this mindset can lead to a more fulfilling life. The conversation emphasizes the idea that life is always working for us, not against us, and encourages listeners to embrace the flow of life.

Sara Landon's Book-https://a.co/d/gmhV8ak

Transcript

Nate (00:02.369)
Welcome everyone to Spiritual Unraveling with Ashley and Nate. And on today's podcast, we're do something a little bit different. We are going to talk about a book that we're reading and we're gonna pull apart a chapter that we're really enjoying. So Ashley and I love Sarah Landon and she has written a number of books and we've read most of them. And her newest book, which the title is A Mouthful,

I'm gonna say it, the 15 Success Principles for Self-Realization is amazing. Don't let the title scare you. It sounds a little bit like a business development book, but it's an amazing book that talks a lot about the concepts, most of the concepts that we have talked about in this podcast. And we were gonna talk about one of the chapters that has jumped out to both of us, which is the Success Principle number 10.

in that chapter and it's not making any big choices. Let everything be choiceless. now, actually we were talking before the podcast about how that was one that you were particularly enamored with and that you were excited about. So I'm gonna throw it back to you, elaborate a little bit more and tell me what's got you excited about that

Ashley Henderson (01:26.994)
Well, I guess it just seems really timely right now to be moving into trust on that deep of a level to commit to not making any big decisions. That's what she says. Don't make any big decisions. Let all your decisions be choiceless. And I just think it's

it's a challenge to the doer. It's a challenge to the one who likes to make things happen. so she gives a lot of examples about how, like there was one example where a woman wanted to leave her job and she worked with this principal and just waited. And eventually her

Her boss told her they were getting rid of her department and she was going to get a six month severance so that if she had left her job, she wouldn't have gotten the six month severance. So there's a bunch of stories like that where just sort of letting things develop in their natural course seems to be in sort of open up like a higher.

path sometimes. the other example she gave, what was I just reading? She gave this example of sort of just

you know, sort of sitting in maybe what she was, this isn't the example, but it like sitting in the eye of a storm, like really just letting things move. she was saying sitting in a park bench and letting, letting the, letting whatever needs to come to you, come to you rather than you're running around and what you need has to chase you around.

Ashley Henderson (03:39.248)
And I think this is a different, it's a different success principle, but it's related, which is just the power of stillness and the power of practicing stillness. And yeah, it's just challenging for people, you know, it's just a challenge. So I found myself sort of thinking about that when I was talking to different people this week. was like, well, what if you just let it be choiceless? It's like, wait, what?

What does that even mean? So, how is it showing up for you? I think it's showing up for you right now.

Nate (04:15.465)
I think he froze.

Nate (04:20.413)
Okay. We'll keep going, because I can just edit that out.

Ashley Henderson (04:27.964)
Did you hear what I asked you? I said, where is this showing up for you right now?

Nate (04:29.907)
No.

Nate (04:37.482)
Yeah, well, I just journaled about this and when I was journaling and I do this thing where I prompt myself to have an intuitive moment and I've gotten this from a couple different channels that I really like, but basically doing kind of a brain dump journaling and then at the end of that when I've kind of gotten my mind clear, I take a couple of deep breaths, three deep breaths, which is actually a Sarah Landon technique.

drop into the heart, and then I just ask myself, what does my higher self or my soul wanna share with me? And yesterday I got the message, stop trying. And then when I started writing that, it got more elaborate with stop trying, stop managing, stop pushing, stop chasing, stop efforting. And that is really the same thing as that.

principle that Sarah Linden was talking about. And I think what's fascinating is we talk about surrender and trust a lot on the podcast. And I like it as a concept. It's kind of hard to move it into real life in an intentional way. And so yesterday, what I was doing after I did this kind of journaling was I decided I'm not going to try with my kids today, right? I'm on summer duty. It's daddy daycare. got three kids.

all varying ages, they all want to do different things and I spend my time when I'm doing these watches with them, often like orchestrating, managing, creating, lots of structure, lots of planning and it's exhausting. And I was like, what if I just brought this idea into real life and enacted it?

was like, I'm not gonna do anything unless it is just choiceless. And that's kind of what Sarah Landon was talking about. If it doesn't present itself as the obvious next step, I'm just gonna let the energy flow and roll with it. And what was happening was that I immediately was in less anxiety and I was more relaxed, I was more present.

Nate (07:04.062)
because I wasn't thinking about the future as much and trying to manipulate or control or manage expectations or events. I was just letting things unfold and I didn't have the expectation about where it was gonna go. I was more in like curiosity. And now this is just a very small example, but I think it really is what she is talking about, which is.

truly leaning into letting go of making choices that are basically, for me, it feels like I'm trying to control or manipulate things. And that actually binds up a lot of my energy. And it clogs, it's like it kinks the hose, right? I think I'm doing a lot.

but I'm working really hard with the kinked toes instead of letting go and unkicking the hose and then letting things flow and trusting that, you know, life has a natural rhythm. We have just, as modern people, gotten ourselves a little bit outside of that rhythm. And when it starts to, when we start to trust and lean into it, then serendipitous things happen, synchronistic things happen. We have things.

just kind of miraculously work out in our favor, but I don't think that's actually what's happening. I think we've just gotten out of the way. So that's where I'm at with this stuff.

Ashley Henderson (08:40.4)
Yeah, I think it's, it's really cool to like dissect this because it does sound good. You know, it's like if somebody says, stop trying that sounds like sounds like a relief. great. I get to stop trying, but there is something challenging about it. One, because of our, we're conditioned, think almost everyone I know is conditioned to think that they need to manage their life.

it would all fall apart or nothing would happen or they wouldn't know what to do. And so that's one part. But I also think this idea of trust and allowing and surrender and stillness and presence comes with a certain anxiety for people. It's just so there's the conditioning of the mind just kind of wants to do what it's going to do because it's had it has a habit of doing it. But there's also some

maybe emotional blocks that you might sit with if you slowed down and got present. There might be some grief around, I don't know, sometimes I think there's grief, and maybe we've talked about this, but there's grief around when you finally get present, not having been present. There's a certain coming home, then you kind of, it feels so good.

Nate (10:03.975)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley Henderson (10:09.274)
And you think, where have I been all my life? But what else makes it hard to stop trying? Like when you get that message, stop trying. was just thinking about like, what are some of those things that come up? Because once you discover presence and you discover the connection between presence and allowing, and then that magical flow of co-creation.

It's great, but when you're on your journey there, like what happens for people that makes this challenging and hard? it just, is it like the reconnection means that you have to sort of feel things? What do you think?

Nate (10:59.89)
Definitely think that what you just said is part of it. That slowing down and not managing does bring you definitely more into your feelings. And I think that that is probably very scary for a lot of people. I also just think about this from a very practical point of view that we're just almost like exercise. We just don't exercise this muscle at all. Nobody's...

encouraging this. There's so much psychological, spiritual, even like atrophy of this muscle that we can't sit in contemplation. think about the only kind of people that I think about who are socially acceptable to do what we're talking about are either young children who we just let them

play and do their thing and we don't have any expectation on that. And then I think in certain realms, the artist is still holding this space that we understand that, that creativity and tapping into something deeper. We'll give it to the artists, right? If they're a good artist in society, we'll give it to like the writer or the poet or the artist, the painter, the musician.

We understand that that requires stillness, that requires an emptiness or a space in order for something to come in. But for the rest of us, I don't think that we never get the message to do it. It's not encouraged. There's no training around it. There's no encouraging of it. So it really feels like a much bigger risk than I think it is.

And I think what it comes down to for a lot of people is it's fear. There's this, I think there's a fear around the kind of vacation effects that we all have in modern society, which is when I go on vacation, I kind of let go completely and I don't do anything. And then I come back to normal life and I have to get back into my stuff.

Nate (13:23.355)
But that's kind of an American phenomenon around just taking vacations that are too short where you don't even give yourself a long enough time to decompress. And this kind of idea that if you did it in normal life, in everyday, you're like, well, would I just binge watch Netflix and not get anything done? I think that's kind of the fear. And that's conditioning.

That's definitely for me, I think that's just seeing the layer of conditioning that's on us around productivity culture. And I think it's misguided. I don't think that's actually what would happen. If you actually let boredom kick in, you move into creativity. That's what happens. I mean, I have to do that with my kids and get them off screens and say, get bored. Because once you get bored, then you...

Ashley Henderson (14:07.538)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nate (14:14.663)
come up with a reason to not be bored. And that's usually the thing. I think that's part of what happens with this not trying with things being choiceless is that you have to trust the process and trust yourself and give yourself enough space to get on the other side of the arc of true decompression, which I think for some of us could take.

Ashley Henderson (14:18.476)
the

Nate (14:45.07)
a little bit of time, probably more time than we would be comfortable gifting ourselves. And I use that word intentionally because I think people...

don't think that they're deserving of it. I think that might be another aspect to this that's hard is that they find worth in the doing and they think their self-worth is tied into that. So in this choiceless not trying place.

Do I deserve to have the time to decompress? Do I deserve to have the time to not do something? And am I going to have an outcome that is like acceptable, right? And so we have these things that kind of, they're actually two systems that don't match up. And so it's kind of hard. Those, I don't know, that's my rambling. I don't know, what do you think about all that?

Ashley Henderson (15:42.386)
No, no, I was thinking about the decompression. It does seem like there is a kind of, you're right, there's like a learning how, like a skill building almost in it that comes with a lot of assumptions or shifts in belief systems or perspectives, some ego unraveling, looking at identity and how it attaches.

I was thinking about you, you know, you're looking for a new place to live. And so like, that's a good example of a big decision that you're going to have to make. so like, even just thinking about an example like that, where, you know, there's a known and there's probably fear around the unknown.

And so what are you doing with that right now? what do you do? So it's like something like that where people feel like the examples that she was giving in the book are people who feel like they want to quit their job or get a divorce or, you know, something opens up and they have to make a big decision about making a move in their life. And she's saying, just wait, just wait, just wait until it's so obvious, just so clear.

that it doesn't take any effort to decide what's next. And so I wonder how you're sitting in that realm right now in the unknown around this big decision that's coming up for you.

Nate (17:23.65)
Yeah, well, we're in the waiting and...

I think the thing that it offers you if you're willing to accept it is that it's not your job. There isn't really anything for you to do in the process other than to sit and trust. And so at the beginning of this, so just to fill it in, we have to sell one house in a town in California before we can buy

a new house in another town in a different part of California. That's where we're at. And it's like a domino thing. I have to sell one before I can buy the other. And it just so happens that on our way back from New York, we entered into a kind of funky real estate market here in the areas where I'm both selling and buying. So it's happening in both places. And we did some doing at the beginning. We like adjusted the price.

cleaned the house, did all the stuff that we were doing. And then now the house has been on the market for like four or five weeks, which isn't a huge amount of time. And we have been having conversations about timing and trust. And I think it's not so much that it's how we relate to it and how I relate to it and how.

we're choosing to relate to it through the family system, because my wife and I are both on board with this kind of thinking and how we talk to the kids. And so for us, it is putting some of these principles into action, which is saying we trust that there is a timing component here that we don't have access to, that things need to fall into place and...

Nate (19:24.716)
the timing just isn't right now and when the timing is right, that things will move. And so you could see from the outside that nothing has actually changed. Somebody else would be in the same situation, but how they manage themselves in the story they tell about how this is happening, like, ugh, it's the worst market ever, I can't believe this happened to me, I got stuck in this, you know, that could be a story I could tell.

But the story I'm telling myself is that right now this is a timing thing. And that in order for my perfect house in my new town to show up, my old house is just waiting to sell so that I can line those things up. And so for me, it's just a lot about point of view and perspective. And I think you could look at that from the outside and say, that's kind of Pollyanna and a.

of you know, it really doesn't make a difference. And I would say, you're absolutely right. It doesn't make a difference. And if I'm going to choose how I relate to something out of my control, I'm gonna tell the story that makes me feel good, that makes sense with me and my internal system in that everybody should do the same for themselves. it's kind of this, it's this interesting place where I get to put

Ashley Henderson (20:42.876)
Mm-hmm.

Nate (20:49.121)
some of these spiritual beliefs to a real life thing. And I am sitting in trust and surrender with our housing. And I'm living with family, I'm back in, you know, a house with my immediate family and my kids are here and we're revisiting a lot of old family patterns and all of this stuff. And I also think that that is an important part of

us coming back to California. there's all this, you know, when you look at something with a different perspective and you're willing to be open and let things kind of unfold, you will see that there's a lot more going on and a lot more there to mine for you than if you just think about an outcome that you're looking after.

Ashley Henderson (21:41.008)
Totally, totally. think that's one of her other success principles is life is always working for you, not to you or happening for you, not to you. I love that. Thank you for sharing that because I think it's like a, it's just, it's a real shift for a lot of people to think about having that level of trust and how, you know, even just you saying like, you know, I'm going to have to be in this time period.

I might as well feel good in this time period. and you don't, you you were saying you don't know if it makes a difference and maybe, maybe it doesn't and maybe it does. But, but there's a certain amount of waiting, I think, until you feel that yes, until you feel that choiceless, that choiceless choice that does kind of, I think creates a new muscle.

of recognizing the flow of life and getting in that flow rather than the reinforcing of the efforting. I know a lot of people in my life that believe in efforting. And it's fine. It's like that's the path that they feel safest going on.

But there is this other, there is this other potential of being in a flow in life where you're just simply doing the next right thing. And it requires kind of what you're saying. Well, what I was saying was like, you know, in order to start that, that process of getting in the flow, there is coming into presence, there is coming into contact with

your intuitive self, not the manager self, not the controller, but the intuitive self and listening, because you have to be able to even listen to what the choiceless choice is. You have to know where that part of yourself is operating in order to access it, which requires this practice of stillness and presence.

Ashley Henderson (24:05.242)
And I think then there is contact with fear, there's contact with grief, there's contact with unwanted emotions in presence that I think that stops a lot of people. We have belief systems around those feelings sort of being bad and judging them when they're not bad and they also need airtime in our being. And then...

And then learning to be patient, learning to wait, learning to not know, learning to sit and not knowing. And the sort of that takes a certain amount of skill, you know, for people to say, well, when are you guys moving? Where are you going? What are you doing? We don't know yet. You know, we're excited to find out. We're excited for it to unfold. We're looking forward to it, to figuring it out, you know, and really practicing calm and peace.

and presence in the waiting. Because I would imagine on some level, you can't fake that stuff. You really do have to almost get excited by the unknown to allow it to happen.

Nate (25:23.112)
Yes.

Yeah, because otherwise you're, you're just, are in frustration if you, if you're in doing. And like, what do I need to do next becomes your kind of mode. And yeah, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't moments where I'm like, what do I need to do next? You know, do I need to do something different? And that's the dance, right? The dance is.

Ashley Henderson (25:34.172)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley Henderson (25:48.518)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nate (25:56.031)
we learn about this in law of attraction stuff. Manifestations don't just happen. We have an input in the system. So there is some doing in all of this, but I think what Sarah Landon is talking about and what we're talking about here is that for many of us, the doing is kind of the first thing we lean on and what

this idea from the book and even some of the stuff that's present in Law of Attraction is saying is to take action when action is appropriate, when it's lined up, when you're getting the very strong signal, when it's a hell yes, when it's like a full green light, then you move into action and also you can trust that when that is happening, it's almost like you are gonna be compelled into action.

Like the situation will dictate it in such a way that you are like, all right, we're going. And that's part of that trust that she's talking about. And I'm on the other side of this too, because I left a job trying to start a new career. And I think I probably left the job.

before I was ready to leave the job for the new career. And then I spent months doing the work that I could have been doing while I was at the job, basically getting my stuff together because I thought that I needed to leave the job first and then to let the other job happen. And really it was more of an inside game than it was circumstance. And I was...

So, and I never got away from processing and doing the work. I just ended up doing it without a job for a while, which was very uncomfortable. And so I chose, was in the, in the quitting the job. I was in the doing, I'll do this so I can jumpstart this other career when I probably would have been better served by letting...

Nate (28:22.271)
it naturally come in, but I was impatient and I think there was a lot of other stuff that I ended up learning through that process which was powerful. yeah, when we force things, we also get feedback around that as well. It's just, it's this dance and we say this a lot, you gotta give yourself grace and...

make sure that when we're doing this stuff that we're in presence and in awareness so that it doesn't slip by us as like, well that was just crazy how that went down and that was, know, boy that was a really hard thing and it's like, well, were you forcing a lot? Were you missing some subtle signals along the way? Was it choiceless or was there a lot of efforting? You know, all of that's good. We see it.

Ashley Henderson (29:10.834)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ashley Henderson (29:15.184)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nate (29:21.988)
it does produce. You can live that way. What we're kind of suggesting and what Sarah Landon's suggesting is that there's another way to do it that is full of ease, full of grace, full of serendipity and synchronicities and flow. And you could still get to a really amazing outcome, but not have to beat your head against the wall kind of through the process, which

I've done it, now I'm on both sides, I've done it both ways and I can say this flow way is just a lot easier on your system. It's a easier on your kind of emotional system, your physiology and also it's, I think there's a lot more energy in it. You actually free up a lot more of your energy when you're not constantly

Efforting you can wait for the moment when you're inspired and then you you have this big bolus of energy that comes through and you move into the next right action and then You kind of and then you back down and you wait for the next thing and this is yeah This is a different way of living and I Yeah, what do you think about that?

Ashley Henderson (30:38.866)
Thank

Ashley Henderson (30:44.09)
Yeah, can think. Well, I think I can think of it's like coming to me all these examples of when I've done that in my life and they've been like really exciting.

Nate (30:54.974)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley Henderson (30:56.722)
It's also exciting to sort of like I was thinking about the example of when my oldest son was getting ready to be preschool age and where I live, there's just a lot of there was a lot of energy around where your kid went to preschool and people were kind of around me were kind of stressing about it and and and I just remember thinking

Nate (31:15.635)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley Henderson (31:22.256)
goodness gracious, I don't want to stress about this. I'm just not going to stress about it. And, know, went into sort of just a period of like allowing. And one day I was in a park and a woman I knew came into the park and she asked me, where are you sending him to preschool? And I said, gosh, I don't know. And she sent me in a direction and it ended up being such a great fit. so there's lots of examples of

in my own life where I waited for the hell yes, I'm so glad you brought that up. waited and I still play this game in my life. If I get an intuition in my life, if I get an intuition, sometimes I get it by seeing it three or four times where I'm just like, okay, universe, I see this, you know, or maybe it's something that feels like a desire, you know. I will say,

to myself, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, if this shows up in my life, I'm gonna say yes. If this shows up in my life, I'm gonna say yes. And so, and then it inevitably shows up and I get to have that moment of saying yes, where I've already, you know, kind of prepped myself for a choiceless choice. And it is fun to live that way. I think it feels good.

for me to live that way. And so that same, I was thinking that my son who I, we found this awesome preschool that way is now entering junior year of high school. And he keeps asking me, now do I have to worry about college? Now do I have to worry about college? And I kind of feel the same way. I kind of feel like really excited to go on a journey with him.

where we really listen for those hell yeses, where we really don't effort in a way that creates a lot of stress and anxiety. And I'm just really, I think the right decision will appear. I'm really, you know, excited about that. So I keep saying, no, we don't have to worry yet. It's not time.

Nate (33:44.315)
I love that you brought that back up because that was in one of our other podcasts and I love that example and that phrase too where I think the first time we talked about it was when he brought it to you and he said, this something I should worry about? And I just love that phrase because it's so indicative of what happens in our culture and it's, I also love that that phrase is a proposition. Should I worry about this?

It's right there. It's all, it's so fascinating, right? Where we have this idea and that phrase is said throughout, know, lots of people use it all the time. And it's like, yes, worry is a choice people. We get to choose if we want to give something our energy. And do we want to put our energy into feeling, you know,

worry or concern about a future event that we have no idea about yet. I mean, he's years away from college and yet there's a whole system, a whole industry that starts kicking in even as early as freshmen for some kids around, you know, we're worrying about where he's gonna go or they're gonna go and let's prepaving this way and yeah, what's getting missed there is

Life, because life is all the stuff that's happening along the way and you don't want to miss the signals. There could be lots of signals coming up for your young person around like maybe they want to go into the arts, maybe they want to go into trades, maybe they want to do something totally, maybe they want to gap year and go to the Peace Corps. And if you're not, if you have an idea about where it's going and then you put that idea on them, then the next thing you know, they're in their mid

late 20s and they're having these existential conversations with you because there was never a space for them to explore or let life unfold. And that's, you and I have both done that. We're now on the, we're in our midlife having our kids in trying to unpack all this stuff. And I know for me, and I think probably for you too, I don't want my kids to have to unwind stuff in their

Nate (36:12.311)
40s or 50s, I'd much rather have them just start living from this place now. Never stop living really, because kids are so much better about living in the present moment than us adults. Yeah. So that's great. I'm so glad you guys keep having that conversation with him. And he can go to college, right? We're not talking about not going to college. We're talking about trusting.

Ashley Henderson (36:28.572)
Yeah.

Nate (36:38.809)
that life will unfold and the right opportunity is going to be there. And especially if you're in the moment and you're living your best life all along the way, which is really what we're talking about. So we're not talking about like throwing your hands up and being like, yeah.

Ashley Henderson (36:51.354)
That's what I think. think, yeah.

Right, I think that's the message. The message that I kind of want to send him is that your happiness isn't necessarily in the future. Your life is happening right now in this moment and when we get to that place, it will be happening in that moment. So there's just this like kind of reminder to

him and then to myself or to myself and then to him to celebrate this, to be authentic in this moment, to be awake and alive in this moment and see what the universe has in store, see what life has in store and...

Ashley Henderson (37:50.29)
Yeah.

Nate (37:52.997)
Yeah, I just, I feel like it need, as we're talking, the thing that's coming up around this is that when I started, when we started this conversation, I was almost feeling like I was not defending, but like, you know, you're advocating this choiceless trust surrender, but what it really is is just, it's full participation in life and saying, if I am, if I am fully present and I am,

in every moment, I'm not giving my energy to the future and I'm going to manage everything. really, I'm so fully alive and in the moment that the next best thing is always happening for me. And it's because I don't have a belief or an expectation about what the next best thing is. just trust that it's.

whatever it's showing up, it's such a different way of orienting to life. But hopefully it comes through with my voice, full of zest and energy and opportunity. mean, this is all perspective, right? Because life is happening to all of us. We're all in it. How do you want to be in it? You know, when you live in it this way, when you orient this way, then you get to constantly be

Ashley Henderson (39:02.642)
you

Nate (39:19.482)
You get to savor the moments, you know, your belief system is building in presence into the now moment instead of building in I'll be happy when, which I feel like is kind of the predominant.

point of view in at least in Western culture which is I'll be happy when I have or when I do or fill in the blank you know as opposed to what we're advocating which is be happy now let life unfold and it will constantly surprise you and play with you really.

Ashley Henderson (39:49.606)
Yeah. Yep.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bet there's, you know, a lot of implications for health, physical health, mental health, you know, there's all sorts of implications for practicing this, this presence. And I just want to make a final plug for the book. I think it's a, there's so much in this book, I was saying before the podcast that I'm almost at the end.

and I'll probably just restart it, because it's a good reminder. There's also sort of when you listen to it, an energetic transmission, and just a wonderful, wonderful reminder about a way of life that's really opening up for everybody. Everybody is invited into this. There's nobody that, it's not for,

enlightened people. It's not for gurus. It's not for anybody special. It's for everybody and it's already happening. It's just our awakening to the truth of life that is really exciting. So anyway, we might revisit this this book in future podcasts because it's fun to work with this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's just so good.

Nate (41:17.27)
Yeah, I mean, we just did one chapter, right? We can elaborate. I will make sure for everybody that we include a link in the podcast description of the book. And I wholeheartedly agree. is an amazing book. It will create, if you allow it to unfold for you, it'll create so much ease and comfort in your life.

Ashley Henderson (41:47.622)
Okay.