The Art Of Choosing Yourself

When was the last time you truly chose yourself?
Not in small ways, but in the choices that shape your life. This talk is an invitation to pause, listen inward, and rediscover the quiet courage of living from your inner compass — not expectations, fear, or the noise around you.

Transcript

Welcome to this talk named Choosing Yourself This talk explores the quiet,

Courageous act of choosing yourself.

Not in the small,

Everyday ways,

But in the deep,

Life shaping ways.

It's an invitation to pause,

Breathe and listen for the inner compass you might have forgotten to carry.

I want to start by asking you,

When was the last time you know that you chose yourself?

Not the small choices like which coffee to drink or what sweater to wear,

But the big ones,

The choices that shape your life,

Your direction,

Your sense of who you are becoming.

Choosing yourself sounds simple,

But for many of us,

It's one of the hardest things we can do.

Why?

Because we've been trained,

Often since childhood,

To look outward for the answer.

Our teachers have been movies and advertising,

Parents,

Friends,

Influencers on TikTok,

Books about success and achievement.

We're told,

Directly or indirectly,

That happiness comes from education,

Money,

Stability,

Status and health and the right kind of job.

When I ask my students what they believe is key to a good life,

The same answers come up again and again.

It's money,

Safety,

Education,

A good job,

Very often financial freedom or being strong and fit.

These are external motivations.

They are rewards that come from the outside.

Yet,

When we let external motivation take over,

Something inside us empties out.

We begin to chase these goals,

Not out of love,

But out of fear.

Fear of not fitting in to the culture,

To your friends,

To family,

To girls or boys,

To not being enough.

You feel like you're not belonging.

And that's when the external motivation kicks in to achieve something.

And that's why so many people crash.

Maybe you've done it too.

I've done it.

Jim Carrey,

Who was an actor,

But now is a very spiritual and wise man.

He said this,

I hope everybody could get rich and famous,

So they will know it's not the answer.

You see,

My students,

They say,

We want to be rich and famous,

Rich and famous.

And he has become very rich and famous.

He's at the very top.

And he says,

I hope everyone could get this,

So they see it's not the answer.

He's lived the dream that millions believed they wanted.

All the success and celebrity parties and fame and wealth.

And yet,

He felt hollow.

Only when he let go of the expectations placed on him and chose himself,

Then he found peace.

And he's not alone in being successful and rich and all these things and being hollow inside.

You see,

All these celebrities and people who have so much money,

They don't know what to do.

They're just as,

To say it in a funny way,

Just as miserable as us,

Normal people.

But when he let go of the expectations about keeping up this image,

This external motivation,

Then he found peace.

And the spiritual teacher,

Alan Watts,

He expressed the same truth in just a different way.

He said,

Needing something positive,

Wanting something positive in itself is negative.

You see that?

If you want something positive,

At the same time you're saying that you are not where you want to be.

This goes back to Buddha and his noble truths.

And Alan Watts doesn't stop there.

He also says,

Accepting something negative in itself is positive.

So first he says,

Wanting something positive is negative,

Very counterintuitive.

And then he says,

Accepting something negative,

You probably look at your situation right now,

That is positive.

It's a paradox,

But a very deep and wise one.

The more tightly we cling to the idea of the perfect life,

Or the perfect personality,

Or whatever it is,

The farther we drift from ourselves and from real freedom.

So let's ask again,

What happens if you let go of every expectation,

Both your own and those others hold of you?

What happens if you wake up in the morning with no pressure to be anything other than who you already are?

Well the answer is,

If you ask yourself what are you then if you wake up with no expectation,

No pressure,

What are you?

Well,

You are free.

Maybe for the very first time since you were a kid you are free.

Because accepting something negative,

Which is most likely how you look at your situation right now,

Is positive.

And it's not only positive,

It's complete freedom if you can actually do this.

In the Bhagavad Gita,

The wisest text I've ever read,

It's put simply,

It's better to live your own life imperfectly than to live a perfect imitation of someone else's life.

And pay attention to one word here,

It's better to live your own life imperfectly.

You don't even have to do a perfect job as long as you just try to live your own life,

To be yourself,

To choose yourself.

That will be better than living somebody else's life to perfection.

And this is at the heart of choosing yourself.

No one can give you the answers to what's right for you.

But we keep on looking outside for all these answers,

What should I do to be successful?

But the answer,

Of course,

Lives inside of you.

It's unique,

And it reveals itself slowly the way dawn spreads across a quiet sky.

But you have to be completely still to hear it.

This is the magic that only stillness to stop and pause and breathe can give you.

So we can ask a question that helps you listen inwards.

And that is,

It's a very funny one.

So be still,

Be focused and ask yourself what did you love to do when you were 10 or 12 years old,

Before the pressure to fit in had arrived?

Did you draw,

Dance,

Play football,

Build worlds out of Lego,

Invent stories or share stories?

Childhood joy is often a clue to what you're meant to do,

Your dharma.

And it's a clue to where you find yourself as you truly are.

Another question you can ask in stillness is,

What do you do when no one is watching?

If no one is watching,

Do you sing to yourself?

Do you talk aloud,

Do you knit,

Play games,

Wander in silence?

These effortless moments say something honest about you as well.

Another question.

If you were alone on an island with all your needs taken care of,

How would you spend your time?

You can do anything you want.

You're alone on this island,

You can do anything you want.

Let's say for one week.

What do you do?

It's such an important question.

And it's a question at the core of the art of choosing yourself.

Your answer reveals what holds inner value,

Independent of anyone's else gaze.

Another question is,

What do you want to be remembered for?

Your humor,

Your courage,

Your kindness,

The way you showed up when others needed you,

That you were an inspiration,

That you were a safe place for others,

That you cracked codes and invented apps.

It can be anything.

But what do you want to be remembered for?

On the gravestone,

What do you want to be the one line that it said?

Your name and then comes the line that is unique to you.

And the last question is,

Which activity feels good?

Not only while you're doing it,

But after the activity.

Maybe movement,

Creativity,

Nature,

Deep laughter with friends.

And these also often point towards lasting meaning in your life,

Something that is worth choosing to do.

What feels good after you have done them?

Many people say,

I don't have an inner voice,

I can't be still,

I can't listen in,

This is so difficult.

And some people say,

I don't even know what's right for me,

I have no clue.

Many of my students tell me that.

If you find yourself in that place,

Then I want you to try this small practice.

It's like a gentle workout for your inner listening.

Think of a choice you're facing.

It can be a big choice or a small choice,

But you know that in a couple of days or weeks you have to choose A or B.

It can be changing job,

Ending a relationship,

Starting a project,

Saying yes or no to an invitation.

Big or small,

It doesn't matter,

But just see this choice in front of you where you have two options,

A and B.

So now you can press pause until you find this thing.

And when you have found it,

Then find a coin or something you can flip.

Let heads mean A and tails mean B.

And that means that if the coin turns heads up then you have to go for that.

And B,

You have to go for B.

And here's the point.

When you've done it now,

You're not actually meant to follow the coin.

The exercise is about noticing what you feel the moment the coin lands and you see the result.

This is so deep.

Does something inside of you whisper,

Yes that was good,

I love it landed on A,

Oh my god.

Or maybe no.

That brief flicker of truth that's your inner compass.

We all have an inner compass and this is the best way to find out.

Choose an A or B.

You don't need a coin,

You can just do it virtually but have a choice in front of you.

Choose A,

B and then you tell yourself,

Oh my god I have to go for A.

How does it feel right after you tell yourself that's your truth?

That's the art of choosing yourself.

So I invite you to move through your days choosing yourself again and again.

And spend your time on what truly matters.

On the people who give you meaning and joy.

On the challenges that's worth challenging of doing your best and reaching your true potential because you love doing this thing.

And then you might ask,

Well where will this extra time come from to do what I want to do all the time?

I'm a very busy person.

And then my answer is from the art of saying no.

No to the things that no longer feel right.

No to the habits you built only to fit in.

No to friends who ask for something you actually don't want to do but you feel like you should say yes.

Don't say yes.

Say no.

Say I'd love to but I can't today.

Thank you for thinking about me.

Say no to the life that isn't yours.

The spiritual teacher Qt Blackson he describes this beautifully in the podcast Know Thyself.

He said The deeper I go,

The fewer choices I have but the freer I feel.

When I lived for my ego I believed I had many options but I was more limited.

When we surrender,

Things may not go according to your plan but often they exceed it.

And when you surrender,

You will always end up and this is a promise,

In the right place at the right time with the right people doing the right thing even if the path is not the one you expected.

So he starts saying The deeper I go,

The fewer choices I have but the freer I feel.

What does he mean?

Yes,

He means that when he has a choice,

If he goes deep he doesn't have anything except one choice and that is the choice of his inner compass.

If he is still and he listens in,

Maybe he does the coin test and he flips a B and his gut says Oh no,

I don't want that.

Well then you know you go for the A.

You don't have an option.

And then he says that this makes you free.

He was more limited before but now he is free.

Now he doesn't know where life takes him.

Honestly,

How can we know?

If we set a goal,

I'm gonna be there in 10 years,

Well then you're gonna struggle a lot and most likely you won't end up there and you'll feel like a failure.

If you just do your best and choose yourself day after day,

Oh wow,

What a journey that's gonna be.

How inspiring to just live.

It's like a movie where you don't know the ending.

It's so exciting.

This is the stories you hear from people.

Oh I went on this journey,

A trip and I ended up there and we were supposed to go to this town but we ended up in this other town and it was amazing.

It's always more amazing.

Of course it is.

That's an adventure.

There's a difference between an adventure and something that's planned perfectly.

You don't wanna plan life perfectly.

You want to live an adventure and if you choose yourself in every little moment then you're living an adventure because you don't know where it's gonna take you.

That's the beauty of it.

When you begin choosing yourself over and over something profound happens.

You build self-worth and self-worth is not something you can buy or earn from.

Approval.

It grows when you show yourself through your choices that you are worth choosing.

Self-worth when you get it,

It's actually quite simple.

How do you know that you're worthy?

Well,

When you listen to yourself and not listen to someone else.

Some success story.

When you choose yourself you show yourself that you're worthy and then you build a little bit of self-worth and the more times you choose yourself the more self-worth you will feel.

You didn't wanna go out and have wine.

You chose yourself,

You stayed in and did what's good to you and you wake up the next morning I'm so glad I listened to myself and you feel that you're worthy because you were worthy choosing yourself.

Many long for greater self-worth but they don't know how to create it and as I try to explain now,

The secret is so simple.

You build it one choice at the time.

Same as you build trust by many small actions.

You build self-worth to yourself by many small actions where you choose yourself.

Every time you choose what's true for you,

You remind yourself I matter I am worthy.

So maybe the kindest thing you can do is loosen your grip a little bit.

Let the pressure fall away.

The external pressure.

Accept yourself as you are and have trust Trust that life will carry you when you begin to walk in your own direction.

Looking at your own inner compass or your gut feeling or your heart or whatever you wanna call it.

So take this day now free from expectations and begin gently to live your life.

Do the things that you truly love to do that puts you in flow where you forget yourself where you use your potential and please say no to all those things that you have grasped onto because you're afraid of not being enough Just loose grip.

Just say no You don't have time for that.

If you spend time on stuff that's not you,

Then you won't choose yourself Thank you