How to Make Soul Decisions

Four years ago, when my husband lost his job, I decided that this was divine timing. It was time to move. I’d wanted to move from northern Quebec for a while. I decided that the job loss meant that it was time.

So I created a plan and set my plan in action. I strategized. I strong-armed my son who had no desire at all to leave his home in his first year of Cegep (college). I created the perfect move strategy. I thought it was perfect timing for my Mom to live with us. She’d been living in the family home alone, in a different city than my sister and me, after my Dad died and so I thought that all of us living together in the same city would be perfect. I was totally consumed with the frenzy of organizing the move, selling houses and convincing everyone how great it would be.

But I had a constant pain in my stomach.

I tried to ignore it and push it away. I shoved down my doubts as my Mom changed her mind again and again about selling the family home. I pretended not to see my husband’s anxiety and my son’s quiet but firm rejection of the move.

This was happening.

My mind was leading the way, fixing problems and making it work. This was what it meant to create the life you want.

Wasn’t it?

I’ve never been very good at deciding what I want and going for it – but this time, I was doing it.

However, I missed one crucial and critical element. That’s why I’m sharing this story because you might be missing this too in your decision-making.

You don’t make the decision. The decision makes you.

A decision that’s right for you isn’t something that is generated by your mind and your will. It isn’t something that you force to happen – no matter what. A decision is something that wants to be born, something that wants to happen. It starts inside, not outside – with an inner yearning. It starts growing inside…like a pregnancy.

It’s like a ripening, a quiet voice inside, that says it’s time for this to happen. You listen to that voice, accept its counsel and then create the conditions for the thing to be.

This isn’t something that we’re taught in school. We are taught to plan and strategize and sweat and go after what we want. We aren’t taught to wait for the thing that wants to happen to tell us.

It sounds ridiculous, but I have so much evidence in my own life that this is how things happen, that I can’t NOT share that with you.

This is the very problem that I’ve had with business creation. I can’t force the things that I want to happen. I’ve got to align myself with what wants to happen. This approach is SO far in opposition from what we are taught that it seems mystical and magical. I don’t think it is, I think that this is the way things actually work, and we need to start talking about that.

The decision makes you.

It makes you – start saving money, start listening to a specific podcast, start taking a class, finally take up yoga, start making money. The decision gives you urges and desires that seemingly have nothing to do with it. The decision makes you prepare for the shift to happen.

That’s not what happened in my decision to move 4 years ago. There was no quiet voice. My mind decided, seized an opportunity.

I was getting “danger -danger” messages all along. We looked at over 100 houses and just couldn’t find one that was right. I had a constant ache in my belly – the wise guide in my body (that we all have) that I was ignoring.

We finally found the “perfect” house, with a granny suite, lots of land and a pool. Our first offer was rejected, as was our second offer. And only then did I realize that I needed to trust my body wisdom which was screaming for me to stop trying to make this move happen.

It was suddenly crystal clear that life was telling me in no uncertain terms that it was not the time to move.

So I listened. We stopped all negotiations.

The second that we told the house owners that we were discontinuing negotiations; my husband got two job offers. It’s like the offers were waiting to arrive.

We didn’t move.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Two years later (two years ago) this time my soul decided that it as time to move out of the North. I knew from inside that living in the North had run its course – for me. It had been the perfect place to raise our now 19-year old son, but time was up, it was over.

I felt like Oprah Winfrey when she ended her talk show – like if I stayed any longer, I would shrivel up, be unused, unfulfilled, live a smaller life than I was supposed to.

This time, I had no visions of the future, no elaborate plans. I just knew inside me that something was over. It didn’t have anything to do with my relationship with my husband; I just knew that my time in the North was up. It was like I’d had a 16-year deal with the North and the door that was previously locked had swung open. It was time to leave.

I decided that I was moving to the Ottawa region. No matter what. This was not a decision from my head; this was a decision that came from the inside. I had no idea what that meant, how it would happen or what the circumstances would be, but I decided from the inside out, that it was happening.

This was my soul’s decision, not my mind’s. I made a commitment that no matter what, I was moving. No matter what happened in my relationship, with our son, no matter what other people thought, I was listening to the timing that my soul told me was right.

I knew it was going to happen – from that deep inner place where there is no doubt.

I made more money from my business in that year than I ever had. I started teaching Coaches my own methods – something I’d also always wanted to do. I knew I needed to be more financially independent to make this move happen. I became more visible as a Coach, Facebooking and Tweeting and making videos. It was like a surge of energy from inside was propelling me so that I could pay for a house by myself.

A year after that decision, we had two houses, one in the national capital region. We didn’t sell our house in the North! My son decided to go to university in the Ottawa area. We bought a super-cute little house close to bike paths and walking trails and walking distance from my son’s university. My husband goes back and forth between our 2 houses, and I’m mostly in the Ottawa area except for the summers, which are beautiful in the North.

I feel like I’ve been given a gift that I just had to let happen.

My mom did sell her house and lives in an amazing retirement community that she loves, in the same city as my sister and now much closer to me. Our son is thriving.

And I didn’t plan any of it.

I listened to my soul.

Your soul is always guiding you. All you need to do is listen, and act on her counsel.

Here are my tips for making soul decisions:

1. Hear the message from your soul.

From the time I heard the message from inside my soul, “The north is over. It’s time to go.” I listened. I didn’t hear a booming voice. I didn’t see a vision. I know through my felt body senses. When I imagined continuing to live in the north, I felt like life was draining out of me. That’s how I knew it was time to go.

2. Dare to decide. Make a commitment that you will assist this thing to happen.

Your job isn’t to make anyone else want what you want so that they’ll support you. Your job is just to do what you can, what feels right to help this thing to materialize. For me, that was getting into action in my business, making more money and saving it. (Truth be known, it just seemed to happen. It didn’t feel like a big effort.)

3. Notice the next step right in front of you and take it – even if it doesn’t seem related to your decision.

That’s your part of the job. Trust that the universe/God will step up and do the rest.