Which Path Will You Choose?

Posted on June 9, 2024 by Louise Gallagher

Perhaps one day, you’ll stand at a crossroads, faced with a choice of which path to take. To the left, the road less travelled, obscured by mist and mystery. To the right, the well-worn path, visible with its straight lines and predictability. You see its potholes and debris, but you know you can navigate them. You’ve done it before. Why would tomorrow be any different?

As you stand at this crossroads, you glance back at the road behind and see all you’ve been through to get here: trials, tribulations, and traumas. So many hardships. They weigh heavy on your heart, but like the road, they are familiar, so you hold onto them.

Standing at the crossroads, staring at the past, you tally up the years behind, noting they outnumber the years ahead. Dare you choose a different path?

You gaze into the distance of the unknown path to the left, shrouded in mist, and then to the one you know so well to the right. Both will lead to the end of the road. But which to choose? The path to the left, full of adventure, mystery, and wonder, or the right, where predictability offers the ease you tell yourself you deserve.

Perhaps, in your indecision, you’ll look again at the path behind you. Instead of trials and tribulations, you’ll see mountains climbed, stumbles and falls over which you triumphed, and lessons learned that enriched your journey. You’ve traveled this road, falling and rising, again and again, until you arrived at this moment where you must choose: to carry the burdens of the past that weigh you down but feel so familiar, or to stand in your brilliance and celebrate your strength hard-won, courage earned, and resilience gathered on the journey.

Which will you choose?

I hope you honour your brilliance. I hope you recognize that through every hardship and triumph, you have grown stronger, more powerful, more vibrant, and magnificent. It is this truth that has brought you to this moment, where you stand at the crossroads of the future, deciding which path to take.

Which will you choose? The road most travelled? Or the unknown path, where your heart dances and your soul sings the songs of the wild. Which will you choose?

My Contract

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Louise Gallagher

I am finally feeling as though I’m catching up on lost sleep. Finally awakening without rolling over and hitting snooze. And that little voice within me wants to whisper, in it’s oh so critical way, “It’s about time, you lazy bum. There’s no time to be tired. Get going.”

And I push it away (the voice that is) with a loving touch and remind myself, “It is as it is and as it is and as I am is all okay.”

One of the areas we spend a lot of time working on in the Choices training room, and an area that trips most of us up, is our tapes. Those thoughts we repeatedly cycle through our minds that tell us we are failing, falling, losing our grip. Those messages we’ve carried from the ‘then and there’ into the ‘here and now’ that would have us believe we can’t, don’t, won’t, will never, measure up, be enough, have enough, do enough, give enough.

And telling myself there’s no time to rest, no time to take time for myself, is a tape I’ve carried a long, long time. It doesn’t work for me very well, but a tape doesn’t care about how well it works for me. Like most lies, it only wants to be believed.

I have a lot of tapes. From I’m too short to I’m too loud, to I can’t do it, to I should have known better or it’s all my fault. My tapes are not my friends. Though often, they’ll dress themselves up under the guise of being good for me, they always hold me back with their limiting belief that I am not enough just the way I am. They are always critical of the work I’ve done, the place I hold, the way I am. Tapes limit the expression of my magnificence because they would have me believe, I am nothing but…. a loser. A lost cause. A failure. A fraud.

The gift of knowing I have tapes is that when they do arise, when they do leap in to fill the gap or trick me, I catch them before they push me down. And while sometimes I don’t see them until they’re front and centre and screaming in my mind, I am better able to redirect their intention to shut me up, or shut me down. I am better equipped to recognize their lie and override them with the truth of my contract statement — My personal statement that connects me to the pact I made with myself to always live my more, to always live leaning into the unknown of who I am in a world of wonder — I am an alive and radiant woman.

Living my contract is a personal commitment I made when first I went through Choices and claimed the more of what I want in my life — more joy, passion, love, commitment, happiness. To live it, to be it, I needed to arm myself with the strongest statement I could make that would remind me — I am not my tapes. My tapes are not my friend. And today, stating, I am an alive and radiant woman, awakens my passion, my awe and my desire to express my magnificence with every breath, every step, every thing I do and say and create.

Living on contract keeps me dancing with joy, no matter the weather. It keeps me singing as if the world is singing with me. It keeps me living in the radiance of being alive, every moment of every day.

It is a beautiful morning today. The sky is clear. The snow has melted and though the grass is brown and the trees still bare of leaves, the promise of life shimmers in the golden light of sunrise breaking across the horizon.

It’s a beautiful morning. Time to live it up on the other side of my comfort zone. Time to laugh and dance and sing and kick up my heels and be all that I am when I let go of believing who I am doesn’t make a difference.

We all make a difference. What that difference is, is expressed in how we live each day.

Namaste.

Celebrating the Heroes Among Us (2nd edition)

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Louise Gallagher

It is ‘Heroes Saturday’, the day on which we celebrate the heroes in our midst.

Yesterday, Trevor Boller wrote this on his FaceBook page about his wife, Tracey.

“My Hero this week is my wife Tracey Merrett She is goes weekly to Mustard Seed to assist with an art program there where inner city ppl come to express themselves in art. They have built up trust for her and she comes home energized on a Thurs night. Who has energy by Thurs, let alone 1030 at night? On the table was a bag this week of gluten free bread and some products. She was bringing this to a patron who shares he rarely eats because he can’t because of Celiac or something. I was so touched to see this bag on the table and was given to him last night. I used to think that everyone in Alberta could find food some place. I was educated! ♥”

He’s right. Tracey is a hero! And so is Trevor!

I’m coaching in the Givers 2 weekend of Choices, the life experience/personal development course I took six years ago that changed my life by letting me explore my limiting beliefs and giving me tools to live everyday with joy, passion and peace in my heart. It’s something I love to do, something that feeds my soul and brings great joy to my heart. The program couldn’t run without its volunteers. When the 90+ people walk into the room on Wednesday afternoon until they walk out Sunday evening there is one thing they absolutely can be assured of, they will be loved – even in those moments when they do not believe they are worthy — they will be loved. And, for the 30+ volunteer coaches who give of their time, talents and treasures, they know there is one thing they will do perfectly throughout the five days of seminar, Love the people when they walk through the doors, and keep on loving them. In that love and their giving spirits, miracles unfold. Husbands and wives let go of hurts and fall in love with each other all over again, a man finds the will to live, a woman finds the courage to claim her dreams, families are reconnected, lives are reclaimed and spirits soar.

To everyone coaching in Choices this month (and all the other months too!), you are heroes.

I’ve never met Maureen Doallas in person, but, for the past 3 years I’ve been inspired and informed by her blog, Writing Without Paper. We’ve become ‘soul sistars’, exchanged emails, chatted on the phone and cemented a friendship I treasure. Everyday at Writing Without Paper, Maureen celebrates the ingenuity, creativity and excellence of humankind by posting interviews, essays, and links to other sites, and sometimes, she shares beautiful treasures of her own poetry. When her book of poetry, Neruda’s Memoir was published, I quickly ordered a copy and have been slowly devouring each delicate poem and intricate image she weaves with her words for the past year. Maureen makes a difference every day by graciously sharing her talents and teaching us about all that people are doing to create wonder and beauty and inspiration in our world. (and if you want some wonder and inspiration in your world today, go check out Maureen’s Saturday Sharing. (My finds are yours) And do say hello! She’ll be happy to see you!

Maureen Doallas is a hero.

I have never met Grace Brown. I first heard of her through Maureen’s blog earlier this month. I wish I knew Grace. If I did, I’d give her a high-five, a happy dance, a hug, a huge Thank You! And I’d tell her how she has inspired me through the difference she is making for victims of rape and sexual assault. Grace is a college student and a photographer in New York and the creator of Project Unbreakable: The beginning of healing through art. Maureen writes on her blog, For Project Unbreakable, Brown, a college student, invites victims of rape or other forms of sexual violence and abuse to write a quote from their attacker on a large piece of poster board and to then be photographed holding up the quote. Yvonne Moss, a rape survivor and advocate for sexual abuse victims and one of the women Brown has photographed, states on Brown’s site that the project is “a way for victims to take the power back of the words that were once used against them.”

Grace Brown created this short video to highlight the importance and relevance and healing power of Project Unbreakable. Please share it.

Grace Brown is a hero.

We all need heroes. Who are yours? Take some time today, and everyday, to celebrate those who inspire, move and motivate you to make a world of difference. And let me know who they are. I’d love to share the story of your heroes here!

The world needs heroes. Let’s all be one. Let’s all celebrate the ones we know!

Namaste.