Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can cook a gourmet dinner, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you’re perfectly capable of cleaning your entire house by yourself, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can work 60hrs/week, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can practice 3hrs or more a day, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can run, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can eat all-organic free-range food, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because your voice can sing a particular style of music easily, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can spend time with someone, doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to.

You have a choice. To be in your integrity or not. To pressure yourself to do something or not. To do something for others or not. To take action out of “should” or “must” or not. To live from your own internal compass or someone else’s.

Where are you a victim of your own choices?  Where are your choices no longer serving you?  Where are you living out of a sense of obligation, a need for approval, a fear of consequences?

What would it be like to make a different choice?

Your voice can help you.

Listen to someone talk about the job they love versus the chores they don’t.  Or their favorite music versus the food that makes them sick to their stomach.  What do you hear?

Like the body, the voice gets tighter, smaller, and often lower when we are sharing about something that our soul doesn’t agree with.  It also opens, warms, and often raises in volume and pitch when sharing about something that energizes us and makes our soul feel alive.

Sometimes it’s the ‘thing’ itself that doesn’t work for us.  Other times, it’s the thoughts, conscious or not, that we may have about that ‘thing’.  But our voice, and our body, serve as the first step to discovery.

So as you go through your day today, I invite you to listen – to yourself and others.

What does the voice have to say about the choices that are being made? How can those choices be shifted to result in greater openness and freedom, vocally and physically?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to.