What Do You Choose?

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor Frankl

The other day, my friend Anna told me she'd been inspired by a natural disaster insurance commercial. I thought: insurance? Inspiration? Really?

Turns out, yes. After a minor accident and some thoroughly unglamorous bureaucratic chaos, she'd been feeling completely out of control. The ad's message landed right in the middle of that: take back control over your life. Four words from an insurance company, and she felt something shift.

It stayed with me too. Who hasn't felt that way - at the mercy of circumstances, stuck in a situation that seems to have its own momentum, wondering how you got here and how to get somewhere different?

That conversation sent me into a long reflection about where I give my own power away. And where I could choose differently.

The Space Frankl Talks About

Frankl's quote is one I return to often. That gap - between what happens to you and how you respond - is where everything interesting lives. Most of us spend very little time there. We react, we ruminate, we replay. We let the stimulus dictate the response without ever stepping into that space and asking: what do I actually want to choose here?

It shows up in the obvious places - relationships, health, work, money, family dynamics that have been running the same pattern since 1987. The sneakier territory is the internal one. The stories we tell ourselves. I can't. I'm not enough. It's too late. I've been a remarkably skilled storyteller in this department. Still working on the plot twists.

The shift begins with a single move: pause. Breathe. Lean back. It sounds almost embarrassingly simple. And it is — but simple is not the same as easy, and it is far from ineffective. That pause interrupts the loop. It opens the space. And in that space, choice becomes possible.

“Take the lesson, drop the story.” - something Natalie Kuhn said in The Class once, that has never left me.

Questions Worth Sitting With

These are the ones I come back to when I notice I've drifted into powerlessness:

Where in my life do I feel stuck, and what story am I telling myself about why?

What would one small action in a different direction feel like?

What fears are genuinely protecting me and which ones are just old habits wearing the costume of wisdom?

Are the stories I'm running actually true? In my experience, most of them aren't. They're inherited, outdated, or simply never examined.

One thing I've learned is that action - even very small action - lifts something. There is a reason that rumination makes us feel worse and movement makes us feel better. The mind follows the body. Momentum follows choice. Waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect feeling tends to extend the fog rather than clear it.

Health as a Practical Example

Say you've been feeling drained, sluggish, or stuck in patterns you know aren't serving you. It can feel overwhelming - like there are too many things to fix and no clear entry point.

But you do have choices. You always have choices.

Take responsibility for how you feel, as agency. Commit to one small step and then another. Find accountability - a friend, a coach, a community. We are genuinely better at change when we are witnessed. Examine the story that says it's too hard, too late, or that you've already tried. Rewrite it into something that actually serves the woman you are becoming.

What it requires is a direction and a willingness to begin.

The Everyday Dimension

Choice is not just the territory of big life decisions. It lives in the small moments too, the ones that seem inconsequential but quietly compound over time.

The 20-minute walk you take or don't take. The snack that supports your energy or the one that borrows it from tomorrow. The moment you pause before responding to something that has pushed a button, and choose where to put your energy rather than letting the situation decide for you.

The goal is always simply practice - the ongoing, imperfect, sometimes frustrating, often surprisingly satisfying practice of pausing and choosing.

the hwell takeaway

The better we learn to observe our own thoughts, the less power they have over us. Powerlessness begins to dissolve the moment we step into that space Frankl describes and ask: what do I choose here?

Observe. Choose. Act.

It's yours. It has always been yours.

So, what will you choose today?

With love 💚,
Gaby

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