“Aren’t there any genuine exceptions or exceptional circumstances where you would break your principles? I don’t steal either, but if I had to choose between stealing and starving to death, most likely I would steal.”
And most likely I would too.
And if there was a level 5 hurricane going across my town, I would skip my afternoon jog!
Yes, exceptions do exist. Circumstances where you can break your principles can happen. But ordinary day to day life is NOT filled with exceptional circumstances.
If you find yourself constantly having “exceptional circumstances”, maybe your criteria for an “exception” is not that high and you should revisit it!
Maybe at some point of your life you may need to steal in order to eat. But, let’s face it, the odds are most of us – fortunately – won’t be in that position ever in life (Forgetting your wallet at home is NOT the same thing!)
And even in those so called “exceptional circumstances”, have you explored other alternatives?
Have you truly ran out of options?
Do you REALLY need to break this principle of yours and are you doing it out of a place of conscious awareness?
Or from a place of an emotional outburst?
Are you following the easier road instead of the one you know you should follow which may be harder but it’s the right one?
Only you, with your honest insight, can answer these questions in a true way. No one else can do it for you.
If you really need to break your principles or value system, do it from a place of awareness and power.
You explored other alternatives, you know the consequences of your actions and you still decided to do it. Doing it out of awareness, it’s much different than doing it unconsciously or out of neediness, weakness or laziness.
You retain your power and Will, instead of losing it.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of clients, students or friends who tell me they’ve done something they regret, and they always say: “Well I had no choice, I was forced to do it”.
Yet, the soon as I ask a few probing questions, they quickly find out they indeed had other choices and that particular behavior was brought out of weakness or laziness.
The way to know if what you’ve done (or not done) was the right thing or not is always given by your own Will:
Do you feel stronger or weaker after having done it?
Your Will – and your own energy – will always tell you if you’ve done the right thing. Even when you’re doing something against your own principles and values, when it’s done out of a place of FULL awareness after deep thought, you retain your power.
This topic will soon be developed at length as an update for the 10 Steps to Inner Power training.
