The moment I stopped asking “Why is this happening to me?” and started asking “What am I choosing?”
There was a season in my life where everything felt heavy.
I worked hard.
I tried to do the “right” things.
And yet, certain patterns kept repeating.
Disappointment.
Resistance.
A quiet sense of powerlessness I didn’t want to admit.
This was my initiation into Cause and Effect.
I started noticing my language. How often I gave my power away without realising it:
“This happened because of them.”
“I had no choice.”
“That’s just how it is.”
These statements sound harmless, even realistic. But energetically, they position us as effects rather than causes.
And living as an effect is exhausting.
Here’s what I learned, sometimes uncomfortably: Victimhood isn’t a moral failure. It’s a survival adaptation that develops when we don’t yet feel resourced enough to choose differently.
I had moments where I genuinely didn’t know how to respond any other way. And that mattered.
Cause and Effect doesn’t shame you for where you’ve been.
It invites you into choice from where you are now.
The shift began when I started asking a different question: What is mine to choose here even if I don’t like the options?
That question changed everything.
I began to see how my attention created momentum.
How my reactions reinforced loops.
How my avoidance had consequences.
How my silence was also a choice.
This was sobering and liberating at the same time. Because if my choices created patterns, then new choices could create new outcomes.
One of the most powerful reframes this principle offered me: Pain is information.
When something hurt repeatedly, it wasn’t life punishing me. It was life signalling that a choice needed to change.
This required honesty. I had to look at where I was staying out of fear, where I was saying yes to avoid conflict, where I was choosing comfort over truth.
And I had to do it without self-attack and self - critique.
Values as the inner compass
Cause and Effect anchored me into my values.
I realised that when my choices aligned with my values, even difficult outcomes harmonised. But when my choices contradicted them, life felt confusing and heavy.
This principle taught me to live from “I get to choose” not in a controlling way, but in a grounded, adult, self-honouring way.
Try this:
Instead of asking “Who is responsible for this?” try asking: “Where am I still responding from habit rather than choice?”
The answer often brings immediate clarity.
How to practice this
You don’t need to control life to be its cause. You simply need to choose consciously, learn from outcomes, and adjust without self-punishment but self-compassion.
Each conscious choice rewires your relationship with power.
What I know now
The day I stopped waiting for life to change was the day life started responding differently.
Not because I forced it, but because I chose to meet it as my true-self, with my Soul and as One, not a bystander.