In the spring of last year I had a big awareness that began to change everything for me.

You see… I’m an intense person.

Always feeling all the feels, always changing and growing, and always choosing things that are more than a little challenging. I’ve had my own businesses for the last decade, always taking risks and chances, while often struggling to stay afloat financially. I’ve always done more things at any given time than is typical. And alongside all that, I kept choosing the wrong relationships. Toxic, sometimes abusive, and always terribly unhealthy or hard.

What I realized last spring was that I was more comfortable in chaos. It may not have been happy or easy, but it was known. I knew how to be broke. I knew how to be in toxic relationships. I knew how to be overwhelmed and struggling.

Existing in chaos was familiar. 

Beyond that, my work is deeply rooted in my own experiences of trauma, loss, struggle, depression, and healing. Could I even create if I wasn’t in a state of constant chaos? Would I be relatable and able to help others through their own struggles? Could I just, like, be a person who is fine and happy and secure in all areas of her life… all at the same time? 

My whole system went, “what the huh?”

But once I had the realization and admitted it out loud, I started choosing something different. I started choosing to be a person who has been through chaos, who will probably walk through chaos again, but who no longer thrives in chaos. Someone who can connect to the memory of it all to create and serve, but who helps people through their own chaos from the other side.

If we live in chaos for long enough, we begin to accept its familiarity. When things go well, we believe it’s only for a limited time and that it’s not the norm. When things go too well, we self-sabotage. We tell ourselves lies and stories about how successful people are bad, or happy people are special and different. We pick fights or default to old patterns and behaviors. We crash the car, overspend significantly, or return to our favorite coping drug.

It all comes back to choice, as most things do.

We have to choose to tell ourselves different stories. To operate from an entirely new way of being. We have to stop believing that the other shoe is going to drop when things are good. We have to resist creating chaos because it’s familiar.

Good. Happy. Peaceful. Successful.

Healthy. Loved. Supported. Thriving.

These can be our norm… really, truly. 

Chaos can be a thing that happens because life is life… but it’s temporary, intermittent, passing. Some people have better circumstances to begin with, sure. But most happy, successful, and peaceful people have the lives they have because they CHOOSE it. And they keep choosing it, even when it’s hard.

My life is so much less chaotic.
My business is stable and growing.
My relationships are supportive and loving.
My life is happy, peaceful, and sweet.

I am thriving.

Chaos still happens.
Things still get hard.
I’m still healing.

I make the choice to live my life from a different place.

And it takes making the choice to do so every single day until it becomes more and more familiar. It takes noticing the unavoidable chaos and deciding to engage with it from a totally different perspective and way of being. Of thinking different thoughts, believing different things, and showing up in different ways.

It’s not easy, nor am I always graceful inside the choosing.
But change and choice take time.

So I just keep choosing them. 

I make the choice to live my life from a different place. It’s not easy, nor am I always graceful inside the choosing. But change & choice take time. @StephenieZ (Click to Tweet!)

Tell me, where are you finding comfort in the chaos? Or does it go by another name such as sadness, frustration, hopelessness, or struggle? Where do you need to be more honest about what you’re experiencing as familiar and known, even if it doesn’t feel good? And where can you start choosing different experiences? Different ways of being?

Very little is out of our control because we always have a choice in how we react. We can always choose to learn and grow and thrive. Always.

I’m not saying it’s easy or without heartache and tears.
Remember, the choosing is the hardest part.
And it’s also the most rewarding.

So, keep choosing it.

Stephenie Zamora is an author and life coach, business and marketing strategist, and founder of CallOfTheVoid.tv. Here she merges the worlds of personal development, energy healing, intuitive coaching, writing, and mixed media art to help individuals rise up and come back from the darkest, hardest chapters of life. She guides her clients through the challenging process of re-orienting to their lives, relationships, and work in a way that’s fully aligned with who they’ve become in the aftermath of loss, trauma, depression, and big life changes. After struggling with PTSD, grief, and anxiety from a sudden and traumatic loss, she navigated her own difficult healing journey and has set out to help others find the purpose of their own path using The Hero’s Journey as a framework. Connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at www.CallOfTheVoid.tv.