Why You Don’t Need to Be Chosen

My dear friends,

We all know how good it feels to be chosen by the right opportunities, investors, partners, friends, and communities.

We are naturally and neurologically hardwired to seek safety and survival and many of us associate this with being chosen, which can bring our nervous systems much-needed temporary relief through a sense of acceptance, belonging, and validation of our worth.

The problem with this programming is that if we are not aware of the dynamics at play, it can keep us in survival mode as we continuously seek opportunities to be chosen, accepted, and validated. It can create a situation where we develop long-standing habits of abandoning ourselves and conforming for the sake of being chosen and accepted, until we forget who we truly are beneath it all.

For women in particular, society has a constant stream of unattainable standards and moving goalposts, which keep us sprinting on a never-ending treadmill just to feel that we are enough. But instead, we end up drained, depleted, and too burned out to challenge and change the social and economic systems that profit from our labor, depletion, and conformity.

As long as we fall into this programming and seek to be chosen externally, we will not know true safety and our minds, bodies, and nervous systems will stay in survival mode. This can wreak havoc on our mental and physical health, not to mention, whatever we pursue will be from a place of fear and lack, which will further reinforce the same fears and lack.

To truly thrive and move through the world with deep peace and security, you need to remember that you have already been chosen.

Think about it: Despite all odds, and the many generations it took to birth you, you have been chosen to be alive at this point in history. And in the over 8 billion human beings that exist today, there is truly no one else in the world like you. You have specifically been created to be here because it is your unique presence, smile, voice, creativity, joy, gifts, and talents that the world needs right now.

As long as you have breath flowing through you, you have been chosen to be alive, simply for being you.

Once you really sit with this and truly understand the preciousness of who you are, that the same creative force that created the sun, the moon, the galaxies, and the stars, also deemed it necessary to create you, you’ll realize how truly chosen you are.

Over this next month, until our next letter, I invite you to take a few moments each day to remind yourself and let your body absorb this:

“I am chosen. I do not need the world to choose me. I am already chosen because I am chosen to be alive in this moment in time. I am chosen to breathe, because my presence is what the world needs right now. I am chosen to love because my love is what the world needs right now. I am chosen to create because my creativity is what the world needs right now. I am chosen to be alive because my aliveness fulfills a purpose that only I can fulfill. I am chosen because I choose me and I choose to trust the wisdom of the power that created me and flows through me.”

This affirmation is drawn from The Womenifesto, which includes a collection of eleven essential reminders for women that I published last year. You are welcome to read them all here.

As you remind yourself (and your nervous system) of how truly chosen you are, also start practicing choosing yourself in the present moment and allowing yourself to be here, right now, where you were created to be.

It is from here, and from the fullness, peace, and safety you feel internally, that you give yourself the power to do the choosing – choosing only the activities, opportunities, workplaces, partnerships, and relationships that support your wellbeing and thriving.

It is with these choices and your own aligned choosing that you can fully share your unique gifts, light, and leadership with the world, doing so with greater ease and joy than ever before.

So instead of worrying about the future or regretting anything in the past, practice forgiving yourself and entrusting your future to the same creative force that chose you to be alive right now.

Instead of reaching for your phone to scroll when you need a break, practice choosing to be with yourself: take a breath and ask yourself (and your body) what you really need to feel nourished and rested.

Instead of draining yourself by chasing people and opportunities that don’t see or value you, practice choosing your peace, pouring your energy back into yourself, and trusting that you will be guided to the right people and opportunities in the perfect time.

You are chosen to be here.

Here is all you need to be.

And choosing to be here is all you need to do.

May you always remember how chosen and precious you are,

May you continue to choose the present moment for yourself,

And may you truly thrive.

With love,

Maliheh