The Trap of Mental Decision Making & Experimenting with Inner Authority.

“I think it’s going to be good,” I say as I look down at my pros and cons list, where the ‘pros’ side outnumbers the cons by two. According to the way we’re taught to make decisions, this one was obvious.

In 2020 I made a mental decision to accept a full-time job working for a mental health startup. It was a desirable position for where I was at the time. It had a chance to really ‘boost my career.’ It was in an innovative and exciting new field of mental health. I could potentially learn a lot in a field I was very interested in.

The cons: I wasn’t super excited about the pay, the hours were significantly more than was healthy for me to be working, and I didn’t feel solid about the specific treatment being offered. Still, according to my mind’s way of weighing the options, the pros outweighed the cons and I said yes.

Just a few months earlier I had received my first Human Design reading. I was told to wait to be invited and sleep on it before making decisions. While I was fascinated and deeply resonating with what was shared in the reading, my mind had no interest in giving up control.

I quickly made my pros and cons list and decided, from a place of nervousness, that I would accept the job.

As my mind predicted, it was an exciting start. I was learning a lot. I loved the team and getting to work hands-on with so many people, and I felt hopeful about what we could be contributing.

Then the honeymoon wore off.

All of the things on the cons list inevitably started showing up. I was exhausted, burnt out, feeling unrecognized, and not resonating with the company’s key performance indicators or the therapeutic treatment itself.

The part of me that wrote the cons list was having a big “I told you so” moment while all of me felt bitter and run down.

I started to try to find mental solutions:

“Maybe if they paid me more.”

“Maybe if I had a more significant title.”

In other words, maybe if they gave me a salary and an identity my mind would think is more valuable so it could validate its choice, this would all be ok.

The problem is to the Truth of me, none of that matters.

And, in true 1/3 fashion, of course I tried anyways. I initiated conversations pushing for more money and a promotion, only to be met with exactly the story I was subscribing to: “you have to prove yourself first.”

Ouch.

There it was. The exact message I needed to drop into the knowing that all of this had been about trying to prove that my direction and identity were worthy and valid.

And if I had turned it down? Who knows how those “I wonder what would’ve happened if…” stories might’ve played out in my mind.

Mental decision-making, pros and cons lists, are a trap. The mind has no business making decisions.

The mind is a wonderful tool for learning, sharing with others, communicating inspiration, telling stories, and organizing opinions, but it is absolutely useless when it comes to decision making.

Human Design is an energy map that helps us build trust with our unique life force while we experiment with making embodied decisions from our Inner Authorities.

Let me emphasize that this is an experiment.

It requires and deserves time and care. Overnight drastic changes can be destabilizing and ultimately not super helpful (unless you have a clear response that that is the way for you), but it’s going to be different for everyone.

The ‘deconditioning’ process (which is really just saying learning to make decisions from your defined, natural Inner Authority instead of your nurture or changing conditions, your Openness) goes in seven-year cycles.

There is absolutely no rush.

At six years in, I’m still learning huge amounts about what recognition and invitation really feel like for me and about my Emotional Authority process.

The mind that has built up all of these strategies across lifetimes to try to keep us safe and it does not go quietly.

A couple of years ago I was directly invited to a two-night ceremony at my neighbor's house in Peru. I brushed it off. A couple of months later, when I returned from a trip, he invited me again. I asked him to send me the details and I’d feel into it.

After sleeping on it, I tried to rush clarity and said thank you so much, but no thank you.

But then, it simply wouldn’t leave. This invitation lingered in my awareness to such an extent I couldn’t ignore it.

Finally, it landed. There was no more nervousness, no more back and forth, just a clear feeling that this experience was calling me and I was destined for it.

After a shaky first night, my mind tried to back out. I watched myself come up with all the reasons why I “didn’t like it.” The whole list of “too much this, not enough that, I’m uncomfortable because so and so.”

After sharing this with the facilitator, they asked what my intention was, what my goal for being there was, and said that I needed to trust the space.

This made me even more upset.

Goal? Intention? These are word spells I’m actively trying to not fall under.

I need to trust? Trust who?!

I don’t know this person holding the ceremony. How could I trust someone I don’t know?

Then the facilitator who invited me asked in a different way.

“Why are you here?”

Exasperatedly I said, “I don’t know why I’m here! You invited me and my body wouldn’t let me say no, so here I am! I don’t know why.”

He then asked, “And what’s behind the not trusting?”

And that’s when it landed.

“Because every time I’ve ever trusted anyone, I’ve been hurt or let down.”

The veil dropped and the core of the wound was exposed. I was cracked open.

And then those things wove together.

This wasn’t about trusting the facilitator. It was about trusting my own body, my own Inner Authority that led me to have this experience. It was about seeing what happens if I stay rooted in that and see it through to its completion.

The ‘why’ was that I was experimenting with living from my Strategy and Authority; With making embodied decisions and watching my mind kick and scream all the while.

I realized that what had looked like “trusting someone” in the past was actually me overriding my own Inner Authority and putting my fate into the hands of someone else that I was trying to prove myself to and receive validation from because I wanted, needed, them to love me.

The experiment was on. What happens if I see if I can trust my Inner Authority and watch myself have this experience?

I left the meeting and had download after download coming through around all of the times this pattern had shown up in my life. I came to ceremony that night clear; grounded in my why for being there.

Even my mind recognized that the way we had been showing up in the past, abdicating authority and putting trust into some external force, had not been leading to success. Everyone was on board to have this experience with full presence.

Sitting that night helped move so much of the resistance that had been stored in my body. I came away lighter, more clear, and with a deeper sense of trust and rootedness in my own center.

I never would’ve expected that experience to happen. I wouldn’t have sought it out. It was completely unexpected and my mind had nothing to do with it.

It opened my awareness to how much more successful and surprising life can feel when we let go of control and trust in the unfolding.

Once my mind stopped trying to make the decision and simply enjoyed the ride, it was able to see and experience everything that was happening.

And the more of these kinds of experiences I have, the less my mind protests about giving up control. There are data points now.

“Oh yeah, this whole waiting thing really does bring much more aligned experiences than what we were doing before, so I guess I can chill out.”

It’s not perfect. I still have many moments of going down the other path, but it becomes easier not to follow it very far and to realign with the body. It’s all about awareness and calibration.

Some reflections to check in with:

How does mental decision making feel in your body?

What do you experience in your body when you’re making pros and cons lists?

How can you keep the mind at ease through the process of waiting?

The real experiment? Learning how to let go of trying to control life and learning how to listen to the way that life is guiding us.