Choosing Choice
Feb 04, 2026
There's a running joke in our family about double simchas.
We seem magnetically drawn to the same few dates on the calendar and pile everything on top of each other.
Yesterday, for example, was my daughter’s English birthday and my parents’ Hebrew engagement anniversary.
Last week was her Hebrew birthday, plus Deeds’ English birthday, plus my brother’s.
This coming Shabbos will be my eldest’s birthday, nineteen, (the year that Hebrew and English birthdays automatically double up.)
Even I don’t get my own date. I was born Memorial Day Weekend and Erev Shavuos. Of course.
There was a time this drove us nuts. No one gets a clean square on the calendar. No single spotlight. No feeling of “this day is just mine.”
But somewhere along the way, I realized we secretly love it.
We like to have our cake and eat it too. (Ice cream cake. A lot of it.)
As humans, our psychology dictates we resent choosing one thing at the expense of another.
And there’s a reason for that.
In the English language, the suffix cide means to kill.
Homicide. Suicide. Regicide. Fratricide. Even pesticide.
So when we say decide, what we are really saying is to cut off. To kill one option in favor of another.
No wonder decisions feel so heavy.
When we’re stuck trying to decide, what we’re actually facing is the unacknowledged violence of having to eliminate a part of ourselves. A desire. A longing. A valid truth. So another part can win.
Decisions force hierarchy, prioritization, and ultimately, loss.
And often, even when the decision is right, it can leave us feeling oddly empty. Like something essential was sacrificed in the process. Because it was.
The other day, while receiving a breathwork session from the incredibly skilled Nechama Stahl, I realized that I strongly prefer the word choice over the word decision.
On paper, they mean the same thing. In the body, they don’t.
Choice doesn’t require killing anything off.
Choice doesn’t label one part of you as wrong or bad or expendable.
Choice assumes you’re resourced and operating from wholeness.
Choice assumes there is a Self inside you big enough to hold the complexity and still move forward with integrity.
Choice doesn’t deny that other roads exist. It simply aligns you with the one that’s most true for the person you’re becoming
This is also why breath has become such a central teacher for me.
Are you an inhale person or an exhale person?
Do you like expansion or release?
Initiation or surrender?
The truth is, if you’re alive, you’re both.
Breath doesn’t decide.
It doesn't choose one side and eliminate the other.
Breath is life. Life force. And life is about honoring the rhythm.
Which, I think, is why our family has begun to appreciate the way we do our celebrations.
The teeny box on the calendar asks us to decide - Whose day is it, who gets the spotlight, who gets the square.
Meh.
Instead of deciding who owns the day, we let the day hold all of us.
Multiple people. Multiple milestones. One shared moment.
Nothing gets cut off. No one gets pushed aside. Not either or. A wider choice.
This is the philosophy I choose to live by.
It’s also the philosophy I train facilitators in.
Azamra Breathwork is about building the client's capacity to hold the Allness. The doubles. The overlaps. The competing truths.
To stay present in the inhale. To stay honest in the exhale. To trust that life knows how to move forward in a way that honors everything you’re bringing to the table.
Next week Azamra’s newest breathwork facilitators graduate into the world.
When we return, we will be opening limited registration for the next cohort. If you've been waiting all year for the opportunity to be considered, the day is almost here!
Choosing you!
Join the Mailing List!
Life happens in little bits. Learn to love the little bytes.
