I took part in a planned process about choosing whether to survive. For those few of you that understand what I am saying, kudos, you've been to a personal development seminar. If you haven’t, no worries, we are all still doing what the process teaches all the time, and that is the relevant fact here.

In this seminar, we are given the choice to either live or die notionally-of course the scenario is compelling. It's unclear what the story wants of us once we dig in, so we have to be guided by our own values and principles. It’s a really good one to make ya think.

I did this particular process about 10 or so years ago. It wrecked me. I went home haunted and disturbed about how my values caused me to act. My mind spun, processing, processing all what I was presented with about myself. 

I went to my young childrens room to try to sleep or gain a bit of solace with which to sleep. It wasn’t forthcoming. My brain filters broken, I racked my conscious self all night. I found morning still in a state of fight and surrender simultaneously. 

I was presented with whether I would give up my life or not, for another. We mostly hope we would and worry that we wouldn’t when given the choice. I was sooo proud of my response because without a second thought I did. 

In thinking about it, I believed most people would choose to keep their own life, that most would not give away their own precious self. To my surprise, most sacrificed themselves. That alone rocked my beliefs. 

Now, I know it's just a nominal experience and that in reality it still could go completely awry in comparison. The point isn’t to get me to choose such a response to prepare for that reality, nor to be in that reality but rather to elicit my typical response of my real life. 

In other words, how do I live that value in my life currently, and really; do I? And should I be? The process asks some pretty core questions. In the hands of a trained person this exercise is phenomenal. 

In the hands of any untrained random; I think it could be dangerous to its receivers without the point and purpose being held by the facilitator because it can take people to the deep parts of their soul and meaning in life. We aren’t all used to being in that cavern.

This time, when I did this process, not only did I recognize it but I knew since those 10 years where I stood in whether I ought to live or not. I didn’t know what I might get out of the process this time, but I submitted to it anyway to see. 

What’s funny (not ha ha) is that I still received valuable information for myself during the scenario when I thought I knew how to act to get what I wanted from the experience. The segment taught me more and on a whole other plain. 

I was raked over the coals internally again, left questioning where my value lies and I felt like I already knew before starting. It was good for me. I got to process more and gain new nuggets of information presented to me. I felt surprised by its ability to grab me again. I wanted something different than what I received, again.

This time, I picked appropriately to my values and desires and how others treated me didn’t match my own understanding of the encounter. I was faced with myself again and had to decide anew from what about the sequence I would learn.

It just goes to prove that we can always keep learning, even from the repetition of places, people and experiences from which we have already learned. The kicker is whether I am open to learning what the moment is offering and the value I place on what I have absorbed now.