Before You Change, Notice What You’re Choosing

May 22, 2025 - Season 1, Episode 45

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Before You Change, Notice What You're Choosing

“You can’t choose something different until you’re aware of what you’re choosing.”

When I heard this, something clicked. It reminded me how often we’re moving through our days on autopilot—reacting, responding, spiraling—and not even realizing that we’re making choices at all.

In this episode, I talk about what it means to notice. Noticing the small ways we show up with ourselves, with our thoughts, with the world around us. So often, the way we feel isn’t about what’s happening externally—it’s about what we’re choosing internally, whether or not we realize it. I walk through how we begin to bring gentle awareness to those choices. The moment we notice we’re choosing frustration, shame, or disconnection, we open up the possibility of choosing something else: compassion, empowerment, presence. And when we shift what’s happening inside, the way we experience everything outside begins to shift too.

Try this out in your day. Gently notice. Ask yourself, what am I choosing right now? You might be surprised by how much more spacious your life begins to feel.

Topics:

Grounding practices for nervous system regulation and presence
How unconscious choices shape your daily emotional experience
The difference between reacting and responding
Shifting from outrage to empowerment
Using awareness as a powerful tool for change

Episode Resources:

Click here for a raw, unedited episode transcript

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (00:04.184)

Hey, and welcome to Calmer Conversations. I’m Cecilia, your host. Today, I am gonna share something that I listened to that really inspired me, and it’s related to noticing and how we work with our brain. And I know that noticing comes up over and over again on this, but I really do think it’s one of these skills that we cannot hone enough, we cannot be with enough. So let’s have a little bit of grounding.

If you’re driving, if you’re walking, even if you’re just seated at your desk, attentively listening or seated on your couch, maybe lying down, relaxing, you might give yourself a little wiggle. You might notice the seat or the chair or the couch or whatever it is underneath you. You might feel the ground beneath your feet.

And if you can and you’d like to, might close your eyes and if you are soften your gaze. But if you’re driving or walking, you don’t need to do that. Just bring your attention back to yourself.

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (01:02.702)

You might take a few intentional breaths, maybe making a sigh or sound for the exhale.

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (01:11.778)

maybe taking two or three slower breaths, not necessarily deep, but slow breaths, maybe into your belly using that diaphragmatic breathing. You might even remind yourself in this moment that you are safe if you are in fact safe. You might see if you could pick out a few things that you notice in your environment, that may be something you’re touching, like maybe the feeling of the steering wheel underneath your hands. It might be

the goldfinch that just flew by you. It might be the temperature of air on your skin or a taste in your mouth, but seeing if you can notice them and come into this present moment.

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (01:54.348)

And it’s so easy to skip this kind of thing, but what you just did, giving yourself that minute and a half of grounding and centering reorganizes your nervous system. creates different neural pathways. It actually opens you up to what we’re about to talk about. So you are now more receptive to whatever it is we’re going to discuss today. You can use this trick whenever you want to use this trick before you take classes, before you communicate with your kids or your partner or your friends.

taking a few minutes to tap into yourself is, it’s life-changing. And in fact, we had a whole, I have this nervous system class and I have promised them monthly calls and I’m finally coming through on that. Sometimes I can have lots of big ideas and I need a little bit of push to help get them over the finish line. I don’t know if that’s you, but that’s definitely me.

And so we did it and we talked about how you can have practices this small and how big of a difference they can make in your life, right? You’re coming home to yourself, you’re checking in with yourself. Okay, so what did I read? I said I wanted to talk about this. listened to it actually. I do read, but I listen more than I read, honestly, because I have, that seems to be a little bit easier. It’s a switch that I noticed when I had my first kid.

that listening to things oftentimes was more available than reading things. And although I love reading and I feel like I absorb things differently when I read them, when I listen, sometimes it’s fun to read and listen. So this is what I heard. It says you can’t choose something better until you are aware of what you are choosing. This is sort of a mic droppy idea. And so I’m going to read it one more time because I think it’s so it means so much, right? You cannot choose something better and you could also say something different. You cannot choose something different until you are aware of what you are currently choosing. And what this means is that each moment to moment, we are choosing how we engage with ourselves, how we engage with our brain, how we engage with our nervous system. And we make these choices

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (04:09.088)

generally based on our historical choices that we intentionally made or we unintentionally made because of our family of origin or our society or our culture. And we have some momentum around these choices, right? These things are already running. They’re already what our brain is used to. And so we almost, we do preferentially continue to choose them. A lot of times we don’t even know we’re choosing them. We don’t know that we’re choosing to be mean to our body.

We don’t know that we’re choosing to undermine our trust with our kid by doubting them over and over again. We don’t know that we’re choosing to stay in outrage over empowerment because it’s what we see around us over and over again. We don’t recognize that we’re making these choices. We don’t even know that they are choices most of the time. So the first takeaway is how you are being in a moment can be a choice. In fact, it is a choice. Even telling yourself I have a choice of how I am

how I am being moment to moment, is very empowering for a lot of people because a lot of us think that how we are moment to moment is the result of everything that happens around us. And it is not in fact our choice. We are reactionary beings and it’s something that comes about because of other things around us. However, you have a choice in the moment. You have a choice of how you are being and who you are being. So that’s the first takeaway, right? You have a choice.

Once you know that you have a choice, which is amazing, right? We are these beings who have choice in our life. Isn’t that so cool? Like just stop and think about that for a moment. I have a lot of say in how I feel today. That feels so good to me. It feels, it’s not some message that I received as a kid. I got this like, could be anything you want to be, but like, I don’t know, just not in a real way. didn’t feel like.

You can be as anything you want to be as long as it’s what I want you to be. It’s kind of what I received or at least how I heard it. But this idea I get, I have a lot of say in how I feel today. And in fact, when I notice how I’m feeling today, when I notice how I interact with my brain and my body and my being, that is when I start to get the choice to be

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (06:27.758)

and show up and react and talk and feel in a different way.

When I start, I’m gonna bring it up again. It’s on my phone, so I had to open it. I can’t choose something different and better until I’m aware of what I am choosing. First I have to know I have choice, and then I get to say, now I get to become aware of my current choices. I am choosing to be annoyed at my kid for touching me. I am choosing to be outraged at this news thing. And I just, I think I’m gonna try, I’m gonna try and get this.

had an interview with somebody else, but I want to bring the episode over here so that we can have it on this podcast because it was so interesting. The outrage is okay. The outrage is actually can be really helpful, right? Because when we notice the frustration or the outrage or the fear or the anxiety or the overwhelm or whatever it is, when we notice that, suddenly we get to see where is it rooted? What nervous system state and kind of…

reaction? Am I rooted in what kind of thoughts am I rooted in? What is the thing that I have been choosing over and over again? And then asking, okay, do I want to choose this? And for instance, when it comes to the outrage, you might notice the outrage and notice where it’s coming from. And then you might say, but I’d rather act from a place of empowerment, or I’d rather connect from a place of love with my kid. Or I’d rather

not feel afraid in this moment, I’d rather lean more into trust. And when I lean into those places, I can actually see different opportunities and I can be different in the moment. And when I choose to be different in the moment, everything responds around me. So for instance, with the outrage, which again, totally fair and valid to be outraged at things that you might read about the news, things that are happening.

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (08:28.194)

but that’s saying I’m going to choose to step into empowerment because when I act from outrage, I am not my full self. I am in this place where I am reacting. But when I take the time to notice this reaction, this choice, then I can say, I wanna take this information I just gathered and I wanna take a breath and I wanna move into empowerment.

And from this place of empowerment, want to ask myself, what do I want to do about this? What do I want to do with this information? How do I want to show up today? And that is the key. This is like 10 minute key to the universe, right? That is the key to almost everything is recognizing that you have choice, noticing what you’re currently choosing. And then like very intentionally asking, is this what I want to choose? Right? This is the act of

noticing choice of noticing current behavior, noticing current nervous system states, noticing current thoughts, and then with curiosity asking, would I like something different? And if you do this, this sounds so simple, but if you do it, I promise almost everything will change around you and in your life. Your circumstances might not change, but your experience of your circumstances will change. I want you to try this out. I want you to let me know how it goes. This is like,

It’s obviously more fun and interesting to do it with coaching and to do it with other people around, but do it by yourself and notice how it goes. All right, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.

About Your Host

I’m Cecelia, and I am passionate about helping people live the life they want to live and feel how they want to feel in their life. We do this together using mindset tools, nervous system regulation, and curious inquiry. I know that enjoying your life, feeling calm and even joyful is available to you.

If you’re ready to start right now, grab a recent workshop replay here on creating momentum.

Personally, I manifest in many ways- partner, mother, coach, sister, friend, daughter, citizen, feminist. I live with my husband and children way downeast Maine on a little bridge-connected island (after spending my first 35 years in cities). It’s beautiful here with the ocean and the wind.

I help my clients make big and small changes in life one step at a time.

No matter what’s happening in your life right now, I know you can feel different. I know that by working with your brain and nervous system, you can feel calm, content, joyful, AND you can still go after the big and small goals in your life (getting there will just feel different).

This process is simple and approachable.

You’re probably thinking- but it won’t work for me. I’ve tried it all or I was recently diagnosed with ADHD or I’m too old. But I promise, if you’re open to it, this work is not only transformative but suited for so many different kinds of people and brains.