Decisions are hard.
That might feel true for you, especially if you tend to be indecisive.
It’s also an over-simplification.
You make thousands of decisions each day. Even if you tend to be indecisive, not all of those decisions are hard.
Some decisions you hardly have to think about at all.
This is true for both decisions you make on your own and those made in collaboration. Many are easy.
People often get stuck on the “big” decisions.
Over the past two decades, as a lawyer, real estate broker, and coach, I’ve helped my clients make some of their biggest life and business decisions. Which strategy to follow. Where to move. When to move. What career to choose.
The decisions that often keep people stuck.
Many people think that these decisions are “big” because the stakes are higher.
What separates the easy decisions from the hard decisions isn’t the stakes. It’s the nature of the values at issue, and whether, in the eyes of the decision-maker, those values are in conflict.
Tony Robbins says that “all decisions are values clarifications.”
When you look at decisions through this lens, it’s easy to see where and how people get stuck in making “big” decisions. The big decisions often raise more conflicts in our highest values.
We can use the Kabbalah Tree of Life framework to get out of the stickiness of these decisions.
A Case Study
Here’s an example to take this out of the realm of theory and ground this in practice.
I recently consulted with a couple who have been wrestling with the decision about whether to switch their young daughter to a different school.
The current school is a bi-lingual school, with classes taught in two different languages. For this couple, who were both born and raised in Europe, educating their children in a bilingual setting is important. They place a high value on the ability of their children to speak multiple languages.
The challenge with the daughter’s current school is that the school draws students from a wider radius. Not many of the students in her class live in the immediate neighborhood, which socialization with classmates out of school more difficult.
Because their daughter doesn’t go to the local public school, she doesn’t have many friends in the neighborhood.
Feeling rooted in the community and creating a sense of belonging for their children in the local community is also a high value for this couple.
The quality of the education at both schools is excellent; the local public school is one of the best in the county and in the state.
So this decision becomes “hard”:
On the surface, it requires the parents to clarify which they value more: giving their child a bi-lingual education or deeper social connections in the local community.
When a decision seems to call on us to choose between two or more high-priority values that seem to be in conflict, many people start to get tied up in “decision knots” or circling in “decision loops.”
Resolving Decisions With the Tree of Life
This is where we can apply the Kabbalah Tree of Life framework. More specifically, we can apply the principle of Tiferet, which is the third of the seven lower spheres.
Tiferet is often translated as “beauty,” “harmony,” or “balance.” With these definition, it might not be obvious at first look how this would apply to decision-making, so stick with me here.
The quality of Tiferet is not simply about aesthetic beauty or finding an “even” balance.
Rather, it’s about weaving together seemingly disparate elements to create something that is larger than the sum of its parts.
Tiferet mediates between the first two of the lower sephirot, Chesed and Gevurah.
In the map of the body, Tiferet sits at the heart space, centering the left and the right arms. It’s the only sephira (or sphere) on the Tree that touches all the others.
It’s job is to pull in the information or inclinations from all sides and integrate them to create a whole that supersedes the individual parts.
Applying Tiferet in Life Situations
Tiferet asks us to honor the diversity of all voices in a conversation, to give voice to all needs, desires, and values — even when they may appear to be in conflict.
This may arise in situations like the case mentioned above, in decisions you make as an individual, or in committees, teams, and other collaborative settings. It even applies in negotiations (which really is just another form of decision where values tend to be in conflict).
To approach a situation through the realm of Tiferet is to approach with a mindset of “yes, and” instead of either/or.
Why Decision Knots Form
Decision knots form when we don’t honor all voices.
When you’re making decisions by committee, it’s easy to see where voices aren’t being honored. Some people speak up more and others remain silent.
It can be harder to see this when the voices are all internal. You may not even realize what you value until faced with this decision knot. My clients often find clarity — both on their values and on a path forward — once I help them see and name the values that they have in conflict.
By allowing all voices to be heard and all values to be expressed, we can see beyond the initial dilemma that many decisions seem to create. When we practice this skill of integration, we often find a new option — not a compromise or a “middle way,” but a completely new path that we may not have seen before.
Tiferet takes us out of the realm of deciding with the logic of the mind and helps us access our heart wisdom that knows the path to take.
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