I have a decision to make. Which course should I enrol for at Camp Creative this year? Not an easy decision as I need to choose among 60 or so courses offered over the week in Bellingen, NSW.

There are obvious courses that are out for me: Only Men Aloud (singing), Metalwork and Welding (I know... I should be more open-minded) and Hip Hop (for young people).

I usually make my decisions on the basis of gut instinct. But this year, I'm struggling more than usual. I've been hearing about recent studies that say your gut is your second brain. So, maybe my gut health is not so good? Who knows?

I decided to follow the wisdom of therapist Thomas Moore, which comes via his wonderful book, The Care of the Soul. In this book, which is subtitled A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, Moore says:

Power pours in when we sustain the feeling of emptiness and withstand temptations to fill it prematurely.

And...

Living artfully, therefore, must require something as simple as pausing.

If you've never read Care of the Soul, you must. Especially if you tend to live a formulaic life rather than a soulful life. A soulful life is one that embraces body and spirit, which sounds to me like a yogic life, too.

I'm trying to avoid relying on logic to make my course decision and also caving in to thinking I have to make a hasty decision. But gosh, this is uncomfortable for me, this hanging out with lack of resolution. I often want to act 'to end tension', as Moore says below.

How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.

Just taking the time to write and weigh my words has helped move me in the direction of making a soul decision. But now that I've paused this long, I think I can tolerate a little longer wait. How does the expression go? Make haste slowly.