My life is created by my choices is a mantra that got me through some challenging times. So when I received the message below about free will, it gave me a lot to sit with.
My intention today is to explain my interpretation of this message after sitting with it for a number of months. Please remember that you have full agency to take what you want and leave the rest. I also invite you find your own interpretation!
Check out part 2 where I integrate this message into our relationship with food!
Free Will
Let’s start by exploring the concept of free will.
Free will is essentially choice. Your personal authority and power in the choices that you make. Do I accept the job? Leave the relationship? Shower? Eat breakfast? Free will allows you to “decide your fate”, which also comes with the responsibility and consequences of those choices.
With all this said, not everyone sees free will in the same way. To honor the power of choice, I wanted to share some common beliefs around free will.
Everything is predestined and we do not have free will.
We have 100% free will in everything we do.
There are pre-determined events in our life & free will determines when & how we get there.
We have free will, but within certain parameters.
I’ve sat with and believed, to some extent, all of the above at one point in this life. My personal belief, at the time of writing this, is that we do have free will and there are certain events in our life that our soul choses prior to incarnating. These events are chosen to help our soul learn and evolve.
I personally like this belief because it also allows me to see “adverse” events in my life as opportunities for growth. Sure, I may do it kicking and screaming, but a part of me knows growth will come from the experience…eventually.
Did it take me a long time to get there? Yes. Do I still have to work at it? Hell yeah!
Know Your Self
This brings us to the second part of this statement. It is in free will where you can know your Self or lose your Self.
First, let me explain why it is written as “your Self”.
When you see Self capitalized, it is usually intended to mean your truest Self, your soul, the Seer, high self, etc. This is the “you” that is eternal. This is the you that is always there, but is often forgotten in human form.
The choices that we make can bring us closer to remembering who we are. To reconnect and reclaim our Truth. Free will can allow us to Know who we truly are, at a soul level. Now that’s a BIG statement and I will discuss this more in just a moment.
Lose Your Self
Free will can also move us deeper into, as I like to say, our humanness.
It can strengthen our beliefs that we are who we were conditioned to be in this life. It reinforces the limiting beliefs and false narratives. Essentially, it can deepen the suffering and separation from who you truly are. To lose your Self, is to be separated from your truest Self.
If this concept is making your brain hurt, think about it in terms of depression. If you’ve experienced depression or know someone who has, you can very clearly see the suffering and separation that is experienced. It’s as if the person has become someone entirely different or a shell of the person they once were. This is a very similar energy around the separation from Self. I personally believe they are very much connected, but that’s a blog post for another day!
Please also remember that these concepts might be VERY foreign and might bump up against current belief systems. Be patient with yourself as you take this in…if you choose to. As always, take what you want and leave the rest.
Real Life Example
So what does this look like in “real life”. Let’s pretend you are driving a vehicle. If you’ve never driven, imagine you’re a passenger. Imagine you’re cruising along singing to your favorite song and all of the sudden someone speeds past you and cuts you off.
For most people, the primitive survival brain kicks in and depending on your nervous system, you might freeze up in fear, you might be filled with anger, you might retaliate, etc. While our initial reaction to the situation might be fear and/or anger, we can choose how to proceed. Notice if any of the scenarios below sound remotely familiar.
Are you so fearful that you’re hesitant to drive again?
Do drive after the person to cut them off or confront them?
Do you stew over this person cutting you for days, weeks, months, years?
Let’s explore why these actions might move you to “lose your Self.”
Lower Vibrational Choices
These choices might move you to “lose your Self” as they are keeping one in a lower vibration. You can think of vibration as frequency or energy if that is easier.
With that said, staying in fear and/or anger doesn’t always feel like a choice. It can often feel as though you’re stuck in these states no matter how hard you try to shift out of it. This can often be a result of operating through subconscious and unconscious patterning and programming. I explore this more in part 2!
Consciously or unconsciously staying in the energies of fear and anger keeps one in a lower vibrational state. This makes it harder to connect to our truest Self, which is innately at a higher vibration. Think about it this way. You can’t connect a landline telephone to the 5G network because they are operating at different frequencies.
You might be wondering why I said might move you to “lose your Self”. Perhaps your journey right now is about experiencing lower vibrational energies. Maybe allowing yourself to feel and express those feelings is part of your journey. Personally, I had to do the work to feel and express anger and confront fear to deepen my own connection with Self.
Remember this is not black and white. There is no right or wrong. Everyone’s journey will be uniquely their own.
So choices that keep us in these lower vibrational states such as anger, fear, jealousy, greed, envy, shame, dominance, etc. keep us from connecting and reclaiming who we truly are. They operate in a lower vibratory field. This makes it harder to connect to your Self as it resides in a higher vibratory field.
Higher Vibrational Choices
We’ve explored choices in this hypothetical driving scenario that maintain the separation from Self. Let’s consider some choices to move towards Knowing your Self.
Imagine again that someone just cut you off. You experience fear and/or anger initially. You honor the feeling(s) and shift your energetic expression by choosing to:
Shift into compassion and think he/she/they had an emergency and was racing to take care of it.
Believe that person is needing to be in control and play by their own rules as part of their personal journey and wish them well.
See this person as your teacher presenting you with an opportunity to make a choice to shift into a higher vibration of love, compassion and understanding to help connect with Self.
So making a conscious decision to see this person with compassion, understanding, empathy, love, oneness can help to shift your vibratory field to a level in which your soul resides. It unites you and that person rather than separate you. As you increase your vibration and move into a place of oneness with yourself and all that there is, you can reconnect with your truest Self.
To be fair, it can take A LOT of work to get to the point where you can consciously and comfortably shift into these higher vibrational energies. Also remember that shifting into a higher frequency doesn’t necessarily mean you stay there. It can take lifetimes to live a heart centered existence.
With that in mind, please don’t read this and think you have to do this all right now. Think of this as a seed being planted. Give it as much time, care and attention needed to blossom.
Moving Forward
Okay friends! This is my personal interpretation at this point in my own journey. It is subject to change as I change and I hope you give yourself permission to do the same. While there is so much more that I want to say, I will stop here and allow this to simmer and digest. Be sure to check out part 2 as I integrate this into our relationship with food.
As always friends, stay curious!
