I recently offended a Facebook friend by posting the statement, “Everything in life is a choice.” I did not intend to offend my friend with that statement. But if I hadn’t offended her, I would not have started digging deeper into the true meaning of the statement. When I posted it, I genuinely believed that it was accurate and true. But to express it properly, I really needed to bring free will into the picture.
You are spirit that desires to learn, to evolve, and to grow. The best way to learn is through experiences. Throughout all of your lifetimes, you learn lessons. The ways you act and react in situations is a matter of your free will; it’s completely up to you. Therefore, you may learn the lesson you were meant to learn, and you may not. We control what we learn, but we don’t get to pick how we learn. That’s up to the Universe.
But what if you didn’t learn the intended lesson? I’ll answer that question with another question: Does anything in your life feel like it’s repeating? Things may seem similar from one situation to the next, or they may get worse and be more difficult. Whatever the case, you’re repeating things until you learn the intended lesson. Sometimes that takes multiple lifetimes.
Life’s whole point is to learn lessons. We strive to grow and improve ourselves. The best way to do that is to have the experiences that teach us the intended lessons. That circles me back to the concept of choices. The choices all began before we arrived here in this lifetime. We no longer can control what we chose, but we can control how we act and react. We can choose to make the best of this life. We choose to love, to grow, to give, to connect.
So will you grow into the lessons before you? Or will you become resentful and bitter and turn your back on them? Choosing to grow is difficult, but it’s necessary. It comes down to personal responsibility and these six spiritual principles:
- We’re responsible for our own unfolding and progression of our self.
- How we act or react in any experience or situation will determine the outcome of that experience. When we accept this, we’ve begun accepting personal responsibility.
- Nobody can force us, or make us do something against our will. We have free will to reject or to accept any experiences in life. When we fully understand this, we will stop looking for outside entities to take the blame for things that have already happened to us, or that will happen to us.
- When we learn how to act instead of react to experiences and situations, then we’ve claimed responsibility for our lives. We can then begin to direct it according to our personal desires.
- Regardless of the situations in which we find ourselves—whether they’re of our own creation or we were drawn into them by outside circumstances—the way we’re affected becomes our responsibility. We must apply this sense of responsibility to all facets of our lives, because the same rule always applies— whether it involves family, community or universal situations.
- In the end, what others think of us won’t matter. Only what we think of ourselves will matter.
Now, regarding what you chose to learn. People often ask me “Why did I make this choice?” or, “What’s the point of this lesson?” I might be able to offer insights on what it may be, but really, you are the only one that knows the true answer. You must search your spirit and ask it those questions. The Universe doesn’t answer the “How?” and the “Why?” questions. It just answers the “Who?” and the “When?” questions. And the answers always are, “You!” and “Now!”
When I explain this to parents, they often struggle with it. As a parent myself, I sure understand why. Parents usually want to shield our children from grief and pain. What we fail to realize when we do this is that the child chose these lessons, in the same way that we chose our lessons. By taking away their grief, their pain, or their personal responsibility, we’re taking away their opportunity to learn their lesson. And what happens when we don’t learn a lesson? Yes, we repeat it. So you may feel that you’re protecting and helping your child. But doing this may be stunting their spiritual growth. They need experiences to grow and learn. Just like we do.
When we’ve learned all we were meant to learn, we can choose to “go home.” I’ve explained in a previous post that each of us has approximately five opportunities to go home. It’s up to us when we leave this earth. So if a person only had two or three lessons to learn, they may decide to go home at a time we’d consider to be early. But if you’ve fulfilled all the lessons you were meant to learn, you may just enjoy being here. Just like everything in life, the time of our death is a choice.
Right now is the perfect opportunity to begin taking responsibility for where you are and to participate passionately. Have intent and focus and be here in the present!
Light and love to you,
Faith