Your Destiny Isn’t Set in Stone but Avoiding Your Highest Path Has Consequences
Why Running from Your Soul’s Intentions Is A Bad Idea
Fate or Free Will
In the age-old discussion of free will versus destiny, you may fall more on the side of those who believe we direct our fate entirely. There is no larger plan, you’d say. There’s just chaos. Randomness. We choose what to do with our lives and things unfold from there.
Or maybe you believe this is all predetermined by some cosmic being in the sky and we get no say in how our lives play out at all. It’s all just a series of inescapable events; like dominoes falling, it’s inevitable.
I’ve landed somewhere in the middle.
I trust in myself as my own highest authority, acknowledging that I am that greater divine intelligence as well as a physical embodiment of it. This means I have the free will to create my reality.
I also have found, on an experiential level, there are things (people, places, creative endeavors) I feel so drawn to, I can’t ignore them. It’s as if I’ve committed to them at a soul level before incarnating down here. Some might call these soul contracts. In my experience, some are particularly hard to break.
I think these soul desires, these things we’re drawn to, guide us to our highest-aligned path. This is the path that evolves us to our peak version of self, one that shows us how to reach our greatest potential as a soul on this earth.
The Car Metaphor
I’ve come to see it like we’re on a road trip following our internal GPS. There are some locations we’ve plugged in and feel compelled to visit no matter what, but we get to take all kinds of detours along the way.
We can get there however fast or slow we want, take rough back roads or smoother paved ones, and if we don’t make it to all of the stops before we run out of gas, that’s okay. We get to try again with a shiny new car and continue driving from the last destination we managed to reach.
You Can Choose to Align
Wherever you fall in the free will vs. fate debate, it’s important to recognize that our choices have consequences.
Even if you believe all of life is predetermined, you still have the choice of participating in it or not. And if you decide to stick around, you have a choice in following that predestined path with a spirit of surrender or resistance.
And as far as those things we’ve committed to, I’d say we can avoid them forever (some will find this easier to do, depending on the nature and strength of their soul’s intention). We can choose to drive around aimlessly and stay away from those plugged-in destinations entirely, but the consequence of so much resistance is greater suffering.
What does resistance feel like?
The irony is that, generally, resistance to our soul’s highest-aligned path is present because we’re trying to avoid suffering. We usually ignore our intuition screaming at us because we’re afraid of what will happen if we take a risk.
Like, we’re afraid if we leave a job that doesn’t enliven us, we won’t find any financial stability. Or if we walk away from that too-comfortable (stagnant!) relationship, we won’t find anyone else to love. We don’t want to take the leap of faith because we don’t want to land on our faces.
So, a lot of the time, resistance feels like a grinding inner conflict between the deeper, quieter part of you that wants to expand and your loud ego that’s scared and wants to stay small and safe (remember that this safety is an illusion — you were never in any danger in the first place, and your ego-mind’s incessant chatter to the contrary is old programming).
Some people miss that quieter voice entirely because the fear is too loud. But if you’ve been on an awakening journey, it’s likely you’re starting to be able to distinguish between the ego and the soul a bit better.
You can listen to your intuition and you know when it’s trying to tell you something important. In this case, you’re likely to feel even more sensitive to the emotional and physical consequences of resistance. You might feel depressed or anxious, restless or disinterested in your day-to-day life.
Resistance to your soul’s path can often feel like swimming upstream. Things in your life just feel hard; there’s no ease. It’s all you putting in an incredible effort, trying to get things to go your way as opposed to flowing in the natural direction life wants to take you.
What are the real-life consequences of resistance?
When we ignore the inner call of our soul, life might leave us alone for a little while, but that call will come back louder and louder. In the meantime, our egos, thinking they know better (thinking “this is how I stay safe”)are keeping us stagnant.
For example, say you want to grow your kids’ ballet business. You’re running classes from your house because it’s free, but it’s too small to fit more than ten students.
Your ego says: “If you buy the studio space, who’s to say you’ll be able to fill it next month?” And “If you don’t fill it, you can’t afford rent the following month.” (Never mind that you can’t know what next month will bring, the ego is always projecting fears out into the distant future.)
You don’t want to try and fail. It’s not “smart”. So, instead of taking the risk on your passion, you keep the class small. But every once in a while, you think: “God, I wish I had more students, then I could afford to buy studio space of my own.”
Facepalm.
How are more students going to fit in your tiny house!? You say out of your mouth: “I want success.” But your actions say: “I want to stay at this level.” You’ve got one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. How are you meant to move?
This is just one example, easier to explain because it deals with physical space, but we do this all the time. We keep ourselves small while saying we want to expand.
Illusions and The Ultimate Question
Sometimes, we convince ourselves one has nothing to do with the other. Like, “Okay, I’ll grow, but I only want to grow financially, I don’t want to be challenged to expand on an emotional level.”
Not so. If you’re on a spiritual awakening journey, you’re going to be challenged to understand that everything is connected. We’re holistic beings. Resistance to expansion is holistic, too. If you’re resistant in one area of your life it will begin to affect other areas of your life.
If it gets really bad, meaning you’ve been in resistance for a long time, it can lead to moments of utter chaos where everything in your life seems to be falling apart around you. This is the Universe stepping in to say: “Okay…that’s enough now. It’s time to be brave and take that leap.”
But that’s if you’re lucky. Sometimes, there’s no intervention and life just lets us keep ourselves stuck. Forever. This is what we call karmic cycles: we choose the same thing over and over and over again, while we steadily shout about change. We convince ourselves that we’re moving forward when we’re actually spinning in circles.
Change only comes when you change. You change first, then your life changes.
I think the ultimate question becomes: Is comfort worth staying small? Is your perceived safety worth stagnation?
No one else can make that decision but you. Life, God, or Source (whatever works for you) will not make it for you.
Maybe your path is fated, maybe you do have some destinations plugged into that internal GPS of yours, but no matter what, you’re the one with your hands on the wheel. So, drive.