Free Will is an Action

People have debated for centuries whether we have free will in life or if our fate / destiny is predetermined.

The conversation that usually surrounds free will or destiny speaks of the two of them as static things. Either everything is predetermined, so it can't change, or nothing is, and we can make our lives whatever we want. There's no fluidity, flexibility, or movement in either of those definitions.

For a while now, I have been operating in the middle path, which Forrest Gump offered: "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time."

Of course, there are forces stronger than us - gravity, thermodynamics, karma, universal law of balance - which supersede our ability to do whatever we want at any time.

What also can interfere with us making conscious, intentional acts in the world is all the stuff that we have hanging out in our Shadow. It is this grouping of "unseen" forces which we do have the capability to change, and thereby free our own will.

Consider that we all have Shadow sides. Psychologist Carl Jung brought into our awareness that we all have things which we at one point or other deemed unsafe to be or feel and tucked them away in little dark corners of our psyche. Since we have deemed them unsafe or unacceptable, yet they still exist, these things will subtly influence (or at times, outright govern) our behavior from a place beyond our conscious control.

This can show up in many, many ways, such as automatically rejecting help or love, continually striving for the next promotion or accomplishment, acting like we have to be right, shaming others, trying to control others, as well as anxiety, depression, and all sorts of addictive and compulsive behaviors.

When these sides of us are activated, we do not have full conscious control over our actions. Our subconscious desire to avoid a specific feeling will be the driving force in our decisions, overriding any conscious intent. In those times, our will is hijacked by our inner, shadow world.

The work of personal and spiritual growth is to gain greater awareness of what exists in our shadowed sides. The work is to explore the sides of us which we are not proud of, not connected to, and not honoring of. As we understand these dimensions of ourselves, as we give ourselves permission to feel the feelings we long ago quarantined, we will have more space to make a free will choice on how we respond to stimulus.

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl quipped, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

To increase that space between stimulus and response is to free our will.

So instead of thinking that free will or fate is absolute, consider how your actions can affect how much you are driven by your unseen, subconscious wants and aversions, and how having the courage to face your inner world frees your will in your life.