How much influence do we really have on our lives?
The scientific theory of cause and effect, thereof being what we sow, so shall we reap, and even thinking about what Newton said “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, are all sayings that we may discuss along with the concept of fate and destiny. Because humans have free will it is thought we can choose the cause or course of action which will lead to effect, so we can argue that effect through conscious choice is destiny.
Some people think that human characters are born at birth and therefore people have little choice over action or cause, therefore fate is the effect and nothing can change this. But I am not so sure of this, as I have seen people, including myself, grow and mould new characters through life which leads to the effects of free will.
If we can mould our destiny each time we mould our characters, how do we mould our character to master our own destiny?
The answer to this question lies in the subconscious mind, the hidden aspect of ourselves. The subconscious mind drives our unconscious behaviours. These can be helpful to us or not. To give an example of unconscious behaviours, once we learn how to drive a car, we can do this automatically without thinking too much about what we are doing, the same could be said of walking, we don’t think about how we walk we just do it, but what if we grow up with beliefs that are drummed into us as children, that we are not good enough, pretty enough, strong enough, important enough or intelligent enough to achieve certain goals in life? We may then settle for a life less than we deserve because our automatic thoughts may be, “I can’t do that”. “Nobody in our family ever got a degree so don’t get ideas above your station”. I wonder how many have heard that said?
A client came to me a few years ago for hypnotherapy and asked for a past life regression as she was feeling stuck with her life. She was finding it hard to meet the right person and all her romantic relationships failed. We did not even have to go into a past life regression to find the answers to this clients’ perceived problems.
I asked her what her mother’s beliefs were about men. She went on to tell me that her mother had been a victim to her father who had a drink problem. He would go down the pub every night after work, she was often on her own, and subsequently her mother would be angry and take this anger out on her. Her mother could not take this anger out on her father as he was always in a bad mood and impossible to talk to when he had a drink. The times her mother did argue back and allow her anger to surface, rows were heard which meant my client felt unsafe growing up.
My client formed the belief that she could not confront a man because he would be angry and therefore a passive aggressive behaviour seemed a more viable option. Her mother would often use sarcasm as an attempt to get her point and anger across which only meant it came out sideways and caused further conflict. Her mother would complain to my client about her father and point out to her that all men were weak and they could not be trusted. Her mother was so afraid of speaking up and forming healthy boundaries, that it kept her frozen. She had the belief that divorce was frowned upon at that time and she cared too much about what other people thought of her. Her mother had the belief that she would never have coped on her own without her father and she would never want to be around another man ever again. The option of being alone was never an option. Her mother needed to be with someone, no matter what the cost to her. This was possibly down to society at that time and the lack of support for women financially so this story may apply to many who are reading this.
My client’s mother was completely unaware that she was passing these unhealthy behaviours onto her daughter. Her mother was a victim, and she was instilling beliefs in my client from a young age that women were disempowered around men. My client had inadvertently seen alcohol as the problem as that was something else her mother had instilled in her, so she made a conscious choice to avoid men that drank thinking that would prevent her from a life of misery. It never occurred to her that the issue was much deeper than the alcohol.
My client had grown up thinking her needs were not important. She had relationships with men who needed her and were victims themselves. This helped her to feel needed by them and in control but she found herself not questioning if the person she was with was filling her needs. When their behaviour became intolerable, she would end the relationships but felt a huge loss as her need to be needed had gone, driving my client to feel depressed and further cementing her beliefs that men were weak and untrustworthy.
After repeating her mistakes a few times, she came for therapy and learnt it was the lack of being able to communicate her needs, the lack of healthy boundaries, lack of self -empowerment and a failure to love herself that was the issue. All her problems were not about men at all they were all about her and how she viewed herself. Because of her belief about men, that became what she expected and therefore she kept on attracting these unhealthy relationships to her. She had always been the one to take the anger from her mother and had led her life afraid of not being accepted, wanting to rescue others so she felt needed and valued and up until therapy it had never occurred to her to put that love into herself and grow her own sense of empowerment and self -love so she was happy to be alone, free from the limiting beliefs that had held her back.
If my client had not come for therapy, fate would have decided her future based on the beliefs that had been handed down to her. These beliefs can go back generations if they are not healed and prevented from filtering down into future generations. Jung talked about the collective unconscious so some of our beliefs may not even come from family. They may come from society or religious and spiritual beliefs.
Once we shed the layers of beliefs and limitations that hold us back, we can then start to shape our destiny. Destiny is something we choose and by working on ourselves and learning how to love ourselves we can truly be in charge and shape a new future for ourselves. A future that we want and we deserve.
My client went on eventually to meet someone who she is truly happy with. By becoming aware of her self – limiting thoughts and behaviours she was able to break the habits and beliefs passed down to her and shape her own destiny.
We can choose our destiny as each and every one of us deserves to have joy in our lives.
If you would like to have a chat about therapy please get in touch.