The question that has plagued religion since the dawn of its inception. Do we have free will or is our destiny planned before we are born? I think like all polar opposite viewpoints the answer is that we have a little bit of both.
This conversation was revisited with Caitlyn not too long ago. We discussed how ‘perfectly’ all of the dark things that happened to us worked out. I don’t believe that my father taking his life was part of a grand cosmic plan, it was definitely his free will. However, just because there is some free will in life, why does it seem like people want to believe it is all free will? I don’t think there are many examples of these opposite ideas having the answer in one extreme. Why would fate be any different?
I think that our souls are the ultimate planners. I imagine that they see everything that is happening with everyone in the entire world and therefore they are able to predict in high percentages what the outcome of all of the most important situations we face. They also know how to orchestrate with others that are able to help us. However, there is always an uncertainty that we will make a decision against what our soul has already planned. Just like life, everything is constantly in flux. Even if we make a decision that was not the ‘plan’, the soul is capable of tweaking the path to still get what is needed out of life.
I would not be surprised if it was always part of my life plan to seek to understand consciousness. It is definitely something that lived deep within me since as long back as I could remember. While my path led me here, it does not mean that it is or was my only path to get here. Regardless of how I got here, it may have always been my life plan to eventually get here.
I think that at some point in my dad’s depression, his soul began to assume with high probability that he would take his life without any intervention. While this was not a part of the original plan, each day that went by caused the chance of it happening to climb higher and higher. I think each of our souls were then well prepared when it did happen.
The first remarkable thing that occurred to prepare us was Caitlyn’s career shift. A co-founder of a startup dealing with mental health reached out to her and asked if she would be interested in applying for a position. Given how Caitlyn felt about her previous job, it was like a stroke of fate that something fell into her lap. The company was involved in working on notifying doctors to ask patients about mental health based on a questionnaire that the patient filled out before seeing the doctor.
Caitlyn learned so much about mental health and before we both knew it, we were involved in countless stories of people that completed suicide. We even went to our first Walk Out of Darkness walk as people that supported mental health awareness, even before it meant anything to us.
When my dad passed away, we were already introduced to a community that understood this situation. Caitlyn, with an understanding of the importance of therapy, then sought out someone to help her process these emotions. The therapist she found had incredible synchronicity for us, she lost her father to suicide and mother to cancer. At the time, Caitlyn’s mother was currently battling cancer. So this therapist understood everything she was going through. Since our wedding was approaching, we both decided to see the therapist and do some couples counseling.
The therapist gave us both tools to learn how to cope with what had happened. Caitlyn and my journey both went towards the same direction, but in parallel. We both were learning how to deal with grief. However, my spiritual awakening took me to a specific place of self healing that was only slightly different than what Caitlyn had to deal with. Especially since at that time she was not having to deal with the same intensity of grief that I did.
Not long after our wedding, Caitlyn’s mother passed away to breast cancer. However, by this time, Caitlyn knew a little bit more how to grieve. She also had worked so hard on herself that she had her inner strength. I was able to also assist by guiding her to the same resources that I had when I went through what she now was going through.
When we reflected back on the journey, it does seem like there were inner workings that were there to get us to where we are today. Its hard to feel like there was any other path other than what it was. The one thing that keeps me from believing it was all fate is my dad’s choice of free will.
I have since said that I believe my mother-in-law waited until after our wedding and after my dad passed to leave us. It is just hard to picture how it would look like if our parents died in the other order. I think it would have caused a lot more strain on our relationship. Caitlyn was better prepared to deal with grief because of my father’s passing, and I was there to help as well.
There are many what-ifs in this world and many answers that are meant to not be answered. Fate and free will may very well be something that can never be proven. I think that the mystery of how it works is the only way that it can exist. If we knew the answers to how fate and free will truly worked, I am not sure if the lessons we came to Earth to learn would have the same impact.
