Destiny, Karma and Free Will

Last week I invited you to notice how you feel. Just stopping every now and then and noticing. Nothing big—hopefully an easy task.

Considering it’s my own challenge to myself, I tried to do that as often as I could. What I noticed, though, is that I have a tendency to live mostly in my head. It’s hard for me to truly tune into my body. Actually, “hard” isn’t the right word. It’s not really hard—it’s just not automatic. When I ask myself, how do I feel?, I hear the narrator in my head. But to truly notice how I feel, I need to listen to my body, not to the narrator.

I’m curious—what do YOU notice when you ask yourself how you feel? Please share with me in the comments. Maybe even stop reading for a second, close your eyes, and really notice: what are you feeling right now?

When I closed my eyes just now and dropped my attention into my body, I could feel subtle sensations in my skin—specifically my arms and my neck. I could feel my belly slightly expanding and falling with the flow of my breath. I also noticed a little bit of urgency, a tighter sensation in my neck, because I have to keep an eye on time—I’ll need to leave in 15 minutes.

So, what does this actually do? This noticing—what does it really do? And why am I inviting you to do it as often as you can?

What it does is simple: it helps you drop into the right here, right now. It pulls you out of habitual patterns in the brain and brings you closer to reality—actual reality, not projected reality. Melissa Tiers often says, “the brain runs on prediction,” and the only information it has comes from the past. So slowing down and checking in might give you a chance to feed your brain fresh information—from this very moment. Of course, I’m simplifying (mostly for myself—I’m a simple creature), but you get the idea.

Not to mention, the teachings of Yoga—thousands of years old—begin with one instruction: be here now. Modern spiritual teachers say the same thing. Be here now.

Anyway—why do we want to be here now?

I need to make a small detour. I want to talk about destiny, karma, and free will. Which one of those things is true?

I think all of them.

In my understanding—and I don’t claim to be right, this is just how I see it—destiny is something you come into this world with. There are many, many possibilities within destiny, but certain things just aren’t possible within a given destiny. For example, I can be many things, but I cannot be the Queen of England.

Karma is the most probable timeline—what’s most likely to happen based on ancestry, social conditioning, superstitions, culture, habits, and so on. It’s kind of a default mode.

Free will is where we make choices and change our habits. That’s how we jump timelines—how we shift from the default mode and move toward what we actually want.

Dreams and your life’s purpose exist within the realm of your destiny. When I say dreams, I mean those yearnings of the heart—not the “shiny things syndrome.” There’s a big difference. In my experience, dreams and purpose are patient. They feel expansive and joyful. They feel like a magnet, a pull.

The shiny things syndrome, on the other hand, is jittery. It has urgency. It’s a little bit mad and it seems like there’s never enough. The strong belief of that state is: I just need to get this thing, and then I’ll be happy. That feels more like karma to me.

So, why am I talking about dreams, life purpose, karma, destiny, and free will?

Because I think life purpose is important. I remember thinking about it when I was four years old. Our life purpose is whywe came into this life—so what could be more important than that?

And what stops us from moving toward our purpose? Karma. The set of things and conditions created in the past—the default mode.

What helps us shift out of the karmic/default response and into something else—something aligned with our purpose? Free will.

And where does free will live? In the present moment. In the here and now. In full awareness of the now.

By noticing how you feel in this moment, you start to notice the gap between you and your thoughts, feelings, habits, and tendencies. And in that gap, you can make a different choice—something not from your default setting.

And if you’re present more often, you can move toward your dreams instead of following the path of your defaults. The choice is always yours. The power is in your hands.

So this week, let’s keep practicing noticing how we feel. I’m working on not doing things from a sense of urgency, but instead waiting until I find a calm space—so my next step can arise from wisdom, not from a knee-jerk reaction.

Notice, I don’t repress what I feel. I notice, and I wait. Sometimes, I process.

In all honesty—it’s hard to wait. Sometimes the anger is strong. Yesterday I went to the post office. I had sent Christmas cards to my dad and my brother in December. One got lost, and the other came back to me in March with a sticker saying I could resend it at no charge. (Ha!) I needed to send something else anyway, so I brought the returned card along. I asked for a refund. They said no refund, but they could send it to the addressee. I said, “OK, please send it.” I figured my dad could at least have a laugh, and that’s something.

But I noticed myself getting angry. I caught thoughts like, “This is not fair! Who the fck wants to receive a Christmas card in summer?! They took money and didn’t deliver the service! Blah, blah…”* I was raging inside. I might’ve shared a bit of that displeasure with the clerk too. So no, I can’t say I was calm and zen.

But what I can say is this: I returned to balance much faster than I would’ve in the past.

It’s not an all-or-nothing game. This is practice. It’s all-or-something. It’s progress. And instead of beating myself up for not staying calm, I celebrate the fact that I noticed my reaction in real time. That let me calm down faster, let it go, and move on with my life—without carrying those feelings around all day.

So again—the mission this week, should you choose to accept it, is to keep noticing how you feel. Try to drop your awareness deeper into your body. See if you can have a direct experience, instead of just listening to that voice in your head narrating everything. Please do share your findings. It’s always more fun when we have friends to do things with (at least for me).