#FreeWill is a foundational attribute of all higher order beings in the animal kingdom. The resonance of #consciousness paired with mobile limbs creates an opportunity to choose how to direct our abilities physically in the needs for survival and the desires of the heart and mind. The #instinctual duality of #FearAndLove is innate to the processes of our interpretations and reactions to the world as safe or unsafe, nourishing or detrimental, therefore surmising a choice as effective or ineffective. Free will is the #WildCard we carry in the face of any fatalistic belief or experience that incites a #FeelingOfPowerlessness. Free will is what makes us #autonomous in our hearts and minds, no matter the circumstances of our physical being. To disregard one’s #FreeWill is to become a slave or a martyr to an experience, a person, or a society. The concept of being #BornFree has merit no matter your race, country of origin, or childhood narrative. The concepts of fear and love within one’s perceptions of the world are what hold the power to confine and disregard free will or to activate and pursue it. All the layers of experience one records throughout the youngest age and other climactic circumstances in life stages create the structures of belief for the capacity to make choices and shift the paradigm of these structures to embrace new opportunities for success in the acts of free will.
Fear is a basic instinct, yet in the mind it may be cultivated as an irrational response. Once the analysis of an experience is rationalized, the persistent cycling of a rationale can cause the perception of fear to assert itself in circumstances that are irrelevant to the initial association of #fear. If one sees the world through a lens of #fear the natural reflex to contract away or to destroy in order to “get away” will define strict limitations on the observance and enactment of one’s own free will. Being open to an experience or shutting down an experience are the most basic responses we have in life. The more we shutdown from experience due to #fear, the more we enslave and martyr ourselves to our perceived limitations. The more we open to experience and learn how to navigate our use of free will in #choice, the more we expand our perceived limitations and allow the possibilities of what we seek and welcome in to succeed. In the mind, each hemisphere represents this #duality of possibility. When cultivated, both offer the tools to change our world and be more conscientious in our choices and the narrative we live by. The left hemisphere is calculating, coordinating, and structuring. The right hemisphere is imaginative, sensory feelingness, and abstract in its associative processing. Both are required for holistic interpretation and meaning. Both are required in the act of free will and the choice to #RedefineMeaning and importance in our perceptions.
In brain development and #evolution, the reptilian hindbrain or brainstem coordinates all the basic functions of survival. It communicates with memory banks to associate #fear driven responses. The mammalian brain or limbic system associates experiences of connection, sensuality, and emotional impulses and imprints that work to cultivate family dynamics and social interactions as another aspect of #survival that expands the capacity of our species to #CreateTogether. The prefrontal lobes and cortex, also called the executive brain, is evolving currently and interconnecting many pathways for consciousness and self awareness. This aspect of the brain enables one to separate the imprinted patterns and base functions of the mammalian (love compelled) and reptilian (fear driven) brain regions. The executive brain increases the capacity for choice and free will through understanding how our drives and perceptions of self benefit or challenge us. Here we carry the key to unlocking the greatest powers of the mind that are innate to our genome, as well as the keys to directing the expansion of our evolution as conscious beings beyond what we know of ourselves.
The initial drive of the will is to survive. The secondary impulse of the will is to connect with others and nourish oneself with pleasure and contentment. The tertiary invitation of will is to define and design experiences that bring wonder, #mindfulness, and the expansion of perception and #communication, in order to act with #intention. Accessing and utilizing the #PowerOfTheMind beyond inherent drives and impulses requires responsibility and #accountability. Weighing the balance of how programmed needs and wants influence our sense of free will is essential. Our choices define the narrative we perceive as our life. If one responds with fear most often the reactionary choices depict a life of many struggles with the sense of aloneness, based in survival mode. This brain loop can perpetuate after one or multiple traumatic experiences or from the perception of challenges in life we feel “are dealt to us.” The “dealt to us” perception is a thin line. It can inspire us to work harder to enact free will or push us into beliefs of helpless #victimization or ineffectual #apathy.
If one responds with #love most often, the responsive choice can portray a life of #vulnerability mixed with feelings of appreciation, connection and support with others beyond the sense of struggle, a sense of being taken advantage of, and rejection. The truth about vulnerability is that it is inevitable. Whether one is #FightingForSurvival in the physical or mental arenas or struggling for connection, identification, and the reciprocation of love from others, #VulnerabilityIsAPerception of the executive mind as it begins to sort out the balance of needs and wants. Discovering and enacting a healthy balance in how love and fear inform us, creates greater opportunity to form structures of #mindfulness and understanding in the experience of one’s #PersonalNarrative. This #PowerOfAwareness and choice opens the doorway to evolving the capacity of our species and our interactions in the world we inhabit. The power of free will succeeds when applied to how one perceives and responds to internal beliefs and events in the external world.
The power of free will exists in the depths of our understanding that experiences are perceived and influenced by innate programs that compel us to react with fear or respond with love. By #ChoosingLove and compassion for ourselves and others the opportunities for #fulfillment in life #BeyondTheChallenges to connect and the #BattlesToSurvive become inherent in the design of our experiences we define our life to be about. If you are here to have an experience of your own free will, how do you want your free will to serve you? Are you #WiredForFear or are you #WiredForLove? How can you refine the #balance of the way love and fear inform you?
Conscious awareness of the biological and perceptual components of how one enacts their will in each circumstance is essential to harnessing the potency of one’s #FreeWill. There are many faces of individual will including but not limited to, the will within to endure and overcome, the will within to suffer and resist, the will within to open to receive; to share oneself, the will within to create as an individual and in community, and the will within to heal from internal and external conflict by refining the perceptions we carry about life and self. Even the choice to surrender is a willful act.
#Surrender to the journey of life and #cultivate trust in your own free will. Seek the potency of an open heart #BeyondFear and embrace the keys within to #RedefineTheLimits of your perceived path.
Excerpts from the Writings of Julie Hightman