Unloving use of will

[Phoebe Bruce]

Hi,
I have been thinking lately about the use of my will, over the course of my life, and how it seems as though somewhere along the line I really made a choice that I was OK with being unloving to other people (and to myself). That i was OK with attacking, blaming, ridiculing, punishing, and generally harming others in all sorts of ways. I made a choice.
It seems to me now, that some people who are in a more loving condition than myself, must have made a different decision somewhere in their life; that they were not going to act in certain ways that are damaging to others. I understand that everyone has fear, and fear causes us to act in harmful ways, but some people I guess just have a stronger desire to love than others. I am wondering what it is that causes this difference. I suppose it is very personal to the individual. Some people seem to have had horrific lives but their desire to love is intact still; damaged maybe, but intact.
I'm wondering where mine went so long ago, and why I made the choices I made.
This is a question for God I feel, but feel free to share your insights if you have any!

[Mary]

Hey Phoebe,

This is a great observation that most people neglect. That is, that no matter what has happened to us, we can still choose a loving path and not harm others or ourselves. This is the gift of free will that God has given. I believe it is one of the most important lessons He desires for us to learn through our earth experience. Avoiding this lesson is why lots of people don't progress towards God and instead feel stagnant and unhappy in their lives.

Most people wish to vehemently deny the gift of free will. They tell themselves and others that they have no choice about acting unlovingly and holding onto sin. They justify their lack of love and deny that they have any options to make better choices or to change or to take responsibility for their past errors.

In fact, in your own statement you said:

I understand that everyone has fear, and fear causes us to act in harmful ways..

Actually this is not true. Fear does not cause us to act in harmful ways at all.

Our choice to act to avoid our fear is 100% OPTIONAL. And making the choice to avoid our fear is when we are harmful to others.

When we make this choice we are using our free will - in a way that reflects our sin. And when we choose to do this we immediately accrue the pain of (the compensatory effect) not only these actions but also of the soulbased state of sinful justification of avoiding the loving choice available to us. We also create pain in our environment and there are compensatory effects for this creation as well. We incur penalties of the law when we act in fear because we are using our free will out of harmony with love - and we have a different choice. God is attempting to help us to learn that.

God has made us responsible for the use of our will - full stop. Those people who make more loving choices despite terrible events in their lives are taking more responsibility for the gift they have been given.

I find most people become very angry when faced with the truth that they have the choice to be humble and act lovingly available to them at ALL times (I know I had a lot of rebellion towards this truth myself).

As you point out in your observations of yourself:

i was OK with attacking, blaming, ridiculing, punishing, and generally harming others in all sorts of ways.

Most people are OK with acting in their fear and hurt and they rationalize that this is acceptable, 'normal' behaviour and that they are justified in their actions.

It is really awesome that you are beginning to feel that you had more than one choice available to you in all of those situations. Because you really did - and still do!

You said:

It seems to me now, that some people who are in a more loving condition than myself, must have made a different decision somewhere in their life;

In my experience becoming more loving is not a single choice but (as we grow the will muscle) it is a lot of choices that we make every single day. Over time they don't feel like individual choices anymore because our will is strong and we don't even consider that we might not take the humble path. But in reality the use of our will is a moment by moment exercise. We make a gazillion choices and decisions every single day - on a soul level and our outward actions and emotions reflect these soul based choices.

Love
Mary

[Pierrejoseph]

Hi Phoebe,

thanks for posting on this topic and your honesty. Your post along with Mary's feedback and recent days law has helped me access some anger/deep sorrow about having been treated (and still being) badly by mom judging, belittling, attacking, blaming, ridiculing, punishing me and many women in my life. I have anger in me at women - especially the ones I am giving a place of authority - teacher/employers/clients/tenant etc - for what mom did to me - and they don't deserve that. I felt that yesterday with anger surfacing at Mary's post about movies, I could not understand what was going on in me...I did not see any reason to be angry at Mary and I first felt terrible about it (self punishing addiction : I am a bad person and so mom wont hurt me as much). Then, I felt how I projected all my rage from mom belittling and judging me badly as a man at Mary being an authority figure to me, and me feeling less than mom as a man.

I am especially feeling angry when I am still treated badly by women in my life I am giving a place of authority (or just when they don't feed my addiction to avoid my grief about feeling unloved by mom). It is my use of my free will each time, to chose to SIN or to LOVE and take responsibility for my pain/anger/fear/grief. Shall I keep sinning and damaging my soul/my soulmate soul and other women souls? Shall I love next time?

I felt how I am angry at men as well not giving me approval and making me feel unworthy/stupid, and I SIN even when they lovingly don't feed my addictions. My damaging free will choice.

When I feel angry/suppressed/down/fearful/disconnected from myself, my best friend is my cushion to beat up and when praying for God's help at the same time, that eventually helps feeling the anger.

I felt as well for the first time how people have FREE WILL to treat me badly and that they don't own me anything. They can treat me the way the chose.

It is funny as I have not felt all these projections you are talking about when I spent bits of time with you, and I guess we were just both in facade, you helping me to avoid my grief, me trying to please you.

[Phoebe Bruce]

Hey Mary,

thanks so much for your reply, it has really helped to clarify a few things for me. Actually I have been praying for God to help me become more sensitive to all the many many decisions I make every moment which are an expression of my will. I think it was my guides who showed me an awesome example of how it 'looks', kind of like we are creating this 'road map' type network of pathways and streets and roads through our choices - left or right; loving or unloving; humble or resistive. When I am in a state of compete denial of the use of my will as a series of choices, it is like i'm living by GPS, I've typed in my destination unbeknownst to me, and am just on cruise control, following the sat. nav. and unaware that there are even any choices at the hundreds of 'forks in the road'. If we want to go to a more beautiful destination, we need to switch off cruise control and the GPS, start navigating by God.

Mary, you said:

Those people who make more loving choices despite terrible events in their lives are taking more responsibility for the gift they have been given.

I still feel like I don't understand what it is that causes such people to understand the gift of free will and honour it more than others- to see it as a gift. If you come from a state of complete miseducation about love, where is the incentive or the example.

You also said:

When we make this choice we are using our free will - in a way that reflects our sin. And when we choose to do this we immediately accrue the pain of (the compensatory effect) not only these actions but also of the soulbased state of sinful justification of avoiding the loving choice available to us

Wow. so every time I take the wrong turn on my road map, away from God and humility, I not only damage my soul through taking the action, but there is damage for maintaining a justified state of not choosing humility. Is that right? The action plus the feeling of 'I am ok with taking this action'. Thankyou that is excellent to know.


Hey Pierre,

Thanks for your reply. I am really only just beginning to connect to the sin of some of my past actions and certain parts of my facade are starting to feel yukky. I used to me a much more overtly angry person I feel. I thought it was a powerful (good) quality, to be outspoken and defiant and basically aggressive in my beliefs and manner. I remember a female friend of mine told me she was scared of me once... it had a profound effect but instead of being humble I feel I got more angry and justified. I have treated men very badly, even physically hit a boyfriend when I was a teenager. So much rage. I think I have just created a more acceptable facade as I have gotten older, the feelings of 'love me, give me attention, want me...don't reject me' are still the same but projected in a 'nicer' (yuk) way.