KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

by David R. Hamilton Ph.D.

If you're like most people, you've probably wondered whether things are meant to be: are you destined to be with that special person, or to have that job, or that friend, that dog, or that really difficult time in your life? Or do we create it all as we go along?

If you're like me, you've wrestled with it for years. There were things that I felt strongly were meant to be in my life, like going to the University I attended and also doing my Ph.D. in the research group I ended up in, to even not getting the job I wanted in the pharmaceutical industry but instead getting one that exposed me to evidence of the placebo effect. This facilitated my route into writing books about the power of the mind, which I believe is my 'destiny.'

But at the same time, I am 100% certain that I shape my own life too, sometimes through taking action to make things happen and other times when seemingly coincidental things happen shortly after I've been thinking about them.

I wrote my book, Is Your Life Mapped Out?: Unravelling the mystery of destiny vs. free will to attempt to set my own mind at rest. This is what I came up with:

R=IEBpFeFiOX

Before you go, Whhooooaaaaa, hey what's with the math? it's actually much simpler than you think. Let me explain what the letters mean.

R is the letter I use for 'the Reality that you experience' and it's caused by the letters that come after it. Here's what they mean:

I is your intention. It's the force of you Intending for something to happen, which often results in you acting on your intentions, or subconsciously setting in motion a chain of events that move you towards your goal.

E stands for your emotions. Emotion is a powerful force. If you have an intention to achieve something but your overall emotion about it is negative, then emotion usually overrules intention and you don't go anywhere. Alternatively, when you have a goal and you feel strongly positive when you think about it, you tend to move towards it (or attract it to you).

B stands for your beliefs. Beliefs can propel you to where you want to go or they can sabotage your efforts. Say you had a desire to be financially abundant, but had a belief that it's wrong to have money because people are starving, or that people with money are selfish or unkind, or that money is the root of all evil, for instance. Then chances are these beliefs will overrule your intention to have money. No matter how hard you try, something will always seem to block your efforts.

You can usually tell what kind of beliefs you have about something by looking at your life. Stuff and experiences in your life that you are happy with, that tend to come easily to you, usually represent positive beliefs. Stuff and experiences you feel frustrated you're not having usually signal negative beliefs in those areas. It's best if your beliefs are in line with what you want to achieve.

P stands for momentum of your current experience. Just like a large ship in the ocean can't make a sudden 90-degree turn, but turns throughout a large arc due to its weight or momentum, so most people, when they decide to make a life change, still experience elements (circumstances, types of people, etc.) of their old life for a while as their life turns in an arc rather than in a sudden straight line off to the right or left. Intention works a lot with momentum because the stronger your intention, the faster you break your momentum and the shorter the turning arc in your life.

Fe stands for external forces. These are forces in your environment that have an impact on your life and the kinds of choices you make. They can be the weather; chronobiological in terms of how the Earth's rotation, the sun, and the moon can impact biology; they can be effects of food or anything else that represents how we interact with our natural environment. They can even represent the physical or social environment a person lives in, which can be a very strong force for some.

Fi stands for internal forces. These are what I refer to as spiritual forces. I believe that consciousness transcends time and space, and thus 'you' existed in some form or other before you were born on Earth. Rather than your life being a random event, then, it is likely that you were born at a particular time (given the entire span of Earth's history), in a particular place, into a particular set of social and economic conditions, even into a particular family environment, and often with a latent skill set or direction you intended to move towards. These preconditions would set the tone of the early years of your life, which would then have a strong bearing on the kind of adult you become and the direction of your life. When I talk of destiny, this is what I refer to.

O stands for the effect of other people on you. We're all influenced by other people either directly, by family, friends, colleagues, or even people we meet throughout our day, or indirectly, as world events affect the financial or social environment that we live and move in, or as our choices are influenced by marketing efforts, propaganda, or just information we pick up through watching or reading the media.

X is for any other forces that I haven't though of. 🙂 I'm sure I've not thought of everything.

So the reality that you experience is related to your intentions, your emotions, your beliefs, the momentum of what's currently happening in your life, external forces, internal (spiritual) forces, and the influence of other people.

So how do these forces interact with one another? Well, I think we are born into a set of conditions and circumstances that set the landscape of our lives and its colour tones. As we travel through our landscape, we are occasionally pulled left and right and even nudged back or sucked forwards from time to time. But amid these winds, we are always choosing, always creating, always shaping our lives. It is impossible not to. Thoughts are creative. What we focus on we move towards. That, to me, is a Law. Some call it the Law of Attraction or 'the Secret.'

Some people believe in destiny, others don't. What I've written here is just my belief, coloured, perhaps, by the influences I've experienced in my life and also by what I've always sensed. In some ways, I've sought scientific evidence to explain what I've always believed.

Whether you take comfort in an overall direction you feel you're supposed to be going in or whether you're more motivated in taking the actions that are necessary to get to where you want to get to is up to you. We're all different. Some are more comfortable with the former, some with the latter.

As long as you're comfortable with whatever you personally believe, then great. Happiness and contentedness arise when we're comfortable with our own beliefs regardless of whether there is an ultimate truth or not.

Personally, I think destiny and free will interact constantly, just as nature and nurture interact. Genes do not act out with their environment, but in relationship with it. So, too, do our hopes and dreams play out in relationship to our environment, both physical and spiritual.

David R. Hamilton has a first class honors degree in chemistry and specializes in biological and medicinal chemistry. He is the bestselling author of seven books published by Hay House, and offers talks and workshops designed to fuse science, the mind, and spiritual wisdom. He writes a regular blog at DrDavidHamilton.com as well as one for the Huffington Post. The above article was printed here with his kind permission.

I have a hypothetical question for you. If a person was suffering because everything in their life had become emotionally unbearable and their future seemed hopeless and devoid of happiness and opportunity, would they be condemned to suffer in the afterlife if they chose to check out before their time?

A.

Susyn:

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, so it's important to note that.

Contrary to most religious ideas about suicide, I feel there are no accidents in the Universe. If a person chooses to take their life for whatever reason, a greater plan must be unfolding. Though I personally do not believe in making such a choice, there are all sorts of positions I have never been in.

I know people who have attempted suicide unsuccessfully when things looked hopeless for them. Months or years later, they are all grateful that they failed. Life is an ever-evolving process; no matter how grim life may seem at one point, it invariably improves.

I have also known people who appeared to have taken their own life accidentally or who perhaps changed their mind at the last minute after it was too late. Then there are carefully planned out, deliberate suicides. In those cases where the suicide attempt was successful, the transition into the spirit world seems to be similar to other death experiences.

When someone is considering suicide, it' usually because some aspect of their life is not working. For example, they may feel lonely or abused, or they may be suffering from money troubles, a broken heart, or a life-threatening illness. Committing suicide might eliminate the financial or health issues they are facing, but the emotional aspects of their depression will carry over into the afterlife.

When a loved one dies naturally or according to fate, everyone involved is touched with deep sadness and a sense of loss, including the person who has crossed over. The same of course holds true for those who choose to take their own lives.

The feeling of being in heaven or hell can occur whether we have left this world or not. As one of my favorite sayings goes, Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for those who have already been there. When someone feels desperate enough to take their own life, they are experiencing a type of hell. Since hell can be experienced here as well as beyond, changing states is clearly not the answer.

I do not believe that a person who chooses to take their own life suffers extra pain, though I do believe that we take our troubles with us to the other side, where we continue to work on them. Because working through these issues is easier to do on the earth plane, I encourage people to remember that suicide is not a way to escape life's troubles. No matter what struggles one is walking through, there are higher spiritual purposes and gifts hidden in the process. If we choose to check out early, we will miss the opportunities the Universe has in store for us next.

*****

Oceania:

The fact that you're asking about suicide suggests that it's on your mind. If you personally feel suicidal, I urge you to seek medical attention immediately. If you are asking on behalf of a loved one, then please encourage them to do so.

If you or your loved one are not ready to seek in-person help, call the Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org for more information. You can self-soothe in the moment with a butterfly hug: Hug yourself and alternately squeeze your upper arms in a gentle rhythm while envisioning a safe place and affirming that all is well in this instant of time.

Thoughts of suicide are a symptom of depression, which can be treated with medication and psychotherapy. This is why suicide is called a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Depression is like looking out a dirty window and mistakenly believing the world to be dark. Seeking help washes the window.

As a therapist, I regularly witness extreme suffering, and there have been times when I personally wished to exit a world that seemed so cruel. What kept me here was the thought that by staying alive, I could do some good. As poet Emily Dickinson wrote, If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

I believe in a benevolent higher power, so I don't think anyone is condemned to suffer in the afterlife for any reason. However, those who drop out of Learning to Endure Suffering class (Life-On-Earth 101) may have to repeat it.

People consider suicide because they don't think they can endure suffering, but it can be endured by feeling it consciously and expressing it to a loving listener. Suffering gets easier with practice; enduring difficulties makes us stronger and raises our self-esteem.

Suicide is something you can always do LATER. By postponing it, you grant yourself time to learn new coping mechanisms. Unexpected solutions can appear if we stay open to possibilities and humbly ask for help.

Cognitive Therapy, in which irrational thoughts are challenged, is the most effective type of therapy for depression. Dr. David Burns wrote a book about it called Feeling Good. Examples of distorted thoughts are overgeneralization (seeing a single occurrence as a pattern,) mental filters (dwelling on a negative detail while ignoring positives), and catastrophizing (exaggerating the significance of an event).

I remind suicidal people that they WILL die eventually; death IS on the way! Remembering our mortality can provide relief and give us permission to make the most of our temporary visit to Earth.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.