Using Our Will Willingly or Where There is a Will There is a Way              

Some decades ago when I was studying to become a Psychosynthesist, I found it really interesting and somewhat disturbing that my trainer was constantly asking us to do things ‘if we were willing’. Coming from the background I had, it was less about whether I was willing, and more about ‘having’ to get on with the job. As I experienced the training, I came to understand how important the concept of choice and willingness was, not only in Psychosynthesis, but also in Life.

    I quickly found in my practice, if clients were not ‘willing’ to move through their blockages into health, there was nothing on this Earth that was going to get them to. People who came to me because their partners were sick of their anger or depression, went away angry and depressed. They still had a use for their conditions regardless of the affect on their ‘significant others’. On the other hand, the people that had really had enough of being a shadow of their potential Self, as they had a right to be, seemed to move through a series of difficulties if not smoothly, certainly successfully.

     It started to occur to me, that the potential for all possibilities is contained within us when we are born. Whether those possibilities are realized has to do with two things: Firstly, if we have been subjected to that particular opportunity during our early life experience, and secondly, if we are willing to follow the potential that keeps being presented to us. It has nothing to do with innate ability. “What?” I can hear you saying; “I couldn’t do this or that. I’m not strong enough, smart enough, fit enough!”. But I say to you, given the right circumstances early enough, You Would Have Been! What’s more, given the willingness to make the choice, there is still much potential that you can become.

     Obviously, some of the potential has been lost through age and time passing. For instance, at the age of 57 it is highly unlikely that I will now become a professional dancer. However, given the willingness at an earlier age, I could have followed that path. I can still dance for my own enjoyment nevertheless (albeit a bit less vigorously) if I wish. Likewise, at the moment, there are potential paths opening up for all of us. Paths that just would not have been possible at any other time. I could not have written this article at twenty. I lacked the life experience that makes it possible now. We have to get to this part of our road to access this potential. There are also many things that we did not choose to do years ago, that are still on the agenda (and may be for some time), if we are willing to follow them.

   There are two things that get in our way. The belief structures that were implanted in us at an early age. Beliefs that say we can’t do something for whatever reasons our caregivers believed they couldn’t. For example, nobody else went to University in our family, so of course we can’t. Everyone else got married so of course we have to. Not true but we believed it to be. Someone once said, “Don’t believe everything you think.” The other thing that gets in our way is our willingness (or should I say unwillingness) to begin.

    We cannot make ourselves do anything and also retain our healthy balance in Life. We can however be willing and open to the possibilities of change. We can begin to make the choices, however small, that will start us down that new road. It is my experience that when that happens, change is always for the better.