For centuries philosophers have debated the question: Do we have free will or not? This is not merely some theoretical issue; the answer has crucial practical implications for your daily life. Do you have the ability to choose what nurtures you and makes you happy—or not?
What is free will?
What I mean by free will is the ability to choose something versus something else without having that choice determined by something outside of the chooser’s control. Free will is a matter of degree and it is possible to have a greater or lesser ability to choose freely.
Given that definition, our free will is impaired by anything that determines our choice. Let’s look at how beliefs, conditionings and the meaning we give events moment by moment significantly reduce our ability to choose freely.
How our free will is impaired
A belief is a statement about reality that we feel is true. If we believe mistakes and failure are bad, that’s the truth for us, so we will be predisposed to do what we can to avoid making a mistake or failing. And if we have a project we want to start and are worried about making a mistake or failing, our ability to choose to start that project will be significantly impaired by that belief. We won’t be choosing to start the project or not based solely on the value of the project to us. Instead, a major consideration will be: Will we make a mistake if we start this project? If there is a good chance that we might make a mistake or fail, then there will be a reluctance to start the project, regardless of any value the project might be to us.
If you believe I’m not capable or competent, you don’t have a choice about seeing yourself able to do things successfully.
If you believe I’m not loveable, you don’t have a choice about expecting members of the other sex to be interested in you.
On the other hand, can you see how eliminating those beliefs would increase our ability to choose freely, in other words, increase our free will on that issue?
Most of us are run by many stimulus conditionings, which consist of events causing specific emotions. For example, being criticized or rejected can be conditioned to cause fear. Being told what to do can be conditioned to cause anger. It is difficult to choose freely when you are overwhelmed by fear or anger.
The single biggest determinant of our moment-to-moment behavior and feelings is the unconscious and automatic meaning we give most events as they occur. Beliefs affect us mainly by being the major determinant of the meaning we give events. For example, assume you have the belief: Men are dangerous. You find yourself walking down a deserted street at night and notice a man coming toward you from the opposite direction. Given your belief, you probably will automatically give that man the meaning: He will hurt me or I am in danger. You behavior (running to your car) and feelings (fear) are determined by the meaning you give the man you observe. But the meaning you gave is largely a function of your belief that Men are dangerous.
So beliefs exert their power, not directly, but by influencing the meaning we give events all day long.
How to increase your level of choice
Can you see how your choices are influenced significantly by your beliefs, conditionings and moment-to-moment meanings? Even more importantly, can you see how eliminating beliefs and conditionings, and learning how to dissolve meaning, literally increase your ability to choose freely, in other words, increase your level of free will?
Make next year the year you improve your level of free will
To summarize: Free will is a matter of degree; it is not all-or-none. And your level of free will can be increased by eliminating limiting beliefs and conditionings, and gaining the ability to dissolve the meaning you give daily events.
It would be a great New Year’s Resolution to increase your level of free will in the coming year. You will live a happier and more fulfilling life when you are able to choose what serves you, rather than do only what you are determined to do by your beliefs, conditionings, and meaning.
Happy Holidays.
P.S. A couple of people commented that many of my blog posts were thinly disguised sales messages. I can understand why they think that, as I often write about the need to eliminate beliefs and conditioning, which is what we help people do.
On the other hand, because our mission is to “empower people to free themselves from their stress and suffering and create unimagined possibilities for their lives,” it makes sense for me to tell you that the best way I know of to do that is to eliminate the beliefs, conditionings, and meanings that cause our stress and suffering and reduce our possibilities. If you can find others who do that better, faster or less expensively than we do, I am happy for you to use them to resolve your issues.
Thanks for reading my blog. Please post your questions or comments about the question: Do we or don’t we have free will, and is there anything that can increase our level of free will? Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I love to read them all and I will respond to as many as I can.
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If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com where you can eliminate several limiting beliefs free.
Copyright © 2013 Morty Lefkoe
Free Will, in myself, is definitely impacted by any limiting belief that I have. The limiting belief
kicks in first like an auto, and then the ‘playing field’ is contaminated. As I clear more
and more limiting beliefs the field of potentiality gets bigger and bigger.
Some of the limiting beliefs have sub-sets that have to be cleared first. Such as, asking
myself where would I optimally like to put my energies – I discovered that I have a belief
that ‘I am not allowed to do that. That ‘others’ determine that for me.’ Then I find that
I have a belief ‘ that’ I’m not allowed to clear that previous belief just written’
‘I’m not allowed to have a self-determined life’. and so on – and so on.
I never knew I had these in me, and how they were causing problems for me.
Thank You
I am only free to be myself – THAT, of course, is the quest.
A well-written article Morty. The use of the word impaired is slightly misleading insofar as free-will is not impaired by beliefs, but merely opens the possibility for conflict. When you have a life-long belief that triggers a response or perspective about the world or an event which you realize on some level isn’t true, but it nevertheless feels true, this is what causes the conflict – the problem the LBP is designed to eliminate.
Using your example of a person with the belief “Men are dangerous”: A woman at night walking down the street sees a man and it triggers in her a feeling of fear. However, it causes a conflict in her mind because she says to herself “that man is dressed up in a suit and tie, why do I feel afraid?”. It is the conflict that she is having with her now unconscious belief that men are dangerous and her response in that moment which she realizes is not appropriate.
Her problem is that she has noticed this pattern of behavior over and over. Unfortunately, for most people, they will conclude that ‘this is just the way I am’ or ‘I just have to deal with it’. They don’t realize that the now unconscious belief causes the reaction which they are now present to. However, because they are unaware of the belief, they remain unaware of the cause. And too often they believe that they have no free-will in certain situations, but that is merely a symptom that they are holding onto a belief which is producing a response that is not serving them.
So, often times, when something occurs to me in the moment and some part of me realizes that it isn’t true, it is a straight giveaway that there is a belief lurking in the vicinity.
Best wishes
I love this answer!
It doesn’t really go to the esoteric crux of the matter, of course. It would be possible to have the will operating freely, in the sense Morty is using, while still being predetermined. Nevertheless, on the practical level, free operation is more important than esoteric concepts like — what would you call it, quantum indeterminacy? Because all most of us want is to do what we want to do, without tripping over a lot of non-sequitirs in our head.
And of course, this is Morty’s specialty.
Thanks Morty and indeed it is a very right observation. Indeed that our will is dominated by our past experiences, as advised by our well-wishers (including our parents in our childhood), our self learned and analysed matters (rightly or wrongly) and many other such factors… (society, culture, gender, etc)
It is also necessary that we should check our beliefs time-to-time as we grow adult and get more information.
However, in events when there is no sufficient time or information to judge the situation (such as what you have mentioned about man approaching…) it is better to depend on our beliefs and take the actions such as fight or flight…rightly or wrongly..!!
what do you think ?
regards, Pradeep
I agree, run. :-) Sometimes beliefs are based on good information, and you can only break the cycle of limiting beliefs if you’re alive.
Hey Morty
I definitely agree with every word in the article. I know the power of eliminating beliefs, conditionings and meaning from my life because I’ve experienced it myself. My ability to choose freely has grown, and it will grow more in the future thanks to you.
And although I support this thesis, that our free will is mostly determined by our own beliefs, meanings and conditionings (or in other words, what we do), there are people that would say that the social structure that we are a part of is what determines our level of free will.
Most people would agree that free will is a mixture of both of these sides (human activity vs social structure), and some of them would even say that our free will is inevitably determined by our social structure. But what they don’t understand is that human beings have “built” this structure in the first place, and that we, as a society, are the creators of our social structure. This is another way of expressing Don Miguel Ruiz’s idea about “the dream of the planet” that is constructed by many more smaller “dreams”. There are few things that are actually determined without us to make a significant influence in the process. We create everything with meaning, but we are just unaware of that because we think it’s the social structure that determines our level of free will.
This realization might help people understand themselves and the world better if they keep it in mind. They would be able to remember that they create the meanings that then determine how they feel and the level of free will they have (not their social structure or their “reality”). Then they would be free to make a decision to take action and eliminate beliefs, or not…
Thanks for taking the time to read, much love, Almog