"Free will is the ability to gladly do that which I must do." (Carl Jung)
Never surrender your free will. It is a sacred gift, your sovereign birth right. It makes you unique and all-powerful - empowered - and free.
When you over-compromise, over-give or over-compensate, you are essentially renouncing your free will, your right to choose what feels good and appropriate for you in that moment. You effectively dissolve your own boundaries and put out a mat on your virtual doorstep that says, "Welcome to my home (which is you). Please feel free to tread all over the place (ie, you) at your leisure. I am not going to stop you."
Visitors - in the form of friends, family members, employers and yes, even governments - will therefore respond accordingly and treat you as less than or inferior because you have basically given them a green light to do so.
If you surrender your free will it will only end up creating pain and distortion for you in both the short and long term and it will manifest in the form of self abuse, envy and judgment to name a few. If you choose (or refuse) to activate your voice and embrace your divine intuition, you will slowly start viewing others as a threat to your freedom because you can only view them now through your own sour lens of regret and resentment. Once you discard all that was sacred and special within yourself, it quickly becomes impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to recognize and respect that, within others. You start seeing others who stand up for themselves and who speak their truth, as vain, selfish and full of ego - as 'tall poppies' that need to be cut down - but this is only because they are actively showing how much they value themselves and highlighting where you can't do the same for yourself; and that is going to trigger the eff out of you.
You subconsciously develop the attitude of "If I am not free and happy, then you can't be either!"
So if free will is so important, why do we surrender it?
For several reasons and they're not always conscious. For instance, we might have been through a deeply traumatic experience and as a result, out of fear and pain, we unconsciously convince ourselves that standing up, fighting back (against an abuser) or having a conflicting view to the status quo that draws unwanted attention to ourselves, will create more dangerous consequences than the energies or emotions we assume will eventuate, if we were to stay mute and acquiescent instead.
There's a certain degree of anonymity and hence safety, that comes with being a wall flower.
We might feel that we have no choice in the matter at hand or we may have literally been coerced or forced to shut up. If someone or a group of someone's are able to dominate you to the point where you lose complete faith in your own ability to have an opinion, that will most certainly give rise to a victim vibration in your body, mind and heart.
We might be carrying some inherited stories and beliefs around self worth, obligation to others and patterns of behavior that make it difficult (if not impossible) for us to assert our perspective. Familial pressure to "do the right thing", keep the family secrets in the closet or the fear of being the "black sheep" that everyone else in the household sees as a disturbance to the peace and a pot-stirrer at family gatherings, are all ways we validate our silence and submissive choices to ourselves.
Peer group pressure is another reality that keeps many silent and suffering because the desire to fit in and 'be seen' and accepted, often far outweighs any personal desire to express something out of the box or out of alignment with the group ethos. We can all relate to this one as teenagers for sure, but this also continues into adulthood. The rules just go from PG to MA+ and the emotional stakes increase because sexuality and manipulation come more overtly into play.
So, once you've identified your particular relationship with free will, how do you then go about reclaiming it?
First of all, you need to make time to listen to your body and gradually develop your awareness around how it reacts to certain stimuli, input and shifting energies; on a daily basis. When we begin tuning into the sensations we experience and identifying them as either fatigue, depletion, dis-ease, sadness or anger, we can begin connecting to the emotions that are embedded within said expressions. We need to be present and allow our feelings to come to the surface of our conscious mind and that of course, is often a messy and confronting process and space to occupy; which is why (understandably) most people avoid doing the deeper work of diving into their shadow selves and taking self inquiry to the next level.
Once you find the courage to "stop, drop and feel", you are inevitably going to be confronted with some raw emotions and old memories that you most likely haven't entertained (or acknowledged) for a while - if ever - so the invitation here is to now allow these expressions to rise and reveal themselves and to calmly remain in "witness mind", without allowing the energies to consume you. Easier said than done of course, but a necessary part of the healing process nonetheless.
If you cannot face and forgive what resides within yourself, you will continue to vomit it out at others and hence keep yourself stuck in the cycle of blame-shame-guilt-and-grief.
The 'trick' here - once everything comes up for inquiry - is to remain non-judgmental and practice embodying the energy of equanimity. To be compassionate with yourself as whatever you've packed away, comes up to be seen, felt, heard and held. This is where unconditional love and mindful forgiveness come in because until we can forgive or love ourselves, truly, for all the choices and decisions we made in the past (at the level of consciousness/awareness we had at the time), we cannot move forwards with any lasting sense of peace or purpose.
When you reach this stage of the process, the real work kicks in and that is calling upon your inner strength - your light warrior, your sovereign self - to make a higher, more conscious choice in each 'now' moment and shifting your vibration until you resonate at a more elevated state of consciousness. Practice makes perfect as we know, so be gentle as you do this because no doubt the mind will come up with some clever tricks and myriad plot twists in an attempt to keep you in 'its' space; when in truth, you need to be moving from your heart and relocating thought to the back seat of the bus.
Your free will is literally a gift from God and is therefore not to be taken lightly and it certainly isn't something to treat casually nor use as a negotiation tool when the chips are down, regardless of circumstances. It is the vehicle through which your soul is able to resolve and dissolve its karmic wounding from this life (and others) and as such, should be guarded (grounded and graceful) at all times; and with absolute conviction.
Remember: nobody can take your power away unless you give them permission to do so. So don't give them permission!
AHO
)O(