Episode 110: Intrinsic Wisdom of Will Transcript
Good morning friends and listeners! It’s great to be here and it’s great to have you listening in today!
In this series I have been talking about Metaphysical Humanism and the principles and mental faculties we can use to self-actualize and live a life we love.
Metaphysical humanism is a philosophy that focuses on human potential, while also acknowledging there is a field of energy – metaphysical energy – that we can access for wisdom and inspiration. Some people call this energy field god – some call it the holy spirit – others call it nature, or source energy. I call it the field of consciousness – the divine consciousness. No matter what you call that power that breathes life into you – that created the universe – that holds it all together – Metaphysical Humanism agrees that there is a higher power beyond this physical plane of existence, while also maintaining that humans have the highest potential to understand and access that power – in fact, it is our purpose to reach this power in becoming our highest potential.
The second half of this series I am talking about the superpowers we are born with as human beings. These are our intrinsic wisdoms that are within us at birth and which we only need to study and practice to unlock their power. These are the powers of imagination, intuition, perception, will, reason, and memory. Today I am going to talk about the intrinsic wisdom of WILL.
In an earlier episode this season I talked about the Principle of Willpower. Willpower is when you make a decision to do something. It’s the emotional motivation part of having FREE WILL, which is a desire we are all born with. With willpower you decide you want to do, be, or have something and you build a plan to get it. The lesson of the principle of Willpower is that we need to respect that it is a gift we all possess, and we need to respect that it is within all of us. No one has more of a right to free will than anyone else, and no one has less of a right to free will than anyone else. You don’t get to choose another person’s life for them, and no one gets to choose your life for you. Period. Willpower – you get to make the choice.
Willpower is being motivated – it’s the desire to have what you want – it’s the emotional engine that propels you forward. You get an adrenaline rush when you start something new or make a decision to change your life. You are excited to go for your dream – you are motivated and energized to take steps forward towards building that life you want. You want to do these things. You made the choice that this is what you want… that’s willpower.
…BUT. Willpower, being dependent on emotions. It can burn out or stall because of things like paradigms and limiting thoughts – self-doubt, hurdles that get in the way of reaching your goals, other people telling you that you can’t, bad situations that come up in life – or even everyday chores and obligations that you place as a priority over your goals and dreams. “I can’t write my book this morning because the dishes need washed.” “I can’t open my business because I don’t have all the money I need.” “I can’t go back to school because I don’t have time.”
If you wonder why so many new year’s resolutions fail – it’s because willpower is not enough.
You need a superpower that will step in and refocus your attention on the choice you made – and that superpower is called your WILL.
Will is the ability of focus – the ability to focus your attention on something. Just like sunlight shines down and scatters far and wide across the land and warms the planet, if you focus that sunlight through a magnifying glass, the power of sunlight is multiplied exponentially and will start a fire. That is how the superpower of Will works – harnessing your free will and your willpower into a hyper focused, laser-like tool.
Will is the ability to stick to your plans and to focus on what your willpower decided you would do, be, or have. Will is what is going to get you through the hurdles, the distractions, the self-doubt, and the voices that tell you that you can’t be, do, or have what you want.
When President John F Kennedy asked Dr. Wernher Von Braun what it would take to build a
rocket that could carry a man to the moon and bring him back safely to Earth, Von Braun
answered him in five words, “The will to do it.” That is what he said it would take. He didn’t say it would take this amount of money or this many rockets, or this technology.
See, at the time there weren’t even rockets going into space – there was no technology to support men in space, let a lone the ability to return them home safely. It was a vision and nothing more. In 1962 Kennedy decided we were going to the moon. In 1969, we landed on the moon. Will is what got us there – and the work of a lot of physicists and engineers.
Unfortunately, we abdicate our Will and allow our subconscious paradigms and beliefs to control our lives every single day. We mostly live on auto-pilot, or by chance, and then wonder why we haven’t manifested our dreams and goals yet. If the emotional energy around our dream is reduced because of doubts and fear, we tell ourselves it just wasn’t meant to be – our Will goes untapped because we never invited it to help us out.
The worst betrayal of our Will is when we focus on what we don’t want instead of what we desire. Energy flows where attention goes. Your emotional vibration is going to be at the frequency of your thoughts. That vibe is communicated with the field of consciousness – with god, with the universe – and like a magnet, you manifest on that frequency that you sent out. And you do this without even knowing you are doing it because you operate on autopilot.
If you remember what I said last episode was the most important skill you could learn in your life was – it absolutely applies here. Notice your thoughts. Notice the images in your mind. Notice the paradigms that whisper doubt and fear into your ear. Notice your thoughts so you can ask yourself if those thoughts are the truth or what you want to be thinking.
Living with intention is how you make your superpower of Will welcome in your life.
Just like intuition, imagination, and perception, Will is an ability we must hone through practice and habit and eventually allowing WILL to become the default mental faculty instead of the limiting beliefs that run your life currently.
The skill you need to hone is your ability to focus on the vision you have for your life.
See, especially in the age of technology, we tend to have the attention span of a fruit fly. This is like kryptonite to our superpower of Will. Look, I know that 30 minutes for this podcast is pushing the outer limits of even my own attention span, and I applaud everyone who gets through it in one setting. Seriously. I’ve tried to make these shorter but there is just too much important information to share, and I just hope you can digest it in two or three listening sessions. I appreciate if you do.
But our short attention spans are a big problem. The way we zone out to social media or tv or video games – these technologies are controlling our thoughts and we’re too busy being entertained to even notice what those thoughts are that run through our minds.
Remember the thought to results spiral – thoughts create feelings – feelings create a reaction or lead to you taking some action – action creates our results and consequences.
You are never going to create the results you want in your life if you are living with your thoughts on autopilot.
Focus is a skill we have to increase, and especially the time we spend focusing on what we want.
To start, you’ve got to access your superpower of imagination and create a vision for you life. Now, if you haven’t listened to the Intrinsic Wisdom of Imagination episode, you should schedule it for your next listening session. It takes a superpower level of imagination to create a living, breathing, vision for your life. Your vision requires an emotional tone, it needs to create a feeling in you when you think of it and that feeling needs to be aligned with how you will feel when you are living your dreams. You need to see a very clear picture of what a moment in that life you would love looks like – what it sounds like – what it smells like even. Who is with you? What are you doing?
You should write this vision down with as much detail as you can gather.
And here’s the important part – you aren’t just going to journal it and turn the page and go on – no. You are going to read this vision to yourself everyday – twice a day – three times a day even. And when you have memorized it you are going to schedule specific times a day when you stop, and you step into the life you would love to live and live there for 5 minutes or 10 minutes several times a day.
Try it. Put this episode on pause and try to spend 1 minute living the life you would love in your mind.
You’re back! How was that? Did you manage to get through the whole minute without interruptions or thoughts that took you away from your vision?
For most people just starting this practice, I doubt you remained focused on your vision the entire minute.
That is why you need practice. And here is where to start with practice in growing your attention span.
Light a candle in front of the neutral or white surface, sit a couple of yards from the candle with the flame at the level of your third eye. That’s the place in between your eyebrows and maybe a little bit up on your forehead. Start by focusing on the aura around the flame and then gradually shift your focus to the black dot in the center of the flame and then stare at the center of the flame. If you can start with one to three minutes focusing on the flame, and then just gradually, you can build up to 10 minutes.
Now warning: your thoughts are immediately going to distract you, and that’s fine. Don’t worry about it for a second. As soon as you notice that your attention has moved from the flame and that you’re thinking about something else, simply bring it back to the candle flame again. Do this as many times as necessary. This is how you train yourself to concentrate.
Don’t judge yourself, don’t get discouraged. Know that thoughts are going to come. Let them glide by and refocus on the flame.
See, metaphorically, the flame is the passion for your dream. Your burning desire to have the life you would love to live. Distractions pull you away from your dream, WILL returns your focus and eventually tunes out the distractions. Your practice with the flame will teach you to tune out the distractions.
I mentioned vibrational frequency earlier – your ability to focus on what you want will do what for you? It will send that frequency to the field of consciousness and that frequency will be manifested in your life. You will notice opportunities you never noticed before. You will have ideas for solutions you never had before. You will see the steps ahead to take that you didn’t know were there before. Focus on the flame. Focus on the life you desire.
I have a story about myself and willpower and will. Now, I have to be honest. I am a chocoholic. If there is chocolate cake or cookies in my house, I have no willpower to resist them.
Many many years of this lack of willpower has led me to having diabetes. And when I was first diagnosed, I made a resolution – to get healthy and to stop eating all the white carbs. No sugar. No pasta. No potatoes – no cakes and no cookies. I just didn’t keep them in the house and bought other foods to eat instead. I eventually learned to use natural sweeteners like pure maple syrup and honey, I made breads with almond flour or coconut flour. My willpower was strong, and I was successful. I was able to turn down cake and pizza at birthday parties. I lost some weight. My A1c lowered to a great number. I felt so much better that I went back to college. (which was a thirty-year longing for me)
I was doing well – then college got tough, and we sold a house and moved to a new old house and for a couple weeks I didn’t have a kitchen to cook in or time to cook… so I ate fast food… and I was too tired to do all the substitutions and take the meat off the bun… I ate the first French fries I had eaten in a year.
And that was it. My willpower was toast. I turned away from the flame and to this day I can’t get back to the same place. I do eat better – I’m doing ok with my health – but not the same. See, I didn’t have a vision to rely on – I couldn’t call upon my Will. And right now, I don’t have the emotional motivation to go back to that flame. It was hard to change up my eating so drastically – and I have no willpower right now to start that again. I mean, I can’t blame it on willpower – I don’t want to go that route again. I don’t want to make that choice again.
Had I been able to at the time, if I had accessed my superpower of WILL and had a vision – I probably would have been able to go back on my program and be fine. But, like an addiction, I wasn’t able to get back on the wagon – I wasn’t able to refocus on the flame and as time has passed I am ok with the way I am dealing with my health now. I am not seeing the results I was seeing then, however. But I am in a good place and have shifted my focus to other parts of the vision I now hold for my life.
The good thing is that its all part of my growth and I can use that situation as a lesson – that lesson is to know what I want in a very clear picture and to make sure I visit that vision at least daily. I now welcome Will into my life by making time for my vision.
But part of me regrets losing my willpower in that situation. And I wonder, how many dreams have died for other people in the same way? Maybe you can relate?
But if there is a spark of willpower left of your dream – create that vision – invite will into your life – increase your ability to focus and reignite the flame of the life you would love to live.
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