The Way Fate Shapes Your Soul Story
Have you ever wondered how much of your life is choice and how much is predetermined?
Whether it’s my writer's brain, sagittarius moon or the kundalini crisis of 2007 this question has been one of my top three for most of my life. For that reason I offer this blog as deep food for thought and fuel for your Soul’s evolution.
Let’s begin with all that is predetermined and what I call Fate. People have argued about Fate for millennia and, I still wonder why? It’s time to agree that some things really are predetermined in this lifetime AND those things influence your life in myriad dramatic ways. These things can never be changed. I call them the five Fates.
Here are the five Fates as I see them:
Who your parents are
Your gender at birth
Your birth order
The country of your birth
The time period of your birth
What I love about the five Fates is that they can universally be applied to all people, at all times for all of history to date. So at least from these five basic starting places “we” as a collective species share some common ground. Nobody can argue that we don’t all share the five Fates. I see them as a place of agreement for our collective humanity.
Why do the Fates matter?
How do they shape our Soul story?
In short, the Fates create the story structure of your life. They are the most powerful patterns any of us will ever live. They create the most significant life circumstances AND everything about the Fates provides the choice points for either spiritual growth or egoic sameness for every person on the planet from birth to death. Repeat.
When I wrote Orchid of Fate, I seriously underestimated how valuable it would have been to outline and highlight in bold the five pillars of Fate. I realize now that Fate is a scary word for many people and without a clear definition on my part it meant whatever people wanted to project onto it.
1.
Let’s start with “who your parents are.” For Soul Seekers and people on a spiritual growth path there is no turning away from who our parents are. From womb to tomb we are influenced by who our parents are. They provide our genetic make up. In utero, all oxygen, vitamins, minerals, glucose, amino & fatty acids, immunological & nutrient support, stress response hormones are literally breathed into the developing fetus. In the most recent psychoneuroimmunology studies it is believed that a subset of “mother” cells remain in the human body for life. While this is just a snapshot of the physical influence of one parent, consider the emotional influences, parenting styles, personal upbringing & characteristics, education, backgrounds, habits, disposition, cultural upbringing, mental and physical health, race and more of both parents. Then there is how your parents treat(ed) you because of who they are. There is no denying that who our parents are is one of the biggest non-negotiables in life. Who our parents are is entirely predetermined and one of the most influential Fates. To date no one has been able to change who their biological parents are or the influence their parents had on them because of it.
2.
The second Fate is your gender at birth. While gender re-assignment surgery has been documented as early as 1931, it is only in the last twenty years or so that it has become part of mainstream thinking. Whether a person keeps their gender, or not, gender influences everything from your physical appearance, size and stature, to how others interact with you, relationship dynamics, career paths, emotional expression, your sense of self and identity. To date no one is legally performing gender re-assignment surgery on babies which makes a person’s gender at birth something predetermined and ubiquitous to all people on the planet since the beginning of time. Gender at birth is another non-negotiable and becomes Fate number two.
3.
Fate number three, your birth order, matters most in family dynamics. So much research has been done in this area that there are even stereotypes correlating IQ, achievement, personality traits, & social skills based on birth order. Most of the research is based on how parenting styles influenced the development of children based on birth order, but what about the treatment from siblings? From the people I know sibling competition, rivalry as well as collaboration and the experiences that follow are all influenced by birth order. Again, no one has a choice over their birth order making it a pre-determined non-negotiable and the third Fate in your life’s story structure.
Do you have a sense of which Fate has most influenced your life?
Going deeper… which Fate has focused your Soul life story the most?
The thing about the Fates and the life story structure they provide is that, whether or not you choose to grow from them, they still provide the most powerful patterns in your life.
4.
Fate number four is the place of your birth. While this does include the differences between a home birth with a doula and warm pool, versus a sterile operating room scalpel and an epidural or the backseat of a taxi, I think an even bigger consideration is the country you were born into, assuming you grow up there. The country you were born into is going to give you your citizenship, your culture and your geographic place in the world. Assuming you stay your country provides social norms, system structures, a standard of living, political climate and laws. For example if you are born in a country where education is not mandatory, health care is very expensive, violence is high and laws serve a minority few, your life story is going to be very different then someone born in Canada. No one has control over their place of birth and until they are much older no one has control over whether they continue to live there or not. The fourth Fate is another non-negotiable that deeply affects a person’s life story and the choices available to them.
5.
Lastly, is the time period of your birth or incarnation. Fate number five. It’s hard to say if this is the most influential Fate, but it certainly strikes me as the most interesting. Imagine being born in a neolithic time 4500 BCE before the wheel was invented or the early 1300s at the start of the Renaissance? How would your life have been different? Who would you have become? It doesn’t take much imagination to realize how much influence the time period we are born into has. Even the 21st century differences between Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z is so marked it has been studied with the differences labelled and categorized. From the perspective of this lifetime, no one has control over the time period of their incarnation. This makes Fate number five another non-negotiable with strong influences in your life story.
With respect to the Fates, some people believe we do have control over our life story structures and that we do choose some or all of our Fates from the spiritual plane before we incarnate. While I see the pros and cons of this belief, I neither agree nor disagree. It is entirely possible that we do make choices about our lives before we are born. It is also entirely possible that we only live once. How can anyone know for sure? When it comes to choosing my own belief systems I tend towards those that confirm my most meaningful life experiences, apply to the widest range of information, can be applied to a broad spectrum of cultures, demographics and time periods and most of all, those that make my Soul sing!
There is your life story and then there is your Soul Life Story.
They are not the same.
From my point of view the Soul is eternal. The Soul is on a journey of wholeness (swholeness) or evolution and is also completely whole. Kind of like the universe is in a state of continual expansion and is already infinite. In each incarnation the Soul chooses certain life circumstances in order to experience, learn, grow and evolve. I also believe there are core or essential Swhole evolutions to be completed in specific lifetimes and other experiences which are important but not essential. We then incarnate into the energetic template I call a Soul story (defined by the five Fates) and live the circumstances uniquely designed for our Soul’s journey or Swholeness. Whether that is done in a specific way such as knowing exactly who our parents will be or a more diffuse way such as knowing which patterns are most essential in this lifetime is mostly irrelevant to me.
For the purposes of this blog and my view of the Fates, I am referring to the Fates as predetermined and non-negotiables in this lifetime. It is true that some people believe we can and do choose our Fates before incarnation, but not everybody believes this and there is no way of knowing for sure. So for this blog my focus remains on what is predetermined from a human perspective in this lifetime.
Now that we understand the five Fates.
What about our Destiny?
Destiny, as I see it, is a real choice point. A moment in time where a person makes a choice that significantly influences the course of their life despite their Fate.
For example a young woman born and living in Pakistan during the Taliban’s control in 2008 decides to start an underground school for girls despite the risks. She is challenging her Fate and creating her destiny. She could also justifiably choose a life of terror and fear and live out the conditioned patterns of her ego.
Another example might be a man born to alcoholic parents grows up and becomes an addictions counselor leading men's groups to sobriety. He could just as easily live out his egoic Fate and become an alcoholic himself. It would make perfect sense and be arguably justifiable, but it wouldn’t be Swholeness.
Perhaps a woman is born in a rural area with no clean drinking water and makes her life’s purpose clean drinking water for her community. She could choose to move away and never look back at the hardships of the community she grew up in.
In my memoir, Orchid of Fate I refer to Sangita as Destiny.
Egoic choices are justifiable, they simply avoid the deeper growth process of making meaning from suffering and creating something life giving for Self and others from the process.
The permutations of challenging our Fate and creating Soul stories or living the egoic conditioning we are born into are endless and everywhere. The ego avoids making Fate conscious, meaningful and evolutionary for Self and others.
The Soul transforms the suffering of Fate into love for Self and others. The ego and Soul meet the same circumstances but do very different things with those circumstances.
For me the bigger question is not whether we are living a predetermined life of Fate or whether we have free will or choice. We all have Fate and we all have free will and choice. The bigger question is whether the choices we make are led by the Soul or the ego. We also inherit the egoic illusions of comparison and whether our Fate is deemed good or bad by us and society. We look at someone else's life (from the outside in) and see that they had what we never will and label our Fate as bad and theirs as good or vise versa based on it. This type of comparison looks at the Fates through an egoic lens limited by the egoic values and norms of our time. It misses the point entirely. Through an egoic lens we will live a life directed by the Fates but we will make different choices leading to different outcomes then those made through the eyes of the Soul or the journey of Swholeness. Egoic choices versus Soul choices take different roads.
Going deeper the question for Swhole Seekers becomes where are you living your Fate and where are you living your Destiny?
If your life feels enlivened by the choices you are making you are likely living your Swholeness. Swholeness is an inside job. It isn’t measured by keeping up appearances or meeting the latest egoic status quo. A Soul’s journey is one of a kind. It makes you, You. Maybe you are a Creative or an Artist blending genres for new ways for humanity to experience life, see, grow or aspire, a Healer, Caregiver, Physician or Altruist devoted to empathy and loving humanity in its most vulnerable states, an Eco-Visionary dedicated to sustaining the future of our planet and all the interconnected species on it or you are a Migraine Health Advocate diving deep into the Soul connections you will need to learn, grow and heal from migraine pain and suffering. These are Swholeful approaches to life that mean to me that you are willing and interested in doing the work to live beyond the egoic conditioning of your Fate. You are bravely embarking on your Destiny. Please know, Swhole Seekers and Spiritual Aspirants willing to do the work are my people.
Your Next Step:
If you feel called to connect with your Soul’s purpose, power, and passion, I’m here to guide you. As a Sacred Seer, Soul Alignment is my calling. I help bridge the gap between your current awareness and your Soul’s deeper messages.
Drawing on ancient subtle body seeing, evidence-based practices, and decades of Soul-centered wisdom, I support clients in aligning with the powerhouse of their Soul — so they can live their purpose with passion, in service to people and the planet.
When you're ready to decode your Soul’s messaging, through a dream, life paradigm or personal vision, I invite you to connect with me through a one-on-one Soul Alignment session. Together, we’ll discover the secret language of your Soul so you can live aligned with life.
