Greeting fellow weirdo :)

But within the past few months, as I've gone through some growth and change, I've found myself wondering if I actually control my life experience? Or if - this is the best analogy I currently have - it's more like I'm a conscious character in a video game, played by someone else. Or participating, without being able to control outcomes, in an immersive Oculus Rift-type movie narrative. Almost as though my life has a plot and is largely pre-ordained, and no matter how I struggle, things will happen when and as they happen - or not.

First and foremost, this is decision that you and you alone need to decide if this is something that is true for you or not. People like myself can share their opinions. We can even share that it is a 100% knowing-ness that we create and control our life experiences, but essentially, you have to make that decision all on your own.

After all, it is your unique version of earth game that you chose to play in a specific kind of way....not anyone else's.

The reason I say that the decision is all yours is because that belief is the concrete foundation that holds everything else together in your created reality. Even if it feels like things are just by chance "happening" to you, your belief of self-control or not having self-control affects the whole pattern of your life.

So before anything else, define what feels the best to you and what feels the most like relief. Always follow the path that feels like you are unloading more and more items from your hiking backpack. When you feel as if you are adding more items to the backpack, and it continues to get heavier and heavier, and becomes more of a burden, then you obviously know which direction you are heading.

and no matter how I struggle

Play around with changing your definitions. When you catch yourself saying things like "no matter how I struggle," stop yourself for a moment and try and choose a new statement to say. The new statement may sound very alien to you and may feel like a lie, but that is the whole point of change when it comes to creating who and what we want to be in life.

Maybe try something like....."and no matter how big the challenge"

To me the word "challenge" feels a whole lot better than the word "struggle." A struggle feels like an unwinnable and probable defeat. Whereas a challenge feels like a positive potential and a motivator.

I am saying all of this because I have realized over the years that simple single words or phrases can change the whole outcome of how our whole life operates. I highly recommend the book What to Say When you Talk To Yourself. It helped me tremendously when I first read it years ago.

After a number of years, I gave up trying (it was so painful to struggle and strive without the results I wanted) and during that process and since then, many people in the field have come to me to express their bafflement that it didn't happen for me. Like, CRAZY ALERT, there have been times where I wondered if I was, uh, cursed (not really but sorta really), because it felt so crazy how I'd have said that I felt genuinely good about something, not fake-good, and it would just fall apart.

Just to be clear, this is not a judgement of how you are wording things. It's just an observation to try and help you figure out why you may or may not think you control your life experiences. You are more than free to speak anyway you wish to speak and express yourself :)

I also understand that the words that I have made bold or brought to your attention could be sarcasm. I also know though that things that I used to say a lot in my life or still even say today from time to time that come off as sarcasm had or have underling rooted emotional beliefs that were holding me back.

Once you start to recognize these patterns, more and more everyday, they stick out like sore thumbs and it almost feels like there is an interruption in the circuitry of the brain. As if something no longer belongs there anymore.

So Looking at that pattern from a distance, it feels good to think of it as "Something outside my control meant that the timing just wasn't right and I was never going to be able to "make it happen", no matter what" rather than "I was doing it wrong".

I don't believe anything is "out of your control." Everything is in your control at all times. You are such a powerful being that you can make up the idea that everything is out of your control but it never actually is. You are your own universe and every single person in it is your creative version of them. Just like characters in a play and you being the directer of what they say and do based on your "vibrational being-ness."

Once again though, this idea goes back to what I said originally about you having to make a decision on what you believe you are in control of.

I agree on not "*making something happen.*" That oozes the essence of trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.

How about just letting go and allowing whatever happens to happen. Just because you think something you are doing is what you must do and even if you say you feel good doing it, allow the signs of struggle, pain, strive, and the feeling of being cursed to be a huge blinking neon sign trying to get your attention. Those are Emotional Guidance System types of signs that are showing up in your reality.

At first this idea bothered me, because it sounded like I was suggesting to myself that I couldn't have the things I wanted. But now I find relief in thinking these thoughts. Maybe this is just a waystation toward greater empowerment, but it sounds kinda disempowering, so it gives me the ?????

I truly believe every single being on this planet is seeking relief in all things. Even if it seems that another individual is doing something wrong or bad. We are all seeking that place of relief and lifting of the burden of experiences in life.

I would suggest that you follow that feeling of relief and allow it to take you down the stream instead of trying to swim against the current. There is no one single outcome that needs to manifest here. Letting go and allowing the feeling of relief to flood your being could lead you full circle back to where you once were, "but from a completely different perspective."

If you keep thinking thoughts that lead to the feeling of relief, or calmness, or whatever gets your mind and body out of the state of being of stress and struggle and forcing things into place, then you can simply allow the universe to put you in the right place at the right time with the right people.

Focus more on the inner you first so that you can then allow the outer reality to take you where you need to go.

"Maybe this is just a waystation toward greater empowerment." Leave the statement at that. Forget the rest of it. There is no need to say or think or feel the rest of that statement if it doesn't give you a feeling of relief and ease. Don't allow statements like that to get you back on the endless hamster wheel that leads to the same place over and over again.

This is why I continue to say that it is your choice on what to believe. Follow the feeling behind those beliefs. If not controlling your own reality gives you some relief at this time, then ride that train as far as it can go. Do the same with controlling your own reality. Allow that feeling of joy and ease and relief to lead you where it needs to.

Nobody can give you a definite answer if we are characters in a story that have no control. That is for you to decide. It's all about personal perspective and what frequency you pulse at every given moment. Today may be one way but tomorrow may be totally different. The question you have to ask yourself is....where do I want to be right Now Now Now Now?

we are characters in a
story, transformation of
earth, yet experiences
happen by our choices made