Ep 79 - Freedom of Choice

hi everyone welcome to the psychology and spirituality a bridge to a better life discussion I'm your host Mar Jan and with me today is Dr Sonia doy Sonia it's so good to have you with us and um very excited to be able to discuss aspects of our freedom to to choose our free will indeed we are free to live a life of happiness or say a life of suffering and according to Joanna deangeles the immovable deterministic imperatives concerning the physical body are life and death and even those two imperatives are subject to change she says so like me all of you who are here with us today May wonder about this idea about our intentions or even lack of intentions can determine our ability to be happy but before we start our conversation in Earnest I would like to thank all of you who are listening to our podcast today and if this is the first time you're joining us at this program please note that the psychology and spirituality weekly talks are based on the works by Joanna d'angeles and it we're here to offer the safe space to confront compare correlate and expand spirituality Concepts from a psychological lens and we do this to bring insights tips real world advice to help you and me lead a better life please note that today's program is sponsored by TV manin the United States Spirits Federation the international Spirits Council and Amy Brazil make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already done so and let us know let us know your thoughts your questions your feedback and we'll try to get back to you as soon as we can but um Sonia thank you welcome to our program I just wanted to say that when I was getting ready to talk to you today I I came to this concept that freedom of choice is a key factor that can indeed influence a person's happiness right and there's some interesting studies today that showed that it can actually be The Driver or the cause to our happiness and uh in about uh oh 2008 so we're talking about 15 16 years ago there's a paper written by Ronald Englehart that states that uh

howed that it can actually be The Driver or the cause to our happiness and uh in about uh oh 2008 so we're talking about 15 16 years ago there's a paper written by Ronald Englehart that states that uh uh Freedom can predict happiness better than any other measure and when when you keep going onto that same line of thought on the same subject there are actually other studies that found that people who feel in control of their lives which is partly due to that freedom of choice right tend to be the happiest people there was a 76 experiment actually and I say this because I'm I'm going through a a very personal experience with uh uh sister Living nursing home residents but anyways in in 1976 um this study uh patients or the residents were giving the freedom just that you choose what you want to do do you want to have a movie night or do you want to have other types of activities and that study showed that just by offering the choice they were living better they were more alert they were in a better mood etc etc so those of course are right Freedom Choice from a material perspective and I keep thinking Sonia the fomo right fear missing out counter to the ability of having choices I keep thinking that maybe fewer choices could be actually better for me we go to a supermarket today and there's so many oh seral types of seral that you can get lost but anyways let's pause because we're not here to talk about seral or movie night we're talking about something else right and I want to ask you maybe uh Sonia if we can start our conversation today about Freedom of Choice you can talk a little bit about Jonah the Angel's thoughts on that topic and maybe how do you specifically interpret from your lens of from this cross-section between spirituality in medicine thank you I I want to First say um how grateful I am of being part of this program so Mara thank you so very much and I'm so happy to be with all of you who follow this podcast and I hope I can feeling some with some uh uh

First say um how grateful I am of being part of this program so Mara thank you so very much and I'm so happy to be with all of you who follow this podcast and I hope I can feeling some with some uh uh knowledge that I bring from spiritism from Joanna deangeles on this topic which is very interesting so as you said M uh yes choices choices are the key when we are confronting suffering we can choose to suffer be miserable or we can choose to learn with that experience Move Along move forward and be happy as much as we can so yeah uh there is a law law of uh um free will we all are everyone has free will so sometimes we don't understand exactly what is Free Will yeah uh because some people are locked in the situation I'm suffering so much and I feel I'm locked so they're they're concentrating on their own suffering and we have the choice of getting out out of that situation not concentrating only on us on our own situation but looking on other situations how can I get out of this and as you said there many papers many uh studies showing that more choices we have happier we are because we really have other choices and people may say wow what choice do I have if I'm suffering if I'm miserable here and I keep yeah and I keep thinking sorry to interrupt you but I keep thinking right um just a thought there are internal and external um triggers that may put us in a state of right uh I'm I'm a victim I'm I don't know we can talk about social economics status I can we can talk about uh uh my my family did not provide me enough education we can talk about so many different reasons for why we may be may feel and may be from a material lens in a state of uh uh less than or impoverished or um non-deserving or even in a disenfranchised situation where we I look at my neighbor and look my neighbor has this and I came already Laing and I I keep thinking Sonia right when do we start to fall in that just that like you talking about this sense of I'm a victim therefore um looking at myself right I'm

as this and I came already Laing and I I keep thinking Sonia right when do we start to fall in that just that like you talking about this sense of I'm a victim therefore um looking at myself right I'm zooming in I'm fixed with that idea and I start to complain oh life is horrible everyone is is awful to me and it it just keeps becoming uh one leading to the other to the other what can we do well I think first not I think but uh we learn with spiritism that we should look at others we should not be selfish in thinking you know that we are the only ones who are suffering everyone in this planet is subjected does not mean that we should or we will but we are subjected to suffering because we are in a planet of Trials and expiations but we are fortunately moving yeah so so tell us a little bit about yeah tell us a little bit about the concept and this is something that spirit is brings to us this concept that we are our planet that we live right is in it this evolutionary path and where we are and what does it mean if it don't mind Sonia absolutely not no this is this is really a you know very um the core of this talk I think because we should realize that we are in in in this phase uh of the planet we inhabit this planet that is now moving uh into a new phase and we are moving with it because we are you know the core of the planet we change as the planet changes we are pushed into being better we are pushed into a more evolved self so there's no change without transformation the transformation many times are painful and I usually like to uh look at an example of of people who are in the school or athletes uhhuh to who are aiming to be a champion on something and they have to train that training is very painful and heavy but they are doing that going through pain to achieve a goal what is our goal is the goal that God said to us is to be perfect and my H by the way yeah and by the way the when you talk about athletes the the personification of that to me is always Michael Phelps I love swimming right and

l that God said to us is to be perfect and my H by the way yeah and by the way the when you talk about athletes the the personification of that to me is always Michael Phelps I love swimming right and what he has done for swimming but when he chose right several Olympics ago when he Michael Phelps chose along with his coach that he was not just going to be a gold medalist but also a gold medalist in I believe was like eight different areas and he did this because he was going through depression everyone after getting Golds the gold medal before he immediately got into depression for a year and he came out with this idea that in three years he would and he announced in advance of everyone right we are going to be uh receiving gold medals in all those categories but like you said he trained because what the muscles for one type of um uh category for swimming may not be as in evidence as another so he had to really become a holistic which is a an interesting idea we can go into that t in a different time or day but he did and he worked in and he said he grew muscles that he had never done even though his whole life since a little kid was devoted to to swimming so I think it's very interesting painful but with knowing that goal you can achieve EXA amazing things but it doesn't mean it's not going to be you know without any sort of suffering or commitment right and that's a great example Mara that you you just brought about Michael Phelps and there are the what they call the par athletes yes you know they were born or or or during an accident whatever they are now uh confronting a challenge physical challenge but they went through it suffering but they didn't get stuck on that situation they actually went over and and they came as a champion uh meaning they went over they came over that situation and I think that's a beautiful example how you know if we are suffering look at the examples of these athletes yes who may not have legs but they are still kind of able to do to win

ver that situation and I think that's a beautiful example how you know if we are suffering look at the examples of these athletes yes who may not have legs but they are still kind of able to do to win competitions uh or to compete so it's very very interesting when we are suffering we must look into others get out of ourselves look and Andre Louise in some of this me his messages says if you feel that you're suffering go into a hospital looking to those people you know relative right so uh the idea here everyone is to get out of yourself right just step out of it but Sonia right going to the hospital is awesome doing something is awesome but what if you're in such a state of depression say that it's not so easy to snap out of it how how can we help and I I say this because maybe our loved ones right our children our parents our best friends all of a sudden like Michael Phelps get into a state of I don't know anxiety or depression that puts them in a such vulnerable pH what can we talk how can we help them wonderful that you brought us up uh sometimes it's easier said and done and we can tell people yeah you know choose make a good choice uh get out of yourself and but that's not so easy if you are into the depression anxiety and there's nothing that you can do by yourself to get out of that situation please look for help yeah there's professional help for that there's several types of help I would say professional help psychologist psychiatrists uh other doctors and spiritual help yeah right whatever is your religion doesn't matter we are spiritist but we are not talking only to spiritists whatever is your religion look for Spiritual help because that will make your soul stronger we need to get out of situations suffering situations painful situations we need to be stronger God never gives a load heavier that we can bear so we need to remember that God all is always there to help us but we need to knock on the door and say I need help so either going to your religious leader or to

gives a load heavier that we can bear so we need to remember that God all is always there to help us but we need to knock on the door and say I need help so either going to your religious leader or to pray right and and ask for help but praying is not enough we must pray we must look for spiritual health sometimes we need professional health help and sometime and most times with that professional help and spiritual health we have to do something we have to act is our action right and I I just want to mention a little bit uh uh medicine you know traditional medicine has looked into to uh our patients as just from from the physical point of view but now this is also changing and there's a lot of uh resources looking into uh spirituality in medicine so there trainings and I just want to mention um uh George Washington University they have a an Institute Institute for spirituality and and health aw George Washington and they train Physicians and uh other healthc Care Professionals to deal with patients from the spiritual point of view meaning having compassion uh looking at the spiritual need of the patients and helping them from that point of view too so uh I'm I'm really excited that this idea is you know is growing in the United States and other countries so that our physicians will look into a patient who is of course if a person has mental disturbances you go to psychiatrist they might already have that that knowledge or or or send the person to spiritual health too but people with other illnesses and yeah right yeah no no I was just going to say uh this this it almost like a a pivot point where medicine is changing to adapt to our needs as as it regards to suffering and some some of the um sources that came to my mind are uh laa Corbett who is a Yan analyst he's uh he actually teaches at Pacifica University in California and he came to a program not so long ago here and we discussed some of the findings in his book uh Sony if you haven't read it's an amazing book it's the soul in

s at Pacifica University in California and he came to a program not so long ago here and we discussed some of the findings in his book uh Sony if you haven't read it's an amazing book it's the soul in anguish and he specifically talk about this anguish in the mental health perspective as it counters the need for um Western medicine to treat those ailments those suffering not from the perspective uh so you talked about going beyond the symptom right but he also added the perspective of uh you should not have to um care oriz or classify oh uh Sonia you came here and you telling me this therefore diagnosis right so and it's quite a thick book by the way but he he talks about in a very ample manner about the concept and um and the other one was uh the iconic now book by Elizabeth kubal Ross right on death and dying and I believe she she published that in late 60s but her research was all about the process of dying and how hard it is for us to even discuss it and because we're hiding I don't know if you agree with that so love your your opinions but in her book right at the beginning she talks about uh how our discomfort with the idea of death material death leads us to hide that higher understanding or deep understanding of what we need and that goes into the George Washington univers Institute of Health right to to talk about compassion and having that face Toof face to talk with the patient not just treat the illness but treat the patient and she talks about in the 60 how she eleth Kubler Ross sees a rise like technology is helping us do really well with physical illnesses but there is a rise now into mental illnesses or emotional lack of emotional well-being because it's what's coming up what's surfacing so I love what you're saying here because it's it's it's coming from so many different perspectives right Sonia this idea that it's it's truly a it's dictating to us it where we stand today that we must look for the real causes of illnesses of diseases and and how it goes beyond the body

erspectives right Sonia this idea that it's it's truly a it's dictating to us it where we stand today that we must look for the real causes of illnesses of diseases and and how it goes beyond the body right yeah and on that point uh I think we learn more with spiritism right when we look and again this is in in chapter five of the Gospel according to spiritism bless are The Afflicted for those who want to read a little more but uh every suffering has a cause yes uh physical mental whatever type of suffering has a cause and if we don't find the cause on this life during this Incarnation we must look for a cause in the past because there is a cause many times s uh and I most times the causes of afflictions of our suffering of our pain is derived from our bad inclinations our Temperance impudence yeah Pride ambition all the vices that we all have you know more or less so we create suffering yeah so it's from within right if in so many words what card de in this beautiful book everyone if you haven't read it you can just read chapter 5 right it's just beautiful based on the sermon of the mount where Jesus brings a talks about the Beatitudes right and he says blessing are The Afflicted but uh in in The Gospel According to Spirits it just breaks down the types of afflictions and how we say we are blessed for having them but in so many words I was thinking about that because suffering comes from within it is ours right um we can talk about it is our emotional pain that is the the the materialization of our suffering but Sonia and I I I know I interrupted your train of thoughts so my apologies but this is quite a good conversation today but that emtional pain right so I suffer for whatever reason but there is a cause that I'm involved in that cause right read chapter five and you see that very clearly and and because I'm suffering I have an actual emotional pain that is a result of that suffering that can indeed lead to my physical emotional mental illnesses so so tell me

you see that very clearly and and because I'm suffering I have an actual emotional pain that is a result of that suffering that can indeed lead to my physical emotional mental illnesses so so tell me a little bit put your head as a medical doctor right you have dedicated your your life to understand the connection between medicine spirituality can you talk a little bit more specifically about that right how how we need to be keenly aware of our physical emotional mental response to our own suffering and what can we do to to understand better and and lead and you mentioned um medicine is is transforming itself right it's changing from a a more compassionate field but what can we do when we understand that when we understand that hey I'm here because yeah uh mental uh suffering is the bottom of every suffering no matter uh whether the cause of our suffering was an accident uh uh surgery or just something that happened I lost my job or something like that there are several types of pain uh social pain physical pain uh spiritual pain when I don't understand you know the my religion is not attending to my needs uh there's and mental pain but mental suffering is actually putting all together and make us then leading to anxiety depression and all sorts of things when we get completely uh drained into into all these problems so there is now um more more I think uh research that has been done involving spirituality in medicine looking at how one can resort to spiritual care or to spiritual practices that help them overcome that situation so this is very easy to understand in in in mental disorders uh disorders mental uh disturbances I would say when a person has anxiety or or has some kind of depression being deep or or or not so deep but through meditation for example uh there's so many typs of meditational days they can kind of uh get better improve in in physical unes also like cancer and people say wow how meditation can help in cancer well it there are so many um Works studies that have been published

ays they can kind of uh get better improve in in physical unes also like cancer and people say wow how meditation can help in cancer well it there are so many um Works studies that have been published and and showing because when we are have pain in our body physical pain that changes our mental uh state which impact in hormones and and brain hormones that are uh circulating into our body so when we meditate when we pray when we do good things good acts when we work for example do volunteer work all that has been proved to change our mental state and that changes the hormones the uh neuro hormones the neuropeptides uh and and all the other responses of our body to the mental States so if we can change our mental state we can change the way our body reacts and that has been improved to improve the responses for example of cancer to the treatment so you this is your area of study right Sonia yeah hor and all this so really really interesting that the impact hormonal right hormonally speaking the impact even to terminal uh patients such as cancer patients into changing that I keep thinking Sonia and I'm just thinking a lot here based on what Joanna d'angeles uh in her book uh plenitude which is her third book in her psychological series or psychological uh collection right and she says something like um when we start to understand that our illnesses let's say that cancer patient right is actually a mechanism right for my soul to push me to really just uncover and I'm I putting my my my hands here because uh it it feels like I just have to rip it apart to uncover all the potential beyond my physical body right so it's almost as if we started talking about fear of missing out and we we we talked a little bit about uh you know choices not choices from that perspective very material perspective but here now we go back to that idea that uh uh if we fall prey to only looking at life from a very material perspective it's almost as if that illness comes to us as a gift to wake up

ial perspective but here now we go back to that idea that uh uh if we fall prey to only looking at life from a very material perspective it's almost as if that illness comes to us as a gift to wake up right wake up and look your body is telling you wake up to all the potential that you have within and once we do this we start our own path toward healing does does this resonate with you Sonia absolutely and that is when we say we need to understand and that's when I I would say it's important to study is important to read to get into these ideas because this is a chance that we have for learning interpreting our suffering as a learning experience experience as awaken from our uh idea that we are here just for this period of incarnation I'm here from when I'm born until I die and that's all that exists we need to get out of this that idea and for that we need to read and understand for example and that's when spirituality comes because spirituality brings you the idea that we survive after the death of our body so uh and actually when we and it's not a not so novel concept by the way right that immortality of the Soul it's thousands of years we we haven't he to that but go ahead people forget about that and they think they concentrate on this limit the right yeah and we need to awaken to the idea that we are Eternal Spirits yes that because otherwise the uh when when Jesus said blessed are The Afflicted yeah because they H the the uh the kingdom of God yeah how we should interpret that if we are here just for this and after we die everything disappears yeah so we need to understand and that's when spirituality comes in handy that we are spirits that transcend that transcend so the the per that we are suffering here is only a dot in our eternal life yeah and when Jesus said blessed Afflicted Jesus is talking about the happiness that we will have afterwards not exactly here yes we can choose to be happy here but we are if we also choose to to resign to to understand to accept

sed Afflicted Jesus is talking about the happiness that we will have afterwards not exactly here yes we can choose to be happy here but we are if we also choose to to resign to to understand to accept the will of God yeah yeah we can kind of visualize uh a a a more complete happiness in future lives because we see suffering as a cleansing of our soul as a learning we are learning to going through this uh but not not going against God God put me to this God is punishing me that's not true yeah fre will you will everyone I keep thinking here when we just to to interject a little bit right because the reality is that H we have so much fear right we we a fear we're afraid of falling sick right we just came out out out of a global pandemic not so long ago right two years ago when well not two years more than two years when the world heal Health Organization said uh right March 6 we are undergoing a global pandemic and I just recall the fear of that right of of touching of breathing of anything of the the the the basic components of living it was all somehow taken away out of fear but there are other fears to B as well the the such as poverty fear of loneliness is oh fear of like just not being loved or not being able to love fear of failure fear death and uh it's it's all because we're not really prepared or unable yet to understand that Divine Essence that sense of immortality that you talk about it so I think the the one thing that comes just from from this brief comment that you gave to us just now that if we accept and welcome and embrace our Divine Essence and how our souls are Immortal uh we right there we start to overcome those types of anxiety driven fears right yeah fear is a very very negative sentiment yeah right and it it drain means our energy away so that's what we need as you said we need to understand that we are Divine yeah beings yes that we have God protection and sometimes uh people do not understand what is God protection God protection we have so many things even

ou said we need to understand that we are Divine yeah beings yes that we have God protection and sometimes uh people do not understand what is God protection God protection we have so many things even medicine which is advancing is a protection that God has put at our uh disposal we can use that we can use all professionist to help us we can use um our faith and faith is something that I would like to bring here yes yes because Faith really changes uh if we have faith we have courage if we have faith we make ourselves stronger we can it faith is almost for me is almost like something that you can hang on is there you can hang on and go but it needs to be true faith it needs to be a solid Faith yeah right yeah because and what do we mean by that right because uh according to spiritism we really should not and I'm I'm an example of that Sonia as a as a young child I just needed to feel that Faith as it was expressed into a rather Blind Faith like that sense of uh I don't know you you can see in Italian Baroque uh Cathedrals with the Ecstasy of Santa Teresa sculpture and you're like oh I want that that sense of connection and spirit says wait wait wait you really need to have that rational faith and the rational faith is let's look at our intelligence our knowledge our understanding of the world and question everything but the more you question the more the deeper your faith becomes because God is there that this this Divine sense of compassion and mercy is there right son and and and we can't really hang on to that believe me you we can hang on to the love that comes from God absolutely and and Sai even in science if we didn't have faith that something else is there that we don't know yet we wouldn't be doing research yes yes so I would go a little you know as a researcher right as a researcher I have to tell you hold on my colleagues may not agree with me but I that's how I see if I if I thought that everything that there is is already here that there's nothing else than what

s a researcher I have to tell you hold on my colleagues may not agree with me but I that's how I see if I if I thought that everything that there is is already here that there's nothing else than what I see and feel why would I be doing research yeah and yeah if we look at EV every day uh the the database is growing growing growing by the millions of papers published of studies that have been done because researchers believe that there something else that is not known yet and unveiling right unil yeah and that's true with all of us uh if we only believe in what we see we are losing things so having faith in what we have through spiritism bring spiritism bring us so many things so many so much knowledge through what the spirits revealed uh by kard and by then later by um other works for example that Francisco Javier wrote through the spirits and and if we look again I'm going to bring science a little bit here Marshall just forgive me but um even uh within science Spirits brought forth knowledge before science discovered it and we have examples of that we have even a paper published in the US by physicians from Brazil that bring that out so yeah we need to have faith U that God created us not to fail God created us to progress yeah God created us to have experiences and learn and make good good profit of this learning so every day I get better if I look back just in this living experience that I am now I look back and I say oh would be so good if I back then 40 years ago I know what I know now yeah right because I would have made better choices so we we learn we be we become better and we are able God through that enable us to make good choices give us free will because we are free free to choose God only made you know created us gave us the path but we may stagnate here complaining why I'm suffering and crying and not doing anything so let's look forward make good choices have courage have faith that God's here with us that we can ask for help and we truly will be helped and we

why I'm suffering and crying and not doing anything so let's look forward make good choices have courage have faith that God's here with us that we can ask for help and we truly will be helped and we can be happier during this life and sure if we make good choices we are certainly uh designing a happier life for the future absolutely I I love it um actually there are there's a book um happy life right by John Angeles and uh I I often look into it just a little tiny book with little tiny messages almost like a daily affirmation of how to be happy and the many many different angles into how we hide from our happiness right Sonia but uh I I think we can close now as we're coming to to the end of our time with this notion that science and faith and you heard from an amazing scientist here Sonia do Dr Sonia DOI who's telling us let's let's do both right let's not stop researching and looking for answers unveiling the answers that we all have already within us have to say that but uh to to have faith that there's more to life than this material lens to our own suffering and finally that our choices are the reason they're the cause the reason and the trigger to our infinite happiness as Jonah d'angela says Sonia thank you so much for being with us I invite you right now to come back at a lat time and we'll can continue or get different topic on how medicine and spirituality walk so close together for you who is here with us today all of you um thank you thank you for being with us thank you for watching and see you next week bye everyone thank you