Potentials: The Complex Dance Between the Soul’s Plan and Free-Will Choices

Are life’s challenges part of our pre-birth plan?

Comfort your grief and nourish your soul on Bob Olson Connect. Bob is the host of Afterlife TV, the author of Answers About The Afterlife, Insight from Hindsight, and The Magic Mala, and the founder of BestPsychicDirectory.com.

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Many people question the spiritual significance of life's challenges. Initially, we may be tempted to attribute our struggles to external factors, such as our parents, the government, the pharmaceutical industry, or even Mother Nature. However, I prefer to explore further beneath the surface.

Thinking about whether our physical or mental health issues are predetermined by our souls or influenced by our surroundings is a straightforward example. But what about a person’s tendency to cheat on their partner, squander their savings on gambling, or lead a life of crime? Are we genetically predisposed to disease, disorder, and delinquency, or are we shaped by our environment?

Ultimately, we must consider how much of our personality is shaped by parents, friends, and teachers and how much of our character is predetermined before birth.

In today’s article, I’ll explore a topic I’ve touched upon only briefly in previous writings: what I refer to as “potentials.” This concept revolves around our pre-birth plan, which is shaped by our higher self—what I like to call our soul. If you haven’t yet read my article exploring the distinction between spirit and soul, I recommend starting there.

What Are “Potentials?”

“Potentials” refer to the aspects of our lives that represent possibilities for our human experience. I’ve called these potentials because free will means that nothing shaped by choice can be absolute.

Over the past twenty-seven years of exploring the afterlife, I’ve discovered that using extreme examples can simplify the explanation of such concepts. Therefore, to enhance your understanding of potentials, I will illustrate my point with the example of suicide.

I’m exploring the reasons some individuals experience suicidal thoughts while others follow through with them. Many have never considered ending their lives, so what occurs at a soul level that makes this possibility exist?

By grasping this profound and unimaginable scenario, we may be able to apply the insights gained to more common behaviors that are harmful to ourselves, yet we do them anyway. This may include choosing abusive partners, gambling away our savings, running away from responsibility, and even addiction.

In discussing suicide, we might lean towards attributing it to mental illness and psychiatric disorders as the underlying causes of such thoughts. However, not everyone who takes their life fits into these categories. We need to explore further. The question then becomes whether we can trace this potential back to our pre-birth plans.

Understanding “Potentials” as Our Pre-Birth Plan

To truly grasp the connection between suicide and our soul, we must acknowledge that no individual ends their own life unless the possibility of doing so exists. This relates to our pre-birth plan, which encompasses the infinite choices our soul makes to determine the various "potentials" for this spirit’s journey in human form.

In the vast realm of possibilities for designing a human life, souls select from endless options as potentials. I refer to these as "potentials" because free will ensures that anything chosen cannot be absolute.

Unlike potentials, physical traits are fixed, such as being born with one arm, red hair, or a birthmark. Our biological parents are also pre-assigned. However, suicide remains a potential choice because it ultimately relies on free will. While external influences, mental illness, or addiction can affect this decision, the act of ending one’s own life is fundamentally a choice made by the individual despite these influencing elements.

This implies that the soul, before the spirit’s incarnation, acknowledged that suicide could be a possibility during its life. The existence of this potential doesn’t guarantee that an individual will choose to end their life; it merely indicates that the option is present. It signifies that the individual’s consciousness is open to considering it.

Some individuals would never contemplate ending their lives; it simply is not part of their nature or genetic makeup. In other terms, it is not a possibility within their human experience. Conversely, for those whose wiring makes suicide an option, it arises solely because their soul has selected this potential as part of their life’s journey.

It’s important to highlight that we aren’t punished for pursuing our life’s potential. What kind of cruel and twisted spiritual framework would it be if our souls inspired us with potentials that led to eternal punishment for acting on those urges? I can envision humans creating such a system, but not Infinite Intelligence (God/Source Energy/The Universe).

“Potentials” Apply in Relation to Other People’s Choices, Too

If we come into this life with the potential to take our own lives, it also means that our friends and relatives come into this life with the potential to lose a loved one to suicide.

Before their birth, these souls understood that knowing someone who took their life could be a significant experience for them as humans. They accepted this possibility because it offered insight into experiences they might never have known as eternal spiritual beings. This journey would allow them to learn about compassion, love, and respect for the human experience through facing loss, grief, and helplessness, ultimately leading to surrender, acceptance, and forgiveness.

In summary, if you have known someone who took their own life, it suggests that your soul was willing to experience this type of loss. This doesn’t imply that such an event was predetermined, as each individual has free will. However, if you are familiar with this situation (and I genuinely empathize with you if you are), it reflects that the individual in question chose suicide as a result of their own free will, even if influenced by their mental illness or addiction. As a soul, you knew that being on this side of suicide was a possibility in your life.

A Personal Example to Explain “Potentials”

I have personal experience with suicide. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I suffered from clinical depression caused by an imbalance in my neurotransmitters. This biological disorder is known as a brain disorder. In other words, the issue was biological with psychological symptoms.

My suffering was so intense that depression incapacitated me for five years while my doctors struggled to find an effective treatment. Ultimately, I discovered a treatment that alleviated my depression, allowing me to live free from chronic depression since 1994.

Throughout this challenging period in my life, I faced what is known as suicidal ideation—recurring thoughts about ending my life. Almost every day, I felt an intense struggle against the urge to give in to these feelings. It's important to note that this didn’t start during these five years of suffering; I had encountered suicidal thoughts intermittently throughout my life. However, they became especially prominent during these years marked by chronic depression.

Thus, I entered this world with the capacity to end my life. Similarly, my wife, Melissa, has the potential to mourn my loss in a manner that only those who have lost a loved one to suicide can understand. This applies to all my family and friends as well.

In my situation, I faced my challenge by not ending my life, even though there were times when it could have gone either way. I’m thankful for Melissa’s sake and my own that I managed to overcome that hurdle, but I recognize it was an ordeal our souls were ready to withstand.

I now believe my spirit is much stronger because I chose to embrace life rather than succumb to thoughts of ending it. This choice allowed me to protect my spirit from the deep guilt and sadness that would have resulted due to the suffering my loved ones would have endured if I made that tragic decision.

“Final Thoughts”

I emphasize the details of potentials not just to challenge our minds with complicated spiritual ideas but also to help us understand the “Why?” questions in our lives. Why does God allow children to starve, good people to suffer, and tragedies to occur in the world?

We also have “Why?” questions that are less global and more personal. Why did God allow me to be abused when I was younger? Why do I struggle with addiction while my siblings do not? Why did the bully pick on me but not my peers? Why do I suffer with thoughts to end my life when others have never had this temptation? Or, why did I have to know the experience of losing a loved one to suicide, addiction, murder, accident, or illness?

One of the most significant insights I’ve gained from contemplating the afterlife since 1997 is the realization that we live a human life to have unique experiences distinct from those of our eternal spiritual selves.

As spiritual beings rooted in boundless love, joy, and peace, we engage with the physical realm to gain insights through our experiences. As timeless spiritual beings, we choose a physical existence in a dimension where, alongside love, joy, generosity, peace, and kindness, we also encounter the potential for death, crime, hatred, cruelty, and fear.

While the lesson may be difficult to accept, even repulsive for some to contemplate, there is peace in understanding that we are not on this planet to experience only love, laughter, and lollipops. We are eternal spiritual beings who have chosen to experience a human life because we can have experiences here that are not possible in the light and love of the spirit world. In brief, the purpose of human life is to have experiences.

The concept of potentials is a window into our soul’s plan for this lifetime. I experienced suicidal ideation because I, as a soul, accepted that as a “possible” experience to have. Melissa, as a soul, accepted the “possible” experience of loving someone with chronic depression who was tempted to take his own life.

In my case, I’m still here. I’m here to share my story because my free will chose life. Consequently, I’ve had a very different experience than that of taking my life. I’ve now had the experience of feeling grateful to be here. By resisting the urge to escape my private hell in my late twenties and early thirties, I have since been able to enjoy the love, joy, gratitude, laughter, and lollipops life offers. I will tell you that the contrast between my experience with chronic depression and suicidal ideation and my experience in the last thirty years has been enlightening.

I hope this explanation of “potentials” has been helpful and opened your mind to new insights. I would love to hear how this might apply to your life. Please do share in the comments.

I send you love,
Bob

PS, If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call 988 or text 988 in the United States (or visit the 988 Lifeline website), or you can learn helpful information on the International Association for Suicide Prevention website. For international crisis phone lines, visit here.

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, the author of Answers about the Afterlife, Insight from Hindsight, and The Magic Mala, and the creator of the most trusted directory of psychics, mediums, animal communicators, and energy healers, BestPsychicDirectory.com.