As you know, your jar (http://www.thestudyofwhatif.com/classes.htm) is the storehouse of all yours memories, beliefs, your life’s experiences (both comfortable and uncomfortable/happy and sad, and so on), your fears, your hurts, your desires, your disappointments, your happy times, traditions, religious beliefs, etc. These memories are usually contained within your unconscious (jar), so we are unaware that they are having an influence on our outlook or the decisions we make. As we live our lives, our first reaction to any experience, from deciding if our day will be good or miserable or if someone we have just met is friendly or not, is based on data that is contained within our jars. For example,

§  if it is raining outside, our jars could tell us that it will be a bad day or a hard day because it is raining; when, in fact, the rain has nothing to do with what kind of day we could/will have.

§  we could meet someone new, and because their name is the same name as someone from our past who betrayed us, we could instantly judge them as untrustworthy, when, in fact, they could turn out to be a great friend or more.

§  we could be ever struggling to experience that great vacation we had five years ago and find we are unable to do so. As a result, we miss great vacations because none of them were the one we are trying to duplicate.

The memories we house in our jars have an effect and influence on how we think, on how we act or react, on how we make our choices, and can even affect the way we look.

Why is getting out of our jars a good thing to do?

It is okay to use our jars to critique our lives and to make choices.  However, we are usually unconsciously using the information contained in our jars; and in doing so, we limit ourselves, we miss opportunities, and we do not use our free will.  In effect, we are reacting to our life and its challenges; and, by doing so, we can end up labeling ourselves as the victim and expending a lot of energy as we dwell on our life’s challenges.

On the other hand, if we consciously use the information housed in our jars, we can make decisions using our free will.  Hence, we respond to our life and its challenges, rather than react; and, in effect, we take responsibility for our choices/decisions and become aware of the power of staying in present time/present consciousness.  Thus, we can move forward in our lives.

We may not always understand what is happening in our lives, how we will get from point A to point B, or why we are drawn to certain people or experiences, but with “free will” we can choose how we will respond.  As the old saying goes, “if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got.”  When you unconsciously go to your jar, you are doing what you have always done.  When you consciously live your life and use your free will -- you have choices.  Your jar gives you a framework of data that you can use to live your life, but your “free will” gives you the choice of what to do with this data.  In effect, your future is changeable because you have free will.

We are constantly attracting experiences to ourselves so that we can get to know who we are. These experiences give us knowledge about our own identity, as well as how our choices lead us to other experiences.

“There is always a component of free will within our reach.

We may not always understand why we are faced with an experience,

but we do have free will to choose how we will respond to it.”

Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records, Kevin J. Todeschi, ARE Press, 1998