Spoiler Alert: You’re Not in Control and That’s Actually Good News

What If Everything Is Caused… Even the Drive to Awaken?

Reimagining personal growth through the lens of spiritual determinism

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about free will. Or more precisely—what happens if we stop believing in it altogether.

If that sounds unsettling, I get it. The idea that we’re not actually “choosing” our actions—that everything we do is the result of genetics, childhood wiring, hormones, trauma, environment, and sheer randomness—can sound like a recipe for apathy. Or nihilism. Or just lying in bed eating cheese and blaming our ancestors.

But honestly? It doesn’t feel like that to me.

I’ve been reading Robert Sapolsky, the brilliant neuroscientist and author of Determined, who argues (with both science and a surprising amount of flair) that free will is a myth. That we are, every one of us, a product of countless forces we didn’t choose. That even our most “conscious” decisions are shaped by things that happen beneath the surface of awareness—often long before the moment of choice ever arrives.

And strangely, instead of feeling hopeless when I read his work, I felt… free.

Why? Because I’ve spent most of my life blaming myself—for everything. My health. My choices. My relationships. My reactions. The questionable pants I bought in 2003. I carried the exhausting belief that if something was wrong, it must be my fault. And when I began to see myself not as a failing person, but as a complex system of causes—something shifted.

But I don’t stop where Sapolsky stops.

Because while I accept that our behavior is determined, I also believe that spiritual intelligence is part of that determinism.

I call this spiritual determinism. It’s the idea that the human drive to grow, to heal, to understand, to become more compassionate—it’s not separate from the cause-and-effect machinery of the brain. It’s within it. It is it.

Just like bees build hives, and salmon swim upstream, maybe humans are wired for transformation. For awakening. For individuation—not as an act of free will, but as a kind of beautiful inevitability, if conditions allow (and if we’ve had coffee, let’s be honest).

What if the spark of self-awareness that leads us to heal is just as deterministic as the pain that kept us stuck?

What if your longing for peace, your intuition, your resilience, your curiosity about consciousness—all of it—is part of your design?

To me, this is the bridge between science and soul.

It doesn’t mean everyone will grow. Some people won’t—or can’t. We've all seen what happens when people cause harm and can’t—or won’t—change. And I no longer try to turn those people into self-help projects. (That, too, was probably determined.) But even the clarity to walk away from that is part of the unfolding. Even our boundaries, our compassion, and our longing to love wisely… are part of the equation.

And that’s where I find meaning.

Not in believing I control it all. (I barely control my sock drawer.)
But in learning to see the patterns clearly.
To recognize what aligns with life, and what drains it.
To stop asking “Why do I do this?” and instead whisper, “Ohhh. That makes sense.”

And to honor the part of me—of all of us—that moves, quietly and persistently, toward the light.

Joanne