One question keeps bothering me for a long time: is it allowed to break a person's self determinism by forcing them to do the right thing? Like forcing them to eat healthy food or to exercise?

In my human life, I have experienced that enforcing decisions on children or seniors is a pretty common thing. When I am in the situation do choose between enforcing something or respecting a person's will, I always "gravitate" toward respecting their will even if they are making bad decisions.

It was most painful to watch my husband's constant decisions to eat the wrong things and resist my recommendations what to change in his diet. At the time of his death we knew that with better nutrition he might have survived the crisis. In all the years where I was fighting for his health, trying to talk him out of his "mainstream" habits, I kept getting serious warnings from my spirit guide that I should NOT attempt to break his self determinism by taking away from him the decision what to eat.

I now have a similar problem with my son. My spirit guide will allow me to discuss diet with him and offer healthy meals, but not to force him to eat them, and not to forbid him to buy silly junk food. The boy is only 18 and already seriously overweight. I have heard many doctors say that our generation will be the first to bury their own kids because of this obesity epidemic.

How is this dilemma between respect for self determinism and protecting people from dangerous or destructive decisions handled in the afterlife? Will guides and helpers there always respect a person's decision even if it is harmful? Will they ever force somebody to get rid of a habit or learn a new pattern that would be essential? Is there a certain line, when a situation becomes dangerous, were the respect for somebody's free will becomes less important than activities to keep them safe?

Greetings,

Some of us just love food !!  

Perhaps you could share with your son a couple of hints I've found helpful--
his hunger may come from some nutritional lack, so he keeps seeking more food in order to try to get enough of that missing vitamin, mineral, whatever. So if he'd start his day with some good quality nutritional supplements--calcium, protein tablets, vitamin E, etc, he might not get cravings later.

I'm coming back down from being overweight myself. I expanded the variety of tastes in my pantry and try exploring new foods as often as possible. I find enjoying more has led to needing less.

Perhaps these individuals are in your life so that they will be reminded of the damage they do, even though they can't help doing it. Maybe they are balancing out a previous life when such food was not available and they need to satisfy themselves that they won't starve. (In the life I've come to believe I lived previously, I died of starvation.  )

Ultimately their choices are their own. Can you find a way to offer your son reminders that doesn't punish you or him? Like pre-printed little notes saying 'Because I care.' or some such?

Spirit and pragmatics really come together at the dinner table, eh !?

Bets

Hi Hbeer-
Our expected roles in life have a great deal to do with this.

Relative to you personally, the motives behind your efforts are most important.

Regarding those whom you'd like to counsel, they should have the common sense to listen, but if they don't they have two choices. (1) You're the Mom, he is the son, he ought to listen and follow what Mom says. (2) They can do their own thing, and acquire their own karma, and pay their own rent. This is what most of do in spite of well wishers. .

By the bye - my wife definitely leans on me to do certain things that she feels are important, like eating regularly and only a well balanced diet etc. That's part of being a wife. I do the same for her as a husband.

When in doubt, act from love with loving actions, and you can't go too far wrong.

dave

hbeer:

When it comes to relative affairs, my spirit guidance will sometimes provide perspectives, but it doesn't provide commands.  

I believe it is more of a matter of common purpose, rather than authority.  For example, when Rosalind Mcknight and Robert Monroe worked with spirit beings, the spirit beings informed them they needed to eat better in order to continue working together. This wasn't a matter of control,  it was a matter of what was required energetically in order for their work to continue.

The same thing occurred with me.  For my spiritual development and the way I help with retrievels, a lot of energetic work is involved. If I don't eat healthy,  energetic imbalances occur that interfere with the common goals me and my spirit helpers work towards.

There is also the issue of why should a spirit guide devote time and effort to helping a person in the physical, if that person doesn't due his or her part. Everybody's efforts and time gets wasted.

There is also the issue of how open the lines of communications are. If they aren't super clear, sometimes terseness is needed for the sake of brevity.