I think we get a chance to "make input" to the decision as to what sort of life we want - its all bound up with what we and our soul want to accomplish in the particular embodiment.

However, things are changing in the way Earth deals with human embodiments... the latest news, in my understanding, is that instead of having discarnates cluttering up an already overloaded "astral" or higher realm waiting to embody, when our body dies, we become ancestors to all those embodied people who have some DNA lineages in common with what we had. These will be many more than just our physical family relatives, as there will be tens of thousands of individuals with at least one of our DNA lineages (we are apparently born with 25). (A lineage is a "line of descent" - which may go back hundreds of thousands of years).

As an ancestor, we have an energetic link through the DNA lineage whereby we are attached to those who have a matching lineage, and are able to experience that embodied one's life, and also contribute to it by giving guidance by way of inspirations and helping with skills we developed whilst embodied. We in fact exist as consciousness in the hearts of each embodied "relation" who has a lineage in common with us. For consciousness never dies. This is a great expansion of our consciousness - imagine what it will be like to be aware of the lives of tens of thousands of human brothers and sisters and what is going on in them! Interesting thought, eh!

And a practical application... we each can NOW call upon our ancestors who were good at doing something we need to be able to do, and ask them to help us. It works for me, anyway, when I want to cook something, or go to a restaurant and want a good meal - I ask that the cook / chef be overshadowed and helped to have some "food magic" which will produce that mmmm-yummy meal.

Pounamu