Karma is anything we have brought into our lives that originated before this present incarnation. The term karma is often used in relation to specific experiences or relationships. These could be unfinished “feelings” that our soul still yearns to work through which came from a previous lifetime.
It could be karmic that we find ourselves accused of a wrongdoing we never committed or treated unfairly by our peers. It could be karmic that we find ourselves scared of heights or having other phobias from a previous lifetime experience. It could be karmic that we feel controlled or repressed as this was our expression in a previous lifetime as a slave or other victim and we never completed the lesson.
We can have specific karma with people. You might find in a family one child is favored and one child always gets the raw end of the deal. In situations where this is karmic, it usually appears to the bystander that there is no apparent reason for it. The parent often is not even aware of anything they are doing.
Many of our romantic relationships are karmic, meaning we had an experience with this person in a past life and are now either continuing the same lesson or perhaps have chosen to reverse our roles and experience another side of ourselves. So meeting a “soul mate” means to meet a person we have known before and wish to further explore our spiritual relationship. This could be a wonderful meeting of two people with a loving connection to experience deep unconditional love. However, a soul mate can also be someone you know and love from before who is about to teach you some quite unpleasant lessons. After all, who can push your buttons and affect you more profoundly and painfully than a soul mate that you know and deeply love?
Most of our relationships are karmic, including our lovers, our family, and our bosses. Some may have deeper meaning than others but most of our relationships, even passing acquaintances, we have known in some way before. After all, we reincarnate in soul groups, often waiting for us all to be together so we can reincarnate at the same time.
Karma can also be physical. Sometimes we bring physical issues or ailments as a result of something in the past we feel is unfinished. You will even see people who have a birthmark that was a scar from a wound in a previous lifetime. For example, I had a friend who had continuous problems with his lower left leg in this lifetime. The problems had been originally caused by an accident when he was a teen that crushed his ankle. Later other issues and complications arose as an adult, all due to this initial accident as a teen. But is that where it really originated?
We did a past life regression. He found himself in a previous life in the middle of World War II. He was in the midst of a horribly gruesome battle. The last thing he remembered was taking a step, hearing a horrific noise, and being propelled up and flying through the air. At that moment he realized he had stood on a landmine. His lower left leg was completely blown off, leaving him numb from the knee down. The last thing he remembered was being carried off on a stretcher and looking down to see his lower left leg missing.
We tend to think of karma as a negative or bad thing. We look at it as an obstacle or difficulty that has come back to haunt us from the past. People tend to see it as some nasty “lesson” from God. God does not set obstacles in our way or throw us difficult and painful situations. It just doesn’t make sense that God, this beautiful energy that is made of all unconditional love, would want to throw us nasty, hurtful experiences. This is because it is simply not true. God supports us and loves us but gives us free will. We do this to ourselves. We set up difficult and not pleasant situations because we want to experience all sides of our soul. So it is a longing we have to experience life and all it has to offer.
If we set ourselves an experience and we didn’t complete it or fully experience what it had to offer in a past life, we then have the desire to finish what we started and to follow-through and experience the issue. We would not feel like we accomplished much if we just sat back and allowed God to only bring us beautiful experiences. We need to feel like we worked for it, that we completed the puzzle ourselves. Opening the newspaper to the crossword section and finding it already filled out would not be much fun. Still, when we become consciously aware of our true purpose and our karmic “tests,” there are ways we can progress through them more quickly and easily.
The word karma often has a negative connotation for people. Actually, karma playing out can feel good or bad, we just tend to dwell on the difficult situations. But karma can also present us with the opportunity for a beautiful and joyful vacation. Karma can help us to receive recognition or acclaim for our accomplishments. Karma could bring us the perfect home and a loving relationship. Karma plays though our life in our beautiful moments as well.
We often wonder about karma and how it works when we cross over. You may have heard about people who have been to the other side (usually through a near death experience) and then come back. These people may talk about a “life review,” where upon crossing to the other side, your life flashes before you. It is true that when you go to the other side, you will look back on what you have accomplished. You’ll surely look at your Purpose in life and contemplate the areas where you did a good job and where you fell short. You actually review and experience the good things you did and where you weren’t so good. You “feel” the feelings that you imparted on others when you did something nice for them. You also “feel” the feelings that you imparted on others when you did something not so nice. So you actually feel the pain, hurt, guilt, and other feelings that you inflicted on other people. This is not God punishing you; this is simply your soul more clearly understanding your journey.
If you inflicted pain on others, you often will want to feel the reversal in your next life (as part of your learning and growth) and those people are going to come back with you! The good news is you don’t have to wait until you die, you can work on it right now. You can make a conscious effort to give back in areas where you know you have hurt others. Even if you can’t make amends with that particular person, you can “pay back” your karma by helping others in a similar way. It is far easier to alter your life and work though things you have done wrong now, in this lifetime. Otherwise that person is going to blindside you in your next life and your going to say, “Why do I deserve that?” or “I didn’t do anything to them…!” It makes you look at things differently, doesn’t it?
So karma can refer to our theme or True Purpose, but it can also refer to the experiences that originated from another lifetime. It can also refer to certain events or relationships and the energy we create through them. Each of these experiences are, of course, beautifully interwoven seamlessly into our theme or true purpose. These are individual experiences of expressions of our soul journey.
Gail Thackray writes more about karma, soul mates, and soul purpose in her new book to be released shortly: What’s Up with My Life? Finding and Living Your True Purpose