Forgiveness.

We have all been deeply hurt at one time or another through the words or actions of another. We have also, all done some damage of own towards others. I know for myself that I have hurt and offended others without even being fully aware that I had done so.

When someone hurts us or vice-versa… what do we, as humans beings, normally do? Do we hang onto our anger and resentment, bringing forth thoughts of revenge and rage , or do we decide to embrace forgiveness and move forward? Truly moving forward includes moving on without holding onto grudges or bitterness. This can be a very daunting task that sometimes takes us years to accomplish. I am still learning how to truly forgive. It’s really difficult to allow all your wounds to heal. Especially if the people who have caused those wounds have never given you an apology. Sometimes, even if the other person does apologize, we are wound up so tightly with our anger and our unforgiveness, that we simply refuse to accept an olive branch when offered to us. These pent-up negative feelings can cause horrible damage to our relationships, careers, families and to our own bodies. I believe that many devastating illnesses and conditions that manifest within the body at times stem from harboring bitterness and unforgiveness towards others and for ourselves.

When I have had times of really feeling hurt and angry towards someone for transgressions against me, my angels/guides have said to me “Remember that you are all doing what you can with the knowledge, awareness and energy that you have to work with… and as you change and evolve, through experiences with one another, you grow in your ability to maintain grace and peace together.” They also remind me that I am the true creator of every relationship and situation that I draw to me and am not ever a victim. This divine guidance has helped me to take some of the emotion out of hurtful exchanges and release my judgment of others who have offended me. I still feel the initial sting when someone wounds me, but I have a much easier time letting go of it when I remember these messages from spirit.  With these gifts of knowledge I am able to release my resentment and hurt, allowing me to put things into perspective and have understanding, compassion, and even empathy for those who have offended me. The wounds may remain in my memory, or may have caused permanent changes in my life, but I am free of the grip of bitterness or grudges which can truly hurt me in the long run.

Forgiveness, however, doesn’t mean that you deny the other person’s responsibility or erase the act. What it does is help you to lift yourself out of the negative energy of the wrongful act. When you forgive you set yourself free from being imprisoned by negativity. Being a person who has the ability to forgive allows you to move away from the role of victim. You take back your power and release the offending person’s or the situation’s power it has had in your life. In having this awareness and truly owning your power, you will no longer define yourself or your life by how hurt you have been. You then have the power to define yourself as a being of grace and serenity within.

“He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love.”  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.~

Blessings to all!

Karen~

The Dark Night Of The Soul.

The Dark Night Of The Soul is a metaphor that is used to describe a time in a person’s spiritual life, that manifests as a time of struggle along with a sense of loneliness or isolation. This is a common experience for individuals who are seeking growth and spiritual maturity as they walk the path towards their union with God, The Source Of All Creation, or All That Is.

The origin of The Dark Night Of The Soul comes from a poem, under that title, that was written by 16th century poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John Of The Cross. This poem describes the hardships he endured as a Carmelite priest, while he was imprisoned by his Carmelite brothers who were opposed to his reformation to their order. During this phase in one’s spiritual life, you may feel that you are in the midst of a spiritual crisis that affects everything in your world. This period of time is referred to as “dark” because you feel that you are disconnected from the light or that somehow God has forsaken you. You feel prayer and all the ways that you used to gain comfort from spirit, to allow you to sustain your faith, have suddenly lost their value and left you bereft. This leads to being stripped of parts of your psyche, ego and former perceptions of self and of God.

This is truly a blessing in disguise as it makes way within the conscious/concrete mind for an awakening or quickening of the soul. Having to take your steps forward in faith, and seemingly alone, rewards you with a sense of strength and courage that you may not have found or known within yourself otherwise. It actually opens your eyes more fully to Divinity and strengthens your connection and your awareness of your own value. Usually having come through this phase of your spiritual life restores your soul to higher state of being and you will have fewer experiences in which to question your value again. Finding within you, your hearts true home.

For those of you who feel that you are experiencing The Dark Night Of The Soul, let me tell you from my own personal experience and from the experiences of some beautiful people who are close to me, that even though you feel isolated and as if you are in the center of a devastating storm…don’t lose faith and you are absolutely not alone! You will find your strength and make it through this time and as you begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel you will be a stronger and wiser soul for it!

As Jesus has said to me “The death of the old brings forth life renewed.”

Blessings,
Karen~

Looking closer at Karma and Reincarnation III, Conclusion.

I promised to talk further about these fascinating topics and to tell about my personal experiences, so, here are some examples. In respect of individuals’ privacy I am not going to mention names or specifics about some of these relations that would lead to identifying them. My son Connor, however, has given me his full permission to talk about our connection to each other in reference to karma and reincarnation. He is a very open soul!

I know that I had karmic ties with a former lover. This was due to the fact that in another soul interaction I deserted him. This caused a buildup of harmful energy between our souls. So, in this life we returned to each other for the purpose of balancing that energy, which was accomplished with his choice to desert me. I understand that this is what was meant to be and gave him complete forgiveness. Now our connection is neutral and balanced. “You reap what you sow.”

Another personal experience of mine was with former student. This student had always held a deep connection to my heart and I felt an enormous sense of obligation to give far more support and encouragement to this particular student than I would in any other teacher – student relationship. My spirit guides showed me that in another life with this person I had been the student and they had been my mentor who had basically taken me in as their own child and supported me for years. So, now I was experiencing the other side of that in order to balance out the positive energy that was exchanged. “What goes around comes around.”

Lastly, I will tell of my relationship to my son Connor. He and I have shared repeated soul connections, or lives, and in each one he dies and leaves me to grieve the loss of my child. In this life it is his soul’s intention to follow through with our parent-child relationship and see it through it’s natural progression;  a child eventually sees their parent die and lives past them. It is my soul’s intention to support him in this and not go through the horrible heartache of losing a child again. Connor just wrapped up a year of chemotherapy treatments and surgeries after developing cancer. Now he is free of the disease and growing stronger every day. I have faith that we are fulfilling our soul contract and balancing out our karma in this life.

In conclusion, I leave you with a few things to think about. We all, every single one of us, picked our parents before our soul was brought back into body. We also sign on to have many other soul connections based on our karmic ties, but our parents are very important as they kind of set the stage for who we are and what our genetic and personality traits are. Think about that and see if it creates a shift in the dynamics of your relationship with your parents and also your children, if you are a parent.

I have enjoyed sharing my experiences with karma and reincarnation and the great comments from you. Maybe we will find ourselves here again, but until then, remember that your true power is in the present moment! Not the past or the future. Make your happiness here and now!! That is the secret!

Love and blessings to all,
Karen

Looking Closer At Karma And Reincarnation II

The soul is limitless and eternal. It is a spark from the divine flame, carrying all the gifts, abilities and unlimited aspects of that flame. The flame being the source of all creation, all that is, God/Goddess. Existing as a spark from that flame we can create, think, feel, dream and learn. Through countless lives (in body) or experiences interacting with other souls, we are able to gain vast amounts of knowledge, resulting in unimaginable expansion and growth. This is why karma and reincarnation go hand in hand. Through our many experiences with all the forms that Spirit takes we are transcending… transforming… it is a supremely beautiful process.

The definition of reincarnation as given by Websters dictionary is: 1: Rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; birth of a soul in a new human body; a fresh embodiment.

Here is some information that Spirit has presented to me: In our dimension we have the understanding that everything exists and has always existed in linear time. In the higher dimensions, where our essence began, linear time is not observed. When you ascend out of your body at the end of your life and your soul joins its source in the ethers, it observes its in-body experiences or lives as all happening at once and drawing energy and knowledge from all of those experiences at the same time. It knows it to be one vast experience of its own omnipresent self. So, in truth, we have what we call past lives and we also live alternate lives and have access to all of them. Some call this the omniverse which coincides with areas of quantum physics (which I love and will probably blog about in the future).

There are many different views and beliefs attached to karma and reincarnation and whether they even exist. Most people have established perceptions on both of these concepts depending on their culture and religious upbringing.

I know for myself, having had many past or alternate life experiences brought forth to conscious mind, that I most definitely have had and am having many in body growth experiences or lives. I have a very clear connection to them and know that most of the important people I have interacted with in this life have had other lives with me, and that we are tied together by the choice of our souls and by karma. You have karmic ties to others when you have exchanged energy with them and that energy requires balance. Like I said in my previous article, this can be a beneficial or harmful energetic exchange. There is much expansion and growth to gain from both kinds of energy.

I will be diving into these topics further in Friday, with some examples of my own karma and reincarnation experiences. Until then examine some of your most powerful connections in your relationships and see how you feel about your own karmic ties.

Blessings,

Karen~

Looking Closer At Karma And Reincarnation.

Recently I have had many people asking questions about karma and reincarnation. This isn’t surprising since these words have made it into our mainstream, on television shows and in everyday conversations. My boys were even toying around with using the word karma for part of their future rock band name. Even with these words being used everywhere, not everyone knows what they really mean or how they are effecting them in their current circumstances. Truly the answers aren’t that easy to explain or to understand. So settle in and read with an open heart and open mind.

The definition of karma as given by Websters Dictionary is: (Hinduism and Buddhism) The effects of a person’s actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation.

In Western culture we use such colloquialisms as ‘ What goes around comes around’ and ‘ You reap what you sow.’ This is connected to cause and effect and how action has an equal and opposite reaction. Karma is known as a universal law where the energy you send out, from your thoughts, feelings, choices and actions returns to you whether it is beneficial or harmful. Holding on to negative patterns mentally and emotionally results in a ripple effect on everyone and everything in our environment. The law of attraction, which has also become a very popular concept in our modern culture, then draws to us our matching energy. Again this can be good, bad or ugly depending on what we are sending out.

There are ways to break out of negativity and free ourselves from a negative or unpleasant karmic cycle. The most used methods are meditation, prayer or receiving some form of counseling. Incorporating meditation into our life, for example, allows us to enhance our emotional self-awareness and supports us in avoiding negative karma. In having that inner awareness, we are then able to move forward from the perspective of being in charge of our own destiny instead of a victim of circumstance. Choosing to come from a positive place within, we, through our higher vibrational energy, make choices and take action void of negativity. This acts to balance our karma and begins a shift that allows a flow of positive karmic energy to ripple out, negating any negative energy and drawing back to us bliss. Again, going back to the age-old ‘What you reap you will sow’ and ‘What goes around comes around.’

This is a lot to think about. I will continue more about karma and it’s relationship to reincarnation in my next few blogs. Until then…ponder your own karma and what experiences it has brought to your life.

Blessings to all!

Karen~