Day 8 is here! One full week of this meditation. It actually feels pretty good.
I was concerned the first day because I woke up and was irritated with EVERYTHING for the first couple of hours. But I have found deep breathing and going for walks to be my saving grace in these moments of irritation. Most of the time there is nothing that I can do about what I encounter, so its a moment of witness, acceptance, and move on.
Anger Is Inflammatory
There are some things that have come up for me over the past few days though. One of them is about anger. Anger is a valid emotion. Anger is something that needs to be acknowledged. Anger is an inflammatory emotion though.
What this means, I realized, is that unhealthy or unexpressed anger will always inflame a problem instead of aiding in resolving it. Unhealthy or unexpressed anger will also lead to inflammation problems inside of the body.
I began to think about all the people who come into the store I manage seeking anti-inflammatories to relieve their pain. When I realized that anger is inflammatory I realized that it was on ALL levels – not just in our relationships.
Now anger is a very healthy emotion to have. It can be utilized to create change in a positive way. It can be felt and acknowledged in a healthy way. I find often I just need to acknowledge my anger by speaking about it, and it will dissipate of its own accord. There’s something to be said about the expression of something.
Our society does not teach us how to handle our anger though. When I was thinking about all of this about anger, and again thinking about all the people coming in to buy anti-inflammatories, I began to wonder how many of them have healthy expressions of anger? How many have been holding onto anger for years and years? There seem to be a good many grumpy people purchasing these supplements. What would happen if we began to do somatic work to release the anger? Would inflammation go away?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, but it was good contemplation material.
Karma is Not Payback
The concept of karma keeps being talked about around me right now. My hairdresser and I ended up talking about it and she made the statement that Karma is payback.
It sounded so black and white to me – which I know karma is not. It’s a lot more complicated than that. It’s a lot more about the soul creating experiences that create more empathy, compassion, and love than payback.
The soul is eternity with the current physical form we inhabit as its most recent expression with awareness. This body is the point of awareness for the soul. This point of awareness is gathering all types and forms of experiences which is what the soul wants. Over time, this soul has been gathering all types of energetic charges – both positive and negative – that will play out in different soul expressions.
To a degree, we can control how much karma we experience in a single lifetime. If you want to grow in awareness and become more conscious, you are going to have to deal with more of the karmas (energetic discharges) than someone who is happy coasting through life. The one who is actively seeking awareness has experiences that discharge both positive and negative karmas which releases encoded patterning and programs inside of the physical form. As this process happens the physical form and the human becomes more in alignment with its inherent Divinity – whatever form that takes!
The coaster, on the other hand, will experience karmas, but without actively seeking consciousness, many of the karmas need to wait to be discharged. They might come, but they will keep their charge and come again, and again until we learn what we need from the discharge.
A lot of people say that when you learn the lesson the karma won’t come back again. That’s true. It’s also very simplified. I’ve had experiences of karma discharging where it wasn’t a “lesson” per se, it was more of the need to listen to someone yelling at me. Or it was more of feeling the pain of another person.
Which is why I now believe that karma is about creating more empathy, compassion, and love in the human experience. It creates a deeper understanding of what it means to be a human. And also what it means to be a soul. It gives a greater ability to relate to different people with love in your heart.
There was a period of time in my life that I began to ask myself “Is this karma?” and if I got a yes, I would ask “How can I resolve it? What do I need to receive or give from this experience?”. Sometimes what I needed to do to resolve it was hard and scary. But I knew that if I resolved it, it was gone. It wouldn’t show up any more. And sometimes it was really easy, like just listening to someone express their pain.
I still ask those questions. Everytime something weird happens. Every time I don’t understand what is happening in a relationship. Every time there’s a weird vibe I can’t quite place.
Conclusion
Well. There’s more that has come up for me over the past week in doing this meditation. It feels like this is enough though for this post. These are the big things that have kind of blown me away through this week. The Big Things I keep thinking about. 🙂
P.S. If you haven’t joined the meditation challenge yet I highly encourage you to do so. I mean, it will only change your life for the better. Sign up for my email list to receive updates and to find out what the next one is. Things are about to get good! 🙂
