Dear Rebecca:

In my reply here I will refer to karma as the idea, or principle of Cause and Effect, meaning that what we say and do affects (has an effect on) other people, and what they say and do affects (has an effect on) us. It’s a simple idea, something that supposedly everyone knows, right? But not so. For example, my mother used to say terribly hurtful things to me. When I complained about it somehow (as a teenager), she told me that her hurtful words should have no effect on me, that there was something wrong with me for taking offense. She didn’t see herself (or if she did, she didn’t present herself to me) as the Cause of my hurt feelings, and therefore, she continued to verbally offend me.

When we are aware of the principle of Cause and Effect, and we care to not offend others, then we are motivated to be selective as to our words and actions, so to not offend or harm others.

The way I see it,  we live in a world where all humans (who are old enough) are harming others, and unnecessarily so. Some more than others, some less frequently.. in different ways,  but we are all stuck in a world where we harm and are harmed. To put it in a different way: there is and has been for centuries so much harm in the world, that no one is free from harm: not as the receiver of harm, and not as the giver of harm.

This is not to say that harming others is okay, no, not at all. What I am saying is that if you expect yourself to never harm anyone, you are setting an unrealistic expectation for yourself, and in so doing, you’d be stuck in shame and guilt forevermore. And if you expect this from others, you are setting an unrealistic expectations for them, and you will be stuck in distrust of all.

The solution, if such was possible, would be for every individual to be aware of the principle of Cause and Effect and care to do-no-harm. To have it as a value and a goal to not harm others, while not expecting perfection in this regard. We need to tolerate and endure the fact that sometimes we will hurt other people’s feelings.. by mistake, because we didn’t think through something we said before saying it.

You suggested in your original post, as I understand it,  that you were assaulted because maybe you did something wrong: “If it was concerning something I did, I think it was a very long time ago .I.e. childhood“- do you feel guilty for something that you have done as a child, a wrongdoing of some kind, something that is difficult for you to forgive yourself for?

anita