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Good Karma? Karmic Debt of Life?

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Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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  • April 2, 2015 at 7:33 pm #74826
    Angela
    Participant

    Long story short, I came from a hard life, abused as a child and abandoned, emancipated at 16, worked to get through High School, made all the right decisions, went to night college, got my BA in Pre-Law, Scholarship in MA in Criminal Justice but worked 2 jobs and went to school nights and weekends, went to a mid range Law School, fought like hell as I wasn’t the same kind of student – older and poor – and I graduated and somehow passed the Bar Exam and I have now been practicing law for almost 18 years… And I did it with student loans and not a shred of help from any family or friends… Now I am 46, twice divorced with 2 great kids 10 and 15 yrs old, but pretty much raising them on my own as my ex works out of town, and he is a decent father since I never did pick men very well, he pays his child support and he just got married for the 4th time but he pays child support and helps me out and has no other kids.

    I have always been a people pleaser and I look back and think I did better when I was totally alone and took care of just myself and didn’t care about friends or family. After law school and marriage, I did it all, I was the perfect wife, mother, friend, and daughter and daughter in law… After 12 years he left me for a younger woman, and his family left me; my side of my family finally came around and so did my high school friends and some work friends because I was doing well financially and I always took care of the people around me. I thought if I took care of other people when I was doing well, they would be there for me when I needed them…

    Boy was I wrong… I took the divorce hard, and my confidence fell, and I stupidly married someone who was needy, and all of my friends and family were needy so I took care of them for the last 6 years until I wore out, I divorced the 2nd husband because I really never loved him and I broke his heart and he wished terrible things for me – then I hit hard times – I got a drunk driving on Ambien the sleeping pill, my practice of law suffered, I became depressed, everyone moved on with their lives, and now I am in foreclosure on my home, and I am on Food Stamps, barely able to keep things together, a year ago I was near suicidal, and no one heard from me, saw me on Facebook, or noticed I wasn’t on the radar – and no one calls me unless they need legal advice, and then they want it for free.

    I use to be so hopeful and good things happened, I forgave easily, and I moved on easily. Now I feel resentful and taken advantage of and angry that no one has cared or asked or done anything for me. If I bring it up, my friends will say “just ask for help” which is hard enough to do, and when I do ask, they blow me off. I decided to let go of all the toxic people and now I have no one left. I have always been a generous, kind, and good hearted person that would do anything for anyone which is why now I have no savings or anything left for me in my time of need. When does all the good karma and freebies and money I gave without expectation the last 18 years come back around to keep me from drowning?

    I can honestly say that I never asked anyone to do anything for me without paying them, and I never took advantage of anyone… Seriously, through years of counseling, we figured out that since my mom was 16 when she was pregnant with me and told me at 10 years old that she was on the table to get an abortion because they didn’t want me, that she ingrained a Karmic Debt of Life into my psyche that makes me feel like I have to constantly have to pay for my life every day on earth, so I overcompensate in every way, every day.

    So again, here’s my question, I am 46 years old, when do my good days come? I think I have paid my dues for my life here on earth. I have no one but parasites in my family and friends, and they don’t even care about me, if I can’t get them to care about me, is there any hope? I am sad, I put in the work, I have prayed and tried to be positive.

    April 4, 2015 at 3:47 am #74862
    Dr Sai Deshmukh
    Participant

    Hi!
    Overwhelmed with your story. I come from India wherein the theory of Karma has deep roots! But I want to point out however soothing it is, Karma is a dicey concept. I have seen bad things always happening to people who never hurt others and are always ready to help. On the contrary people who lie, manipulate are seen succeeding. Some say the success is short lived. It makes me wonder do we understand the theory of Karma correctly?
    Any incident good or bad is decided by time. Leave it to the time, all we can do is keep mental peace. I know the wearer knows where the shoe pinches and its always easy to showers of wisdom. But I have had really horrifying experiences about people including my blood relatives, friends & acquaintances. Just maintain neutrality. There is nothing good or bad, just grey!

    April 4, 2015 at 10:09 am #74868
    Septemberlotus
    Participant

    Dear Afxlaw,

    Inspired to read about how much you’ve managed to come up in life independently, despite your struggles early in life. Please know that we all have good times and bad. And that no phase is permanent! And we all do make mistakes, sometimes badly. But please do not get stuck in guilt or self pity, only because these suck you down more. It is great to know you have 2 wonderful kids, and that you have been singly raising them for the most part. Please continue to stay optimistic, and take each day as it comes. Even in the darkest of times, we all have something to be grateful about. Even tiny things – the fact that we are mentally and physically well and whole, that we have a roof on our heads, that we have a family…I could go on. I assure you great times will come by, if only you will continue to be optimistic. Quit dwelling on the past. Trust your decisions, past or present. They were all for good reasons. You are just as wonderful as anybody else God has made! Start a new hobby, try taking regular walks, and reaffirm positive things to your mind. Wishing you peace and happiness ahead, which I’m sure are not far away at all!! Cheers!

    April 4, 2015 at 11:08 am #74869
    Matt
    Participant

    Afxlaw,

    I’m sorry for your suffering, and can understand the emptiness of a drained heart. Sometimes when we are looking all around us for the light of love, we forget to look down at our own chest. There, most times, we see a lighthouse shining. Said differently, you ask when the good karma will come around and bring peace and contentment. My counter question to you is: when will afxlaw’s heart and well being be as important to you as other people’s heart and well being?

    You seem practiced at being generous and giving, which is great. Perhaps its time for you to focus that tenderness on yourself? What do you like to do? Who are you? What makes you happy? Not “why aren’t people making me happy?” The first four questions are like lanterns along the path of joy. The last question is always answered “because they can’t, no one can give another happiness”.

    Namaste, good luck.

    With warmth,
    Matt

    April 4, 2015 at 12:49 pm #74877
    Angela
    Participant

    Thank you for the responses! I have been stuck thinking it over and over again and I can’t “think” of what I am passionate or love anymore… I had a very rough winter, my body gave out and I was sick with colds and ear infections over the winter and losing weight and getting myself caught up in a resentful mindset confirming my theory that no one cared about me… I did read more blogs over the last few days and read more about being grateful and started my gratitude journal. I also had a good cry and thought this being Easter weekend would be a good time to let go and forgive and it’s a beautiful day here and today I am all alone and I am going to take a walk and enjoy the day. I think I do have that thought playing in my mind saying negative things and I am not sure how to stop it or if I try to ignore it or if try to think about something else or confront it? It’s there, looking for validation, and when I am disappointed or hurt, it pops up and it validates itself “see no one cares”… And yes, I do need to start being more self caring.

    April 4, 2015 at 5:51 pm #74881
    George
    Participant

    Dear afxlaw

    I can’t tell you what to do really. You have the double experience than i have, but i just want you to know that since you suffer right now and you need someone to take of you, you should find that someone. Invest in positive relationships. You have trouble accepting positive feedback since your relationship history shows that you are used to taking care of others, not to be taken care of. Even to be taken care of requires skill and acceptance, you must first feel valuable and precious to accept treatment, for this i talk from experience.

    Honestly i don’t care about what your parents thought. Maybe they thought of abortion. Did this hurt you deeply? Through emotional healing i hope you come to terms with your existence and realise that it doesn’t matter how you came to this world, by accident or not. You are a wonderfull, brave, caring, sweet human being and you deserve better! Your existence is valid from the moment of birth and the parent’s sole responsibillity after that is to raise you with the love you deserve. If they don’t do it, its their fault…

    I hope you find what is neccessary for your soul to close its wounds and continue with your life.

    Take care
    George

    April 5, 2015 at 9:23 pm #74952
    Angela
    Participant

    Thank you George. Yes it hurt my feelings that my parents didn’t want me, especially that they continued to blame me for their problems and told me about trying to abort me when I was age 10! And then continued to put the burden of their unhappy and abusive marriage on the fact that I was born and that they were forced to marry. They did not take care of me, they ended up abandoning me and having me take care of them when they were sick and them moved on.

    I was on my own very young and too busy trying to survive etc, that it is only now, at 46 years old, as I look at the vulnerability of my children a girl who is 10 and a son who is 15, and I think about what my parents put me through at those ages, and while my father died when I was 18, my mother has just gotten worse and meaner. She is an alcoholic who now revels in my success and takes credit for it but has no interest in my children. I have so much anger toward her, I often dream about beating her up.

    I just know how much I loved my children the minute I saw them and I don’t understand how she couldn’t love me. The one person on this earth who is suppose to love me didn’t, and still doesn’t… In fact, she sometimes wants to physically fight me. It still breaks my heart, when I am sick, or in need, and I wish I had a mother to hug or to talk to but I don’t… In fact most people in my family are parasites, so I am better staying away from them. I am tired of being disappointed in people all the time. In my career I represent criminals and I find they don’t disappoint me as much as my friends or family – and they are liars and thieves, but I know what they are, and I have no expectation of them. Sometimes I feel a closer bond to my clients than to people who are in my life.

    I want to quit feeling sorry for myself. And I am in counseling – and she told me that as an adult we don’t need love and we don’t need to be accepted and we don’t need friends to be happy… I don’t get that, I thought that love and family and friends is what life is all about. And when I have so much pain and anger, I am not able to be a truly giving person, so I have tried to reverse it and I give and give thinking the giving will make me happy, but then I have done that for 30 years and maybe 2-3 people have not taken advantage of me and have helped me out.

    Finally, I am a very good advocate for my clients, but when it comes to collecting money for my services, or advocating for myself, or confronting someone who is taking advantage of me – I feel extremely guilty – like I don’t deserve it, and I get extremely anxious, and I obsess about if I hurt their feelings or offended them, I become a noodle… I am in this bad time right now of stress and financial trouble because I couldn’t say no to people and I’m angry at myself and at them, I expected my friends who I lent money to 2 years ago to step up and help me now especially since I see them traveling to Hawaii and buying new things and they are in a better position now. I am so nice, and I don’t say anything, I expect them to do the right thing, and them one day I just snap and I say something rude and they justify not paying me back because I was rude. Now for about a year I have been struggling and I have done it all alone, all the things I have done for my family and friends when I was making a lot of money, and all the loans I gave, and work I did for them for free and they use to call me all the time when they needed something – now nothing… no calls, no help, and it just breaks my heart.

    April 6, 2015 at 12:35 am #74954
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hi afxlaw, I really do feel for you, as I share your pain. I know the pain of being unplanned baby and not wanted and accepted by your own parents. I know the pain of being betrayed by your blood relatives. I know what is it like to live in an unjust world where parasites crush true people like you and don’t offer back the good they received from you. I don’t understand how karma works, but it does not seem to be a bank account where you deposit good and then receive it later. It does not work that way although it might appear obvious.
    I know it sounds harsh to hear, but you need to find the strenght in yourself. From my life experience, every situation of disappointment has turned in time into opportunity. Opportunity to change your reaction to the situation, and therefore change your karma. You are the one that needs to teach others how to treat you, and this is done in a situation of disappointment. This is the moment that you say to those people – see, this is what you are doing, and you are not fair to me. I refuse to accept the role that you are assigning me in this life. Then the karma changes. Of course there is a cost to pay to this – you may lose your family forever, but as you said, better stay away from parasites. You may even lose material things. This is what is happening to me as well. But I’ve had it and I’d rather pay that price. I am actually very hurt and at the same time excited – as the last big betrayal is my way to Freedom.
    This is the cost to pay to change your karma, not good deeds. This world is too cruel to think that Justice will come to rescue without our effort, simply being good to people and wishing they’d change. There is a karmic reason they are the way they are, and it is against the law of free will to want to make them into different people according to our desires.
    We have the love in ourselves, and we have the power to restore the justice by refusing to be taken advantage, offended or disrespected, and accepting only what’s good for us. This is the act of Acceptance in karma.

    April 8, 2015 at 5:22 am #75057
    George
    Participant

    Dear afxlaw

    So you are very hurt…

    I believe what your counselor is trying to say is that as adults we have the capabillity to be autonomous, but i agree with you that a more fullfilling life includes the sharing of love with people who care for us. We can be autonomous at work, but we are emotionals beings as well. If your relatives and friends systematically hurt you you should speak about your feelings without guilt. They can’t know how you feel until you share with them how you trully feel right now. Even if you have anger and pain. It is not healthy to bury these feelings inside you. After that you may recieve a warmfull or cold response. But you will know after which people want to be with you and which people want favors from you…

    This is a difficult situation you are going through. I admire your strenth but you deserve a loving person that can support you. Only a superhuman being could remain alone. We humans need validation, caring, support, friends, a sense of security, trust.

    ” I don’t understand how she couldn’t love me. ” I can’t express the pain you must feel articulating this thought. My father is an alcoholic and my mother was a scared little woman who didn’t have the tiniest idea about raising a family so she let me babysitted through all my childhood. Whenever i tried to hug my parents i was called a coward by my father or “gay” (my father is crypto-racist) and my mother would make excuses (“don’t hug me its too hot in here”).

    I wish i could tell you it doesn’t hurt anymore… The only solution i see for this is that i go to a therapist once a week and i share my pain, eveltually hoping that i will find the strenth to put the past behind me. And i am saying this because maybe you feel the need to cry for the injustice you suffered as a child! Maybe you have the need to be listened without being critisided!

    You say you want to quit feeling sorry for your self. What do you mean by that? You want to feel strong again? Just like in the past where you didn’t need anyone and you just worked hard? But at that point of your life you couldn’t stand up for what you deserved that being your rightfully earned wage or your friends friendship! What do you really need right now?

    You have proven many times in the past that you are capable. Your story is an inspiring struggle for survival and for claiming one’s dreams. You have created your own business and family regardless if things are not going very well now. This is natural, it happens to everyone. So maybe you don’t need to prove your self again… Maybe you need someone to take care of you?(that may be your therapist, your friends, your future friends, etc). Please don’t assume i know everything.I am making this assumption based on my own experience as well as your story. What matter the most is how you answer to this question: What do you really need right now?

    Best regards
    George

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by George.
    • This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by George.
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