How Your Habits Become Your Karma
Can We Change Our Karma?
I recently wrote a little about Karma, from more of a theoretical standpoint. Let’s talk about the nitty gritty.
As a dramatic oversimplification of Karma, that works for explaining my point, let’s think of Karma as being something similar to a habit.
The life we have now is the product of our habits. If we eat too many treats, we get extra snuggly (meaning fat *raises hand awkwardly*). If we study hard, we get good grades. I’m pretty sure you hear me.
I heard a quote, it might have been from James Clear who wrote Atomic Habits. The quote said something along the lines that our success doesn’t rise to the level of our processes, but falls to the level of our habits.
I don’t know if I have that quote right, but again, it serves my point. We can have all kinds of aspirations, but if we don’t take the daily actions, we won’t live up to those aspirations. We are the compound product of the little actions we take. When we make steps forward each day, towards a specific goal, we build momentum.
Karma means momentum. That means that we can shift our Karma by gradually building momentum in a new direction. Have you ever been swimming in a direction and then changed directions? It takes a moment to make that shift. You had momentum in a different direction, and now you’re trying to change that flow.
We feel a lot of resistance when we shift our direction. We have to have the patience to build up that new flow, that new momentum. It can feel weird and unnatural. We have to commit to building momentum or we’ll stall. We’ll stay stuck in old patterns, old Karma.
When we really deeply want something, I think that’s the Universe (or whatever divine power you believe in) saying “do this”.
There was this woman, she recently passed away, who had an amusing way of saying that there’s a reason we have the desires we have. She was a grumpy and cynical personal development coach. I know that sounds like a strange personality for personal development, but it worked.
At the end of one of her talks about how it’s important for you to do the things that make you happy, she summed it up perfectly. She said, “I don’t want you to be happy because I care about you. I don’t know you! I’m not going to lose a single night’s sleep over whether you’re happy because I won’t know if you’re happy.” Ok, not very warm and fuzzy.
She continues, “I want you to be happy because when you’re happy, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You’re sharing your gifts with the world. That makes the world a better place. That’s the way it works. That’s what I care about.”
To put it another way, she and I agree that what it is we’re drawn to, what we long for, is our soul’s way of guiding us. It’s our compass. That’s why the things I love aren’t the things you love. We each have our own unique soul’s journey. Just because it’s our divine path doesn’t mean we have any momentum built up heading in that direction.
I’ll say this another way, in my earlier post on Karma I talked about how there are layers and levels of Karma. Your family’s Karma, your community’s Karma, and so on. We also have our soul-path Karma, and the Karma from the actions we’ve taken in this life. Our soul-path Karma may not be pointing the same direction as the Karma we have from our actions. That means we have to shift. We’ve probably been developing Karma based on what our society, or families, and our cultures expect from us. Or what we think they expect.
There’s this other obstacle, which can really throw people off. We want the shift towards our soul-path Karma to be effortless. We want a sign that we’re on the right path. We’re stopped by any difficulties, thinking they’re a sign that we’re on the wrong path, when it’s just the resistance from not having the momentum built up yet. We quit too easily.
Resistance is a big deal. It’s unavoidable if you’re doing interesting things. If you’re not a little bit freaked out as you embark on the journey to your soul-path, then you’re not on the right path.
I know this from experience. I seem to have a habit of running towards the things that scare me. At least in some areas of my life I do, now I’m learning to apply that same “run straight at it” approach to the areas of my life that I’ve denied. I’ve felt all the anxiety (see my blog post titled Anxiety Cancer), I’ve questioned my sanity, the wisdom of my actions, placed myself in danger, and done some really cool things.
This is where I loop back around to habits. To change your Karma, to build that momentum in a new and fabulous direction, it takes habits that include making tiny steps forward every day. Some days it’s a tiny step, some days you cover more ground, but you can’t stop moving forward if you want to change your Karma. When our soul-path Karma and our everyday Karma are moving in the same direction, you feel that flow, but you’ve gotta do the work to get there.
Remember, the road to your dreams requires you to build momentum. Take steps every day, go slowly, be patient with yourself, sometimes take a big leap. Your dreams are there for a reason, to make the world a better place. Go share your gifts. It’s your divine responsibility.
*typos and grammar errors provided for your entertainment.
