Reaping and sowing, karma, or why you were ever born ( Part I)

Ever wonder why you were born? Ever wonder why you faced consequences that seemed to be the result of some other person's and certainly not of your own doing? 

Have you known people who seemed to be offered many choices and provided  many advantages and opportunities in life while others seemed destined to walk a specific narrow path with few opportunities to escape? It's not easy to believe in miracles when time after time you keep falling on your face, but I might have understood had someone explained the law of cause and effect.

  I grew up mostly in the church, Baptist and Methodist, and I loved everything about my religious upbringing, but after my father and mother divorced, my belief system changed. When I was ten years old, I stopped believing in God because He seemed to be sexist, racist, and had a bad sense of humor.  Otherwise, why would he allow my beautiful mother to be burdened with single-parenting ten children after thirteen years of marriage to a hard-working, often absent, infidel? What Father in Heaven would force my mother into welfare while the pretty little housewives living across the street did nothing but read best-sellers, heat left-overs, and frequent the shopping malls? Worst yet, why would He allow one of my sisters to be born brain-damaged by doctors-in-training during the birthing process?

 

I had prayed for answers to such questions but gave up when they didn't come. I felt doomed to repeat this same horrid past if I continued to believe in a cynical god who seemed to be laughing at us, all the way down from heaven, coaxing us all to give up, one by one and fall through the cracks into Hell. I never imagined the possibility of having a choice and never suspected I might have had a say in when, where, and under what circumstances I would be reborn in this lifetime, all based on karma, or the law of cause and effect.

I have always felt I was a child of the universe, but I never knew the universe consists of ebb and flow, a never ending cycle of causes and effects. I never knew to expect the bitter and the sweet just as casually as I expected sunshine and rain, high tide and low tide. Instead of thinking I was caught up in some kind of tragedy that I did not create, that my mother didn't create, and that the entire world was witnessing, I began to wonder if there were other options. 

 

When people stared at the eleven of us sitting in the church pews or half of us boarding a city bus,  I thought they saw our family as broken and weak, our mother as damaged goods, and the ten of us as disadvantaged tribesmen. But that was never true. How could it be true when we were so beautiful? How could it be true when our intentions were usually good?

To err is human. To cry or express our negative emotions is even more so.

Why is it, fear or trepidation lingers long after negative events and situations are gone? Why do negative emotions get triggered at the mention of a name? Psychologists agree that we remember negative events more strongly, process negative images more easily, and for every negative act, we need several positive acts to balance it out. So why is it we attempt to hide our negative emotions?

According to scientific studies, the brain identifies and holds on to negative events in order to keep us safe. If we can quickly recall things that threatened, hurt or diminished us, we can easily avoid a recurrence. Since the beginning of human existence, our brains have learned to identify possible threats so that our species can survive. It's natural to have negative thoughts.

So why do positive thinkers want to eliminate negative thoughts altogether? To some extent, this goes against our biological tendencies and causes us great angst or anguish in the end. Negative emotions are a natural bodily function, just like breathing, and if they are not expressed, they don't disappear. They simply get "acted out" or "acted in." 

Negative emotions are just as valid as positive ones.  The trick is to express how we feel and get on with something new. It's a welcome relief that society now allows us to make mistakes, stumble and fall, and then rise heroic to conquer the world. Nowadays, males are allowed equal access to an emotional episode. Like females, they are now able to cry in public, make mistakes, and commit other "unmanly" acts without fear or embarrassment. To err is human. To cry or express our negative emotions is even more so.

If we don't openly express our feelings and emotions, especially our negative ones, they will find a way to rise to the surface. If they never reach the surface, they will become embedded in our hearts and minds. It's in our best interest to accept negative emotions, express how we feel, and keep moving forward.