A few years ago, I was having lunch with my brother. We were catching up on the latest tea in each others lives. I can’t remember exactly what made him ask, but he proceeded to ask me a question that I would think about almost everyday since that conversation. He asked, “Ashley, why do you always expect the other shoe to drop?” In other words, why do I always expect the worst to happen? My response was very simple, “Because I know it will and I want to be prepared when it does.” Most people would say that my skeptical personality is lethal to my overall perception of humanity, but it all depends on one’s perception of skepticism. I would say that I am more of a realist.
I believe that there are two different ways to perceive Karma; fear-based and love-based. Fear-based karma is the consequences, good and bad, that are brought to you based on your actions, good or bad. You are judged for your actions; basically, you reap what you sow. While love-based karma is a belief that every lesson is a gift that provides lessons for your soul’s personal growth and will continue to bring back these lessons until you have learned from them.
I’ve learned that how you perceive life’s challenges is half the battle. Love-based karma believers take the challenges of life and learn from them. They see each challenge as a lesson to get through and grow from the experience. Fear-based karma believers view life challenges as punishment for something they may have done to someone else in the past. I used to think that my condition, SLE ( systemic lupus erythematosus) and Fibromyalgia, is a punishment from God because of all of the awful things that I have done in my past. While now, I look at this illness as another one of life’s challenges that I need to work through and learn from. Now the only question left is, what am I supposed to learn from this? But I think that question should be answered in another blog post. Bad things happen. It’s life. The only things we can control is how we perceive the challenges and our reaction to the challenge. This is what separates us from the animals, right?
“When you look at a field of dandelions, you can either see a hundred weeds, or a hundred wishes.” -Unknown
Healing with Harotian 