If you’ve been pondering this question you’re not alone! There is a common but somewhat false understanding, that Karma is based on the “what goes around comes around” philosophy, meaning bad things happen to you because you were a “bad” person. Either in this life or another lifetime. There also is this subtle implication that if you’re struggling, you deserve it and therefore have to suffer, which is completely wrong! Nobody has to earn “absolution” through suffering. God, Goddess, the universe and your higher self don’t want to see you suffer! It’s not through suffering that we “pay” our karma. There is no higher force that decides whether you have done well or bad; when you die and go back to the light – other than yourself.

YOU, as the soul, will look back at your life and make your own judgments about the life you’ve just completed, and what you want to learn / do better in your next life. Nobody judges you, you evaluate yourself, and based on that, decide what needs more work when incarnated again. So karma is not a punishment at ALL. It’s unfinished lessons and baggage from other lifetimes that we couldn’t resolve at the time.

Soul Wounds
What is commonly refered to as karma with a negative and accusing undertone can also be considered the wounds of the soul, which includes things that have happened to you, repeatedly, and have created an imprint on your energy, which if left uncleared, then travels with you through time and space into different lifetimes, drawing forth the experience again and again in order to heal the original event or series of events that caused the wounded imprint. Let’s say your imprint is rejection or betrayal because you have been repeatedly rejected or betrayed in another lifetime – you might not know why and maybe it was just bad luck, however, the experience has repeated itself so often it left a permanent imprint that is now playing out (again). 

So, those sticky experiences that cause you a great deal of pain and seem to come around ever so often despite all the healing you’ve already done? Those most likely are karmic, meaning, you’ve been repeating a pattern because you think (subconsciously) that you need to “suffer through it” until “some force” decides it has been enough. Well, the force that decides that it has been enough is YOU. 

Wrong or misleading teachings will tell you that you have to “pay back” your karma or suffer through this, but the truth is, you have to bring healing to the wounded part that keeps re-creating the experience unkowingly. That’s exactly what we do in our compassion key sessions through directed self-compassion. 

New Solutions & Pathways Show Themselves
When karmic imprints / karma has been cleared, new energy is able to find us. This means the issue resolves itself or we suddenly become aware of options we didn’t consider – even notice – before, and/or we finally can get the help we need, because the karmic cycle that kept us away from seeing the solutions or resources has been broken.