It’s interesting to think that most often the human beings who take up space in our lives are there for a reason and depending on your beliefs, we may not be meeting them for the first time. If this is true, consider how important a mother, father, brother or sister is in our lives. Not only have we most-likely been around them in many of our past lives, but if you believe in this concept, then these people are our main players and teachers in life.
About a year ago I started taking a meditation class called "Healing Your Family Karma". Wow - what an eye-opener! In learning about ancestral karma from your family lineage, I realized that it is not just our parents that affect our ancestral karma, but rather all of the relatives we have ever had. Some people in class actually went online to ancestry.com and found that they were from a long line of teachers, bankers, healers or story tellers. To think that we can actually inherit the talents and failures of our ancestors can be a bit overwhelming, to say the least.
These meditation classes have truly altered the way I think and look at things. For the first time, I can actually look at my mother with compassionate curiosity as I pose the questions, ‘What gifts did I get from her?’ and ‘Who am I because of her?’ This is how we start to heal our own karmic wounds. Family karma will continue to show up as issues and insecurities and as opportunities to grow. Buddhist Monk Pema Chodren of Shambalah Centers says, “The goal is not to avoid pain at all cost and want only for life’s pleasures, since our lives would make for very slow growth if all we had was pleasure and no pain.”
Yes, it’s true that we must roll around in the dirt and pig slop - after all, to get dirty and feel the pain is to grow! It makes me laugh when I picture this scene of a pig in slop… Don’t you feel like that sometimes?
Like Mother Like Daughter
Our Button is Our Belief... By Dena Mendes