Consequences
and Transformation
“It
made me realize how the Universe improvises its balance. How a horse thief becomes
a horse. How a blacksmith becomes an anvil. How my surgeon will become a
gardener. How the wings of one life are broken to form a nest in which someone is
born who can go everywhere while going nowhere.”
Mark
Nepo (Finding Inner Courage, p.154)
I’m
still pondering family—not just my own, but family in the universal sense. Thinking
about how we evolve in very subtle ways over time to push the envelope in new
directions. Transformation happens not overnight but over time—and unfortunately,
sometimes regression happens too. Karma has a major role to play in this, but
most of us don’t connect the dots between our own behavior and the consequences,
or the lives of our parents and grandparents and how we repeat their patterns. We
remain unaware of how the events of our childhood are imprinted on us and inform
our responses to the world.
People around here write
off their own behavior by saying, “That’s just how I was raised,” or, “My mama
taught me to…” as though these behaviors are set in stone. We tend not to
notice, “How a blacksmith becomes an anvil.” We hear behavioral specialists say
things like “the abused becomes the abuser” but we don’t see that psychological
pressure and manipulation are forms of abuse, just dressed in different
clothes. In fact, we don’t realize that we are pressuring or manipulating at
all—in our minds we’re just trying to do what’s best for the other person. Codependency is
control dressed in sheep’s clothing.
Progress towards health,
especially emotional health, tends to be slow. We take three steps forward and
two back, but it still counts as progress. What pushes these slight gains is
consciousness. We see the pattern. Perhaps suddenly. A word is spoken, a scene
reenacted that we recognize from the past, and a light snaps on in our heads. The
thought occurs to us, “OMG! I’ve become my mother (or my father).” And if we
don’t immediately stuff that realization into the sack of forgetfulness, there’s
a real chance for transformation. The karmic consequence of our family’s
actions can be changed by becoming aware of our tendency to repeat them.
Families are the crucibles
in which evolution occurs. Each generation is defined by circumstances of their
time, and by the behavior of their role models. Unhealthy patterns have karmic
consequences for generations to come simply because we repeat them. When we become
conscious of that, we cannot repeat them without knowing what we’re doing. That’s
how change happens. We can break the karmic chain by removing one link. And our
broken wings can become a sheltering nest for future generations to live
healthier, happier lives. Wouldn't that be a wonderful Christmas gift?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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