Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi everyone.
It's Anna McBride.
Welcome back to.
She Asked Tools for PracticalHope.
This podcast is about rewritingyour story, discovering your
truth and healing forward onestep, one insight at a time.
Today we're diving into a big,beautiful and sometimes
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misunderstood concept karma Notjust what goes around comes
around.
Karma is energy as cause andeffect, as the invisible
architecture of our lives.
Let's start here.
Karma is not punishment, is notpunishment.
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It's not cosmic revenge.
Karma is the principle of causeand effect Energy in, energy
out.
As the Buddhist teacher JackKornfeld says, you're not the
victim of the world, but ratherthe master of your own destiny.
It is your choices anddecisions that determine your
destiny.
Neuroscience shows that 95% ofour behavior is driven by the
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subconscious mind.
Subconscious mind exists untilwe are about seven or eight
years old.
What that means is that it isthe part of the mind's
development such that we areunable to filter out anything.
We accept all input as exactlywhat's coming in, like it is the
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truth.
That means that all the energythat we put out, our reactions,
words and thoughts are shaped bya programming we didn't even
choose and it's formed.
As I said before, we're evenseven or eight years old.
But karma gives us a chance tobecome conscious, and
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consciousness is everything.
Without consciousness we'redoing harm essentially, possibly
to ourselves, to others, to theworld.
So it's important that we payattention to our thoughts, to
our words, to our actions andthat we choose them responsibly.
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We could slow down, catch athought, get in between the
thoughts, not spiral.
All of this is available with atrained mind.
Takes just practice, meditation, yoga, whatever the mindfulness
practice that resonates withyou, so that you can become more
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attuned and a master of yourmind.
I can tell you from my ownexperience, you know, I started
studying meditation and yoga atthe age of 30.
And up until that time, andeven after that time, I was
still very controlled by mythoughts, my feelings mostly my
fears, my anxiety seemed to rulethe show.
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And here's the thing I've cometo appreciate is that feelings
aren't facts.
They pass, they move through.
Yet if you over-focus on anyone feeling, any one thought
process, any one situation, andthink that that is everything,
then there is a likelihood thatyou will get stuck there.
You will see that as the onlypossibility and in reality we
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have a whole continuum offeelings, experiences, and life
is full of all of it If webecome more masters of our
consciousness, we can actuallyget in between our thoughts, in
between this anxiety, and slowourselves down such that we can
breathe through it.
Maybe let it go and not let itcompulse us to take an action or
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say a word that might causemore harm than good.
Here's the thing that I've cometo appreciate is that that
action, that words, those are,generally speaking, because we
want to have an impact on theoutcome.
And our society, our world isobsessed with outcome, results,
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metrics, success.
But karma teaches us that theoutlook, the energy and the
intention behind our actions isjust as important.
My meditation teacher used toalways say outlook over outcome.
We have no control over theoutcome, only the way our
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perspective is about it.
And I used to think that theservice I did had to equal my
success.
I did had to equal my success,that if I gave that I had to get
something measurable in return.
But karma showed me thatservice is the success when it
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comes from love, not from ego.
As the Bhagavad Gita says, youhave the right to perform your
prescribed duties, but you arenot entitled to the fruits of
your action.
That line has humbled me somany times, so many times in my
life, especially inrelationships, especially with
men.
I've had to learn that one ofmy biggest karmic lessons is
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understanding how I see myselfin relationship to men.
I used to think like I had toshrink, I had to be smaller in
order to be acceptable, to beloved.
Not true.
Life wants us to expand.
That's why we're here to keepgrowing, to keep learning, and
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what I was attempting to do wasto make myself fit into someone
else's idea of who I wassupposed to be, because I had
this distorted idea that that'swhat love looked like.
Love also wants us to expand,not to contract.
I was giving away my power Ididn't know I had.
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I was giving away my power Ididn't know I had.
I made myself small to beaccepted.
I thought shrinking would makeme lovable.
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Not true.
It made me so unhappy and socontracted that I wasn't able to
be creative.
I wasn't able to be myself.
I was living a version that fitsomeone else's idea, and that's
not what the universe wants.
That's not what karma is about.
Life kept crashing me into thesame lesson again and again.
Here's the thing every crashwas a chance for me to wake up.
It didn't feel like it at thetime.
Yet every time I crashedbecause the relationship didn't
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work out, which it won't if youattempt to try and fit into
someone else's version.
Luckily, you can't remaincontracted forever, just like in
the crash in the movie Crash,where there's a scene where the
characters collide andeverything changes in an instant
.
Characters collide andeverything changes in an instant
.
I really think that theuniverse right-sizes itself.
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It seeks balance.
So I was so out of balance, socontracted, that the
relationship had to crash inorder for me to expand again.
I mean, it did, and I haveexpanded since then.
That's karma too, remember,we're always crashing into each
other.
The question is what energy areyou bringing to that moment?
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In my marriage that is now over, and in every relationship I
have with a man since, I havebeen bringing an energy that was
really unhealthy, that versionthat thought I had to fit into
someone else's idea in order forme to be lovable Instead of
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owning my power, my self, theway I had been showing up or
came into this world to be.
So none of those relationshipswork, you know.
Not a surprise.
Yet I want to tell you theenergy I'm bringing now, the
energy I'm working on now is ahealing energy Working on the
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thoughts, the self-concepts, theperspective, everything that
ever thought I had to bedifferent than who I am in order
to be lovable.
I am healing because I know theuniverse is bringing love my
way.
I just want to be healed, toreceive it, and I think that
that's really why we're here.
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We're here to heal, we're hereto attend to the karmic energy,
maybe of our ancestors.
In fact, some traditionsbelieve we're born into this
life in response to karma fromour past lives, and whether or
not you believe in reincarnation, that metaphor is still
powerful.
Our healing work today rewritesold scripts.
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I was living an old scriptbased on a wounded concept that
I wasn't lovable, that I neededto fit into someone else's idea,
I'd had to contract.
Yet luckily, I've learned thatthat's not the way the universe
wants us to be, that with everyinhale must come an exhale, with
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every contraction there has tobe an eventual expansion, and so
the universe again is alwaysseeking balance, and it
right-sized me.
That's why we are here to takestock of the energy we send into
the world.
If you are living a lifecontracted, it's important to
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consider what that meanskarmically to your life, not
with shame, but with honesty andcompassion.
Be gentle with yourself.
Healing begins when we're beinghonest and accepting of where
we are.
This work, this podcast, mytherapy practice, the coaching I
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do, is how I stay in thatexpansion.
It's how I keep asking what amI putting out?
Am I adding to the solution,the healing, or am I creating
more problems, livingcontractedly?
I want to be expanded and Iknow you do too.
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That's why you're listening intoday.
So here's a question I get a lotbecause it comes up Do our
negative thoughts cause badthings to happen?
Because we do think negatively,don't we?
And some of us might feel like,oh my gosh, my bad thoughts are
causing this bad thing tohappen, almost like superstition
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.
I want to tell you the shortanswer to that question is no.
No, the mind is wired fornegativity.
That's true.
However, it's only anevolutionary trait.
It helped our ancestors survive.
But the good news is, a trainedmind can observe itself, it can
pause before spiraling, it canpause before action.
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It can pause and breathe andconsider what do I want to put
out?
And that pause, that breath, iseverything.
Imagination is another tool.
If you can visualize doom, youcan also consciously imagine
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connection, compassion andpossibility, and in doing that,
you are reshaping your karma.
So today, I invite you to askyourself a few questions.
What am I putting into theworld today?
What's my energy, what's myintention, what's my outlook?
What energy do I carry into theroom when I come into a meeting
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, to a restaurant, to anythingthat I am going to be connected
with someone else?
What am I bringing into thatroom?
It matters.
What if the work of my life isnot to fix but to realign?
Realign with what you might ask.
How about the universe?
How about with your karmicenergy?
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How about with the intentionfor love, for curiosity, for
freedom, which are my alignmentquestions?
That's what I want.
I want those three feelings.
So, as you get to know yourself, get to know what you want in
your life, I want you to beginto hold yourself accountable for
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the energy you're putting out.
As my meditation teacher usedto always say, what we ripple
out will come back to us, almostlike a boomerang right, it goes
out, it flows out and it comesback.
So what are you creating?
Remember, karma isn't amystical tally sheet.
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It is, though, your energeticfingerprint on the world and the
world will respond.
You matter, your energy matters.
Your healing is your offering.
Until next time.
This is Anna McBride, with.
She Asks Be well.