The political and professional scandals we’re witnessing at the moment are a reckoning of karma. Righting of wrongs, destruction of the old, restructuring of new, secrets and skeletons coming to light, memories and systems being questioned. It’s not just politics and celebrities — justice is coming for us all.
Karma is considered myth by some and religious fact by others. While karma gets characterized as “woo” or spiritual, there is another way to think about it and a widely accepted designator for it: Newton’s third law. In other words, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It means that in every interaction, “there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object.”
You don’t have to believe in past lives to believe in karma or the idea that what is affecting one thing will affects something else, only for the cycle to repeat. Again, karma teaches us about the true nature of our decisions, whether immediate or very delayed. There’s the classic robber slip-and-fall instant karma, the “bad” karma some wish on those who wrong them, and then there are much more hidden ways karma presents itself: fears, phobias, health problems, toxic cycles, recurrent dreams, soul urges, talents, and relationships with people who seem oh so familiar.
I’m here to tell you that what happens in the recesses of your subconscious mind or in your body is not by chance — they are cues and clues to the greater mystery of your karma. There are several ways we can deconstruct your karma.
Fascia — the connective tissue that runs in lines up and down your body, from the top of your head to the tip of your toe — teaches us about cause and effect (and therefore karma). Fascia doesn’t care which secrets you want to forget — it stores memories of the movements you have made in your life and why (and there is a why). Your fascia is your proof. It takes cues from your body and mind and creates fascial adhesions (aka: bad fascia where restrictions occur) where there was emotional duress/resulting physical tension, acidifying stress responses, improper diet, and poor structural alignment.
Deconstructing your “bad” fascia (aka: fascial adhesions) is possible and encouraged (I explain this in Body Readings), but it also is a backwards unraveling of you. What led you to this point? How did you get here? Can your problems be traced back to a much earlier time? It’s like pressing rewind on a cassette tape. After some recoil, you eventually you get to the first track.
Abuse also teaches us about cause and effect because we can see for ourselves what happens when people are treated inhumanely: physical and emotional pain. People aren’t depressed, anxious, or fearful for no reason. People feel things because of something. “The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object”.
There is always an impetus, we simply have to discover what that is. As we are seeing, for many, they now realize it was abuse. It is far easier to blame an “untraceable” emotion on someone, rather than asking what caused that person to feel that way to begin with. Because abuse has been so normalized in society, it is not uncommon for abuse victims to go their whole lives without knowing they were abused or why they suffer at present. Karma keeps repeating itself and everyone calls it chance.
Thus far, we have not been able to learn the true consequences of cause and effect because the toxic masculine system is very adept at preventing and covering up. What would normally be a string of facts back to the truth becomes a game of deceit — who can outwit, outsmart, outmaneuver?
You see, fascia, abuse, and karma are generational, but chances are no one wanted to recognize it was a pattern, not a life sentence. This means not only have your parents likely been abused in some way, but they are the product of the abuse their parents endured, and so on and so forth. What you are experiencing now is a projection of a past cycle that was not broken. Until you identify the cycles, you will be a slave to them. It’s a sick culture when the onus is on the victim to stop the problems, but that’s where we’re at.
For example, the men in your family bottle up emotions, only later to “explode”. You tried to improve the situation yourself but got nowhere. You then understand this “angry stunted male” archetype so you can prevent yourself from turning into it. Or, conversely, you can make peace with family members who display this behavior because you can see it was subconsciously passed down, unbeknownst to them and sadly they are not at a point where they can break the cycle. (FYI: if there is abuse involved, I do suggest finding a safe way to get out, despite any attempts at acceptance).
Abuse goes somewhere. Abuse is energy. And energy doesn’t dissipate — it changes, gets stored, or gets hidden. Abuse goes right into your body, in the form of stress-related ailments, but especially in the form of fascial adhesions. Your fascia tells us what your karma is.
Some people view karma as a bad thing… your punishment. It’s not though — karma isn’t a life sentence and you don’t get a punishment because you “deserve it”. We all have “bad” karma and it doesn’t necessarily mean you have been a bad person, will continue to experience hardship, or that the hardship should be blamed on you. It means you have many unresolved energetic issues that are keeping you under the grey cloud though the sun is shining. It means the relationship issues, things you know you need to do but are scared to, the circumstances you realized weren’t right but stayed in anyway, the ways you need to grow but aren’t willing to — they’re going to hang over your head and keep you stressed. Only by addressing them do we self-actualize and release the old toxic cycles that no one before us ever broke.
Not breaking the karmic cycle means you are choosing the pattern over the brave unknown. Breaking the karmic cycle means you are self-actualizing to your highest potential.
This is why the ego exists — to cover up karma and pretend like it’s not there. The ego wants to project pain, not feel it. In order to overcome your karma, you must be willing to feel and overcome your pain.
You can’t buy alms or tokens for good karma. And you can’t ignore the problems while expecting to be healthy and happy. Karma is the result of choices others made as well as the choices you made for yourself. It’s also about the projections other people impose on you. For that reason, karma can’t fully be blamed on one individual — many factors come together to create your karma.
Let’s say you have hypothyroidism (and therefore a blocked fifth Chakra) and have largely remained silent for most of your life. You may not be shy and you may have an active social life but your true personality or thoughts have been repressed. You play a role you don’t enjoy, in order to keep those around you happy. As a result, you haven’t let many people get to know the real you. One day, someone at work starts a nasty rumor about you. Your initial reaction is shock and hurt. You retreat and go to a place of shame. Why would they say that about me, you wonder. Why would they do that? Don’t they see who I really am? I didn’t do what they said I did. To your surprise, no one comes to your defense. But they never got to know you because of your fifth Chakra problems so how could they defend you? The hurt stings deeper.
From here, you have a few options:
1. Pretend it isn’t happening but secretly be hurt.
2. Recognize your pattern of being silent and say something to the people who engaged in the gossip, standing up for yourself and addressing it head on.
3. Leave the situation because you see these people won’t change.
The “best” action is dependent upon your past karmic cycles. If in the past you ignored the problems, this time you need to confront them. If in the past you argued and pursued, you may need to give yourself more time to reflect. It’s the flipping that is essential to break the karma.
Your fifth Chakra blockage allowed there to be doubt about your character. But this problem was subconsciously imposed on you by the ego of your caregivers growing up. While it’s not your fault, it is an energetic vulnerability that was exposed by the ego of others. You can do something about it to work through the hurt or you can do what you’ve always done. See the cycle?
Few people want to resolve abuse — get to the root, pluck it out, and change the system because it is hard as fuck and because it will ruin what you or others forced life into becoming for you. But owning up to the lessons and righting the wrongs is what is required to absolve yourself of karma/your ancestral patterns that were never broken. Myofascial release provides an entry point to this because by deconstructing your fascia, you deconstruct your problems.
What led to the problems is karma. On the other side of the karma is your dharma or true life purpose here. Which do you choose?
