Are People Suffering Because Of Past Lives?

Hello Friend!

I'm often asked if I believe in past lives, and if perhaps people’s current lives are DUE to choosing a kind of path in order to learn something that they didn’t learn in their last incarnation. Some believe that perhaps people who are born into situations of extreme human created/nature created poverty or extreme riches (which are harmful conditions to be born into - societal structures that don’t work for humans) 'CHOSE' that life for themselves, as a way of learning something karmic that wasn't learned in their last life, and thus we shouldn’t work to change these systems in order to eradicate this kind of pain.

While I understand the concept of karma, and can empathize with the idea that we want to believe that some of the suffering we experience as humans is explainable - and that 'past life karma' can offer us a kind of safe place to rest our heads in terms of an explanation for why some seem to have such tragic lives - I'm not so convinced that writing off ALL forms of suffering as 'karma' is a healthy or pragmatic way to live. Again, I fully understand wanting to believe that we are all just living what we 'chose' on some level - as this gives us a feeling of power and control over circumstances that may otherwise make us feel like we are victims.

We All Have Pain We Want To EXPLAIN So We Can CONTROL It:

All of us have pain on some level in our own lives, circumstances we were born into where we didn't get what we needed. Where we were abused or neglected in some way. Where we WERE fully victim to external conditions we had no control over that DID fundamentally alter us in some way or other. Many of us were harmed or hindered in our growth in ways that did absolutely put limits on our futures. Many of us were born into bodies that don't function optimally, giving us a lifetime of struggle that others don't have. We may have been abused or assaulted in ways that damaged our perception of self and the world leading to cyclical trauma induced choices and life patterns that are really hard to break out of. We may have been born into conditions where we actually didn't have the tools or the foundations necessary to create a truly PEACEFUL or healthy life - and are struggling to this day just to get by. We may have been abandoned or otherwise emotionally and spiritually hurt in ways that caused us to live lives of constant self sabotage, being lost and confused, disconnected from our truth - always searching never finding.

It can be really painful to look at these circumstances and think it was just random. That we went through the pain, the suffering, the chaos that we did, that hurt us so much, that STILL hurts us to this day, that caused us to have a life path with certain limits for no reason other than being born into a certain family at a certain time in history.

It can be really SCARY to feel that this pain that was so pivotal in our lives was fully out of our control - because that means that FUTURE pain that could again fully alter our life outcomes may ALSO be something we can't control. That we are going to experience and have to deal with WITHOUT consenting to the experience. If we concede that our past traumas and circumstances were random, that sets us up to feel perpetually afraid of FUTURE circumstances ALSO being random. We don't like this idea. We want to believe that we can control our pain so we don't have to fear it - and to believe that everything we have ever experienced or will ever experience is part of some larger plan, some grander narration, having some purpose that's 'getting us somewhere' - feels good.

To believe that what is happening in THIS life is a continuation of a karmic arch of our soul coming into full awareness through all kinds of different experiences we 'chose' for ourselves in order to create this awakening - now that's a fantastic story!

This way of thinking also helps us to deal with the mass amount of suffering and chaos we see out in the world. It helps us recon with the tragedies of life that seem so insurmountable, so crushing, so chaotic.

It helps us deal with seeing the hopelessness of extreme poverty. The crushing sense of not being able to do anything about the people living under oppressive dictatorships. It gives us something to hold onto when we see homeless people on the streets. When we see flashes of people starving to death on our t.v screens. When we hear about mass genocides, wars, and people being treated as less than human.

This thinking gives us something to hold onto when we look out at the world filled with SO much pain and suffering that we can't do anything about - or that we at least FEEL we can't do anything about.

For many of us, looking at the pain of the world is a totally immobilizing experience. We can feel like there's just SO much in between the humanity we have and the humanity that has 'dealt' with all the suffering we see, that it's actually impossible to ever get to a place where it IS dealt with. We can feel like our own happiness is undeserved, selfish or even MEANINGLESS up against the reality of the immense problems so many others face on a moment to moment basis. When we are empathic to any degree, taking in just how deeply so many on this planet are not being given the chance to live in peace can mean losing hope for humanity. It can mean feeling like we have no power to make any changes because the problems are SO vast. It can mean feeling like our own lives have no purpose in that grand scheme of the world.

Having a story that those people CHOSE that life, that those out there who are suffering so deeply, on some level are benefiting from the experience, believing that they are there for a grander purpose for THEIR soul, for the arc of their awakening journey again, can be the gulp of air we need to keep going. It can be the thing that allows us to sleep at night. That allows us to get up and go to our jobs, take care of our children, tend to what needs tending to - it can be the thing that allows us to see the pain but not feel crushed by it. It can be the story that gives us permission to LIVE our lives - because what 'they' are experiencing isn't 'wrong.' It's not something we need to 'do' anything about - it's their souls path. It's what they chose for this lifetime. Let them live and have the journey and we will catch them in the next life - hopefully one where they have learned enough to have a better incarnation.

We also can gravitate towards this particular story of reincarnation and everyone choosing their own life path as a way of explaining our genetic differences. Our spiritual, personality, physical and emotional range.

We can use this line of reasoning to give us a 'reason' for why some people seem to be born with certain knowledge already a part of their being, where others struggle their entire lives to understand. As an explanation for why some are talented in one area and hopelessly lost in others. It can be used as a story to validate our essential 'isness' that we otherwise find either confusing and confounding OR that we have learned to HATE because it made us DIFFERENT and got us rejected. To believe that we are how we are because our souls have come through several lifetimes, because our essence has been 'evolving' and accumulating wisdom and knowledge throughout lifetimes can help us wrap our minds around the incredible DIVERSITY of awareness, capacity and particularity we find among the human race.

Finally, this narrative can be the thing that helps us escape our existential dread - you know the one - the BIG existential dread. The dread that when we die - poof - we vanish. That this life is a one off ride that begins and ends with no actual purpose. It can be the story that allows us to feel like there is a meaning to this life - because it is only a PART of a larger story that never ends, and thus has essential value.

Many of us feel that if something ends, if something is to disappear - especially the 'self' that there is no purpose in it's existence at all. Many of us feel that if we don't go on after we die, if there isn't another life to be lived, if the 'I' that we are is impermanent - it's essentially disconnected from the whole, isolated, alone and meaningless. It's a blip on the radar that will fade as quickly as it came - and THAT scares the SHIT out of most of us. It can lead us to the idea that there isn't any real value in this experience - that there is no inherent WORTH to a single life - because it's so SMALL in the grand scheme of things. Thus, we want to believe it ISN'T small. We want to believe it's CONNECTED to that larger plan, that larger vision, that larger, grander scope of LIFE that never begins and never ends. So that WE never have to feel like we begin or end. This is what makes us feel connected, safe and like going on. Without this, we may feel that there simply isn't a point to doing anything. If it's all going to be lost, erased, forgotten - why bother? If it's not connected to anything or anyone, if we are just here, alone, our individual lives, connected to no future and no past - then why do anything at all? Why express? Why go through the trouble of being, if it's all going to be lost?

The idea of past lives gives us SO much in the way of hope, certainty, meaning, purpose, peace and explanation.

This Line Of Reasoning Also Stagnates Us:

But it also leads us to a kind of complacency that I think we may do better to evolve past.

The trouble with this kind of thinking, is that it can lead us to a place of OVER acceptance of 'what is' - where we don't take the actions we COULD take in order to improve the lives that we DO have, for ourselves and others. This way of thinking that can let us off the hook of feeling like we have to solve ALL the worlds problems RIGHT NOW - can also be the thing that stops us from doing what we actually COULD DO to make things quantitatively better for humanity.

It can be the reason we don't take our next steps as an evolving race.

It can be the reason we abdicate the responsibility we DO have to ourselves and others.

It can be the reason we get stuck in our own patterns and loops of behavior - and it can be a reason that we allow for those who are in pain in this life, those who are crying out for change, those who are asking us to make new systems so that they don't have to be crushed under the weight of a society that doesn't support life, to go unheard.

It can be a tool we use to 'victim blame' those who are struggling - telling them that on some level they CHOSE this reality for themselves, and thus they are disempowering themselves by asking for change. By asking for the world to change. By asking for systems to change.

This way of thinking that can innocently start out as sounding very empowering - believing we chose what we are in so we can LEARN from it and become something wiser and more evolved - into a tool we use to bypass our own pain, our own suffering, our own process of grieving for ourselves when we have truly BEEN victims of circumstance, and it's a tool we use to close down our hearts towards other who are truly being victimized.

I feel that this way of thinking, while having some empowering aspects - needs to be taken with a grain of salt, needs to be balanced with also understanding that we can learn and change in THIS lifetime, that we can learn our lessons from the pain of THIS incarnation, and use that as a tool to create something better NOW.

We don't have to keep repeating cycles.

We also don't have to own that we 'chose' our circumstances in order to feel that we have POWER to learn and grow within them. We don't have to own the idea that ANYONE chose what they are in, in order to help them empower themselves.

This theory needs to be balanced with pragmatism, or it can be deeply harmful.

Next week I'm going to share my thoughts specifically on seeing people who are in states of SYSTEMIC - ie. MAN MADE - states of lack, meaning they don't have enough to get their needs met so they can EXPRESS their genetic potential/are being HARMED in some way so as to again, be hindered in their capacity to live well - as just 'living out their karma.'

I'm going to share why I don't think this is a pragmatic view of things, and why I personally don't use it to justify not doing what can be done, in this lifetime, to change systems so that people are given a decent chance at expressing the one life we KNOW they DO have. This one. I'm detailing why I think it's important for us as a humanity to learn from our past misunderstandings and to integrate our current understandings - that when people are given a CHANCE, ie. when they have their basic needs met, they tend to go towards growth.

This growth serves ALL of us.

When people AREN'T given a chance, they of course personally suffer, but also WE suffer as a collective.

We LOSE what they would have had to offer us.

When someone doesn't have enough/is oppressed due to HUMAN behaviour, this is something we CAN and SHOULD do something about.

Let's let this digest, and I'll see you next week!

<3