Karma as a Mirror

Most of the time it is used as a kind of punishment. Somebody behaves badly and we say karma will get them. Somebody suffers and we wonder, quietly, what they did to deserve it.

Karma in itself is neither good nor bad.

Karma is simply a mirror. It reflects you back to yourself.

What you project is what comes back

What you project out is what you get back. Kindness tends to come back as kindness, and coldness as coldness, and the mirror does not take sides.

It is very much based on your own concept of right and wrong. The standard the mirror holds you to is the one you carry inside you.

It is also very tied up with your soul choices for this lifetime. Before you came here you chose many of the key points of your life and the lessons you wanted to learn. The Why You Are Here page in the Foundations area is about that agreement.

Not always in the same lifetime

Karma is not always reflected in the same lifetime.

That is why you can watch some people who never seem to face the consequences of how they live. The mirror is still there. It is simply working on a longer clock than the one you are holding.

Souls are at every stage of their learning. Some are near the start of it and some are near the end, and there are all of the stages in between. You cannot tell from the outside which one you are looking at.

So when it comes to karma, there is so much we do not know about other people. Even with ourselves it is often hard to understand why some things happen, and whether they are karmic or not.

Why we cannot see the whole of it

We agreed, as part of the reason for coming here, to forget much of the higher perspective we enjoy as spirit beings. The actor on stage chooses to forget the life off stage so that the play can feel real.

That does not mean you cannot reach that perspective. You can. Your higher self, the audience member watching the play, sees the whole of it. How much of it you are given access to depends on what you came here to do.

It is a bit mind bending. Go figure.

Life is sometimes a mirror

There is a second mirror, and it is closer to home.

One of the most confronting things in life is realising you are looking at a mirror. I do not mean literally. I mean that we often look at another person, see something in them we do not like, and even share that dislike with the people around us, without noticing that we carry the same thing ourselves.

Sometimes the universe creates a mirror for you, so you can see an aspect of yourself in another person. We do not like it in them, and we would not like it in ourselves either, if we could see it. It is usually hidden in plain view. It is not until you begin the inner work that you start to recognise the mirrors you have faced in the past.

It is very confronting. It is also very liberating, because the key to solving any issue is first to recognise it, and then to take full responsibility for it.

Look around you. You will almost certainly know someone who is being sent a mirror and has no idea. It is an interesting thing to watch unfold.

A guide who held up the mirror

I met my guide Melissa when I was in my twenties. She knew all of my flaws along with my strengths, and there was no point hiding anything from her because she knew it anyway. Many of my biggest challenges back then were myself, and she helped me look in the mirror, see the truth of me, and grow beyond who I was.

I now understand that Melissa is simply my higher self. So the mirror was mine all along. The Your Guides page tells that story in full.

Working with the mirror

All the mirror asks of you is that you look.

When someone gets under your skin, ask what in them you recognise.

When the same thing keeps coming back to you, ask what you have been sending out.

When you see someone else apparently getting away with it, remember that you cannot see their whole story.

And watch what you wish on other people. When I teach a passive way to block someone's energy, the intent always has to be your own protection, never any negativity towards them. The Hate page in The Inner Work area describes hate as drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die, which is the same lesson from a different side. The Protection page in the Healing area has the blocking method.

You attract what you are. The world is a mirror with very good manners: it waits for you to change first, then quietly rearranges itself to match. I wrote a short post on that in July, You Attract What You ARE, if you want to sit with it for a day.

Something to sit with

Think of the last person who annoyed you more than they should have.

What did you see in them? And where, if you are willing to look, does that same thing live in you?

You do not have to tell anyone the answer. Just notice it. The noticing is where the change starts, and it is yours to make.

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.

Related pages
Full Circle and Half Circle Relationships