Karma and the Law of Cause and Effect – Changing Reactive Behaviors

Posted On April 11, 2016 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

 Becoming Self-Aware

Karma can probably be most clearly understood as the law of cause and effect, or action that produces an equal or greater reaction. Karma is the fundamental activity of our life, which is either repeating a pattern as a natural tendency or unconscious behaviors, which produces a like effect as a reaction or immediate consequences to our actions, or it comes as a willful and deliberate act that we’re fully aware of and do intentionally. Most karma originates from conditioning of some form, where we’re trained to behavioral dynamics of some sort as the emotional dramas being played out around us that we’re a part of, and ultimately learn to participate in and cooperate in repeating as a kind of life theme that produces a consistent experience of reality. Once conditioned with a thematic life pattern as a type of experience or story that we naturally act to tell by the perceptions and relationships we form with everyone and everything else, we go through most of our life (or lives) forming and playing a familiar role in the same dynamics, over and over, through all areas of our life, usually without any real awareness that we’re the ones creating it.

 The patterns we form as a thematic story is a natural product of our mental paradigm, and the emotional states we live out of as a general rule. All patterns are the result or expression of states of consciousness or mind-sets that form our everyday thoughts, and determine what we’re capable of seeing (perceiving outwardly) in any situation, and what we’re not. Those who share our thematic patterns and behavioral dynamics (of the same frequency) standout, we notice them, gravitate towards them, and they effect us or cause an internal – emotional reaction in us. Those who are of a different frequency or behavioral dynamics, don’t stand out, we don’t really notice or pay attention to them, and we can exist in near proximity of them for extended periods of time without ever interacting with them. Anyone that we share karma (life patterns) with, we tend to easily form a relationship with, and they participate in acting out the same type of story with us. While we can play any role in a dynamic, we tend to favor one while remaining largely unconscious of the others, and are most compatible with those who will play the complementary role, allowing us to remain largely unconscious of what we’re cooperating in creating.

Anytime we get caught up in a strong emotional charge of some kind, and have a strong reaction to something, we’re in the process of acting out karma as automatic and repetitive behavior that we do without thinking about or having any realization around before we do it. It’s thoughtless behavior produced by an emotional charge, which literally renders us unconscious. When we live out of a volatile sea of emotional states that keep us in a constant reactive state, or always thinking about and dwelling in what someone else is doing, while losing all awareness of what we’re doing instead, we can live the better part of our life out of an unconscious state, and simply repeat past patterns over and over. This is the fundamental nature of karma.

 To get off the karmic wheel of fate and fortune as haphazard, knee-jerk reactions and mindless emotional drama, we have to begin gaining control over our own mind and senses, and refrain from emotional reactions of all kinds, while self-reflecting instead. As we refrain from outwardly reacting, which keeps us only conscious of the other person, and we become aware instead of what’s happening inside of us as the reaction itself that produces automatic behavior by accessing a memory associated with the emotion that’s activating it, and the type of behavior being displayed outside of us. It’s the emotion that enters our body, stimulating us with that same emotion, and the memory as a similar event that we have directly associated to it, that basically says this (the present) is the same as that (the past), and we react in a like manner.  By doing this, we create in the present the same realities and experiences as the past. We act the same way, and create the same behavior, which not only produces the same type of experience again, but draws to us the same consequences or reactions to our behaviors. Once we do something, we can’t undo it, and it sets into motion a whole series of consequences, some of which are immediate and intense, others which extend over longer periods of time and are more subtle and gradient. Some consequences we recognize and own, others come later and can mystify us.

To break the patterns that bind us, we have to become fully present in the moment, become aware of any emotional charges while refraining from reacting to them, then shift our attention inwardly to observe what’s happening inside of us. Notice what the emotion is, where and how we feel it in our body, what memory immediately comes to mind in response to it, and the story we start telling ourselves about what’s happening. Because like always stimulates what’s like it, we can become aware of aspects of ourselves that we normally aren’t fully aware of or are in denial around for some reason. When we remove our attention from the outside stimulus, which is merely serving to awaken the same reality within us, and we pay attention instead to what’s happening inside of us, and we simply self-reflect on what process begins simultaneously unfolding as a whole idea, and we realize the nature of our reaction, and we observe our own inner experience. Just the awareness alone brings what we are unconscious of into conscious awareness. The awareness alone is enough to break the reactive pattern as a tendency, because we can catch ourselves as we’re doing it. Once we become aware of our own tendencies, and no longer react to them when being displayed by others, we can consciously choose our own behavior in response to them. We can decide what to do from a calm and relaxed inner state. By doing this, we transform old karma by producing new karma in its place as new patterns activated by the same outer stimulus.

 When we’re in full control of what we do, and we’re not being controlled by outside forces, we become conscious creators in our own lives, and we respond from a thoughtful place that acts to cause an entirely different reaction. We can neutralize a strong emotion being projected towards us by another by deflecting it instead of absorbing it, while simultaneously initiating a new one to take it’s place by counteracting it, and changing the persons state to match ours. In this way, we can become self-determined and act as a positive influence for those who aren’t. We can transmute our karma as old reactive patterns into new patterns of awareness and intentional action that’s aware of the consequences our reactions produce and as a form of consciously creating.

 Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Teacher