Karma Cleanse

A new guide to healing with loving-kindness, compassion and forgiveness.

“Karma is not something complicated or philosophical. Karma means watching your body, watching your mouth, and watching your mind. Trying to keep these three doors as pure as possible is the practice of karma.” —Thubten Yeshe

Karma is a Sanskrit word that means action and denotes a cycle of cause and effect that takes place in our lives—pure and simple.

Our past actions condition our soul, planting the seeds of memories, desires and intentions. When love-based, karma can guide us to the fulfillment of our soul’s higher purpose. Love-based karma is a gift that brings you lessons for your soul’s personal growth and will continue to bring these lessons back around until you have learned them. It may take a lifetime, or many lifetimes, but it is certainly a most worthy endeavor to pursue.

Fear-based karma, however, is always about judgment and how consequences are doled out to you or others based on your actions, whether positive or negative. Past karma is what it is, and we can burn off negative karma from our past starting in this moment through our loving-kindness, compassion and forgiveness toward self and others. Going forward, there will no doubt be karmic episodes in our lives that will not honor our higher good. We’re all human, after all. As much as we try to do our best in any given situation, our “best” may cause pain or heartache to others and certainly self. Who hasn’t regretted choices that may have been hurtful? However, as we mindfully and with full intention travel our committed spiritual journey, we will experience less frequent challenging or difficult karmic episodes.

If we’re awake, we will know in our hearts what the soulful, life-affirming choice in any given moment is; however, momentarily lapses of reason will continue to be part of life. Know that you can always press the reset button. Starting today, you can consciously choose love-based karma for your highest good. Any experience, positive or negative, can teach us important lessons. We can choose to learn from our actions and how they impact not only ourselves but others.

Whether we are the transgressor, or someone else has committed transgressions against us, in soulful self-care, we would never hope that the offending party gets their karmic due. Rather, we can reach into our hearts and send loving-kindness, compassion and forgiveness to ourselves or the other person or parties. We need to own any shade we throw at others, as well as stop wishing bad karma onto those who’ve hurt us. That will only cycle back around to us.

As NFL great Don Driver said, “Don’t get mad. Don’t get even. Do better. Much better. Rise above. Become so engulfed in your own success that you forget it ever happened.” You are in the process of becoming the best version of yourself that you can possibly be, and you will use any difficult situations to autocorrect and set yourself back on the divine course of self-love and self-empowerment. In your life, try some or all of the following:

• Send love and light toward everyone, no matter what they’ve done.

• Ask yourself what your motives are, no matter what’s happening, and make certain they’re coming from a place of loving-kindness. Commit to no hidden agendas or control dramas, both signs of a puffed-up ego.

• Have an attitude of gratitude for everything, both positive and negative. However, do put a damper on negativity wherever and whenever you can. Negativity creates angry energy that comes back to you—a karmic boomerang, if you will. Feel it and release it.

• Keep this in mind: A life filled with acceptance is a life free of unnecessary emotional suffering.

• Practice forgiveness. Although difficult, it is one of the most important practices for manifesting love-based karma. Forgiving yourself is as important as forgiving others. Guilt is toxic—reliving mistakes over and over. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. There is not one human being anywhere who has not made mistakes.

Excerpted from The Book of Self-Care: Remedies for Healing Mind, Body And Soul © 2017 by Mary Beth Janssen, (Sterling Ethos). Available at bn.com and amazon.com.