On Being a Karma Magnet

Let's face it, there are times in all of our lives when with the best will in the world, someone appears to be right royally taking the piss out of us. And that's not nice. It can cause a whole host of unwelcome negative feelings to spoil our day – uncertainty, confusion, disappointment, frustration, irritation, resentment and finally full-blown, out and out anger. You Bastard!! How dare you??!!

Now I don't know about you, but these are the very emotions that give me a headache and exhaust the hell out of me and I'm not over-keen on all of that, so I'm forever indebted to my wonderful, super-patient husband, Mike aka Von Hash, for sharing his insights when recently we found ourselves on the receiving end of some-one's audacious liberty taking.

“Maybe we're all karma magnets,” he said as I stomped about the house fuming about the nerve, I mean the NERVE of this person! Very soon though, the wisdom and the love behind this perception broke through the layers of negativity and it all began to make sense.

Karma magnets? Of course. We can never control other people's behaviour, nor should we want to, but we can accept that each and every situation we find ourselves confronted with is a perfect opportunity, not only to act with discretion, integrity, consideration and love ourselves, but also to give other people the opportunity to do the same. And what a great gift that is – giving someone the chance to learn and grow, to (without threats or any other kind of pressure) do the right thing and thus keep their karma in tact.

Give it a try next time someone seems to be taking you for a ride. Vent if you need to (I did and it helped), then spend a few quiet moments breathing deep into your abdomen and ask yourself if this is really all that important to you. Does it really matter? If it really absolutely does, then the fact that you've spent time calming yourself and looking at the situation with a bit more detachment, will in itself put you in a more empowered position when you confront the person, rather than just reacting emotionally and charging in all guns blazing straight away, and you will resolve everything with more dignity and strength than you might otherwise have hoped. But the chances are, your source of annoyance will show itself in its true watery colours, and you'll realise, hey, this doesn't really matter all that much after all. Is it going to kill or physically harm me or anyone I love? No? Well then, time to detach. And detach we must if we are to be karma magnets.

Letting it go is the key here. Send a blessing and peace to the person or people involved and get on with doing something fun. Marianne Williamson suggests praying to see the innocence of the person who has angered you and I've found this very effective. For instance, I learned that the guy who had annoyed me so much by taking something then not giving it back, lost his job soon afterwards. His home life, for various reasons, has become complicated and unhappy. Now, I say this with no sense of nah-nah-nahnah-nah, in fact, quite the opposite. With the karma magnet insight fuelling my mind now, I am able to see what a cheerless and sad life he has, and I actually feel deep empathy for him. But luckily for him, the karma magnet concept is still in play – Mike & I are in the background, still providing him with an opportunity to turn things around and do the right thing. If he does, if he returns what he took, then without a doubt he'll start attracting more good his way.

So, that's karma magnets in a nutshell. If you're faced with thoughtless or unscrupulous people, see yourself as their gateway to self-improvement. Give them the opportunity to do the right thing of their own free will. They might or they might not. They might rise to the challenge of becoming a better person, or they might not.

Either way, at least one person's karma will remained undamaged.