Last night I was watching an interview with Drew Brees who is the
quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. He said, "I believe in karma:
what goes around comes around". He was referring to his team's hard
work attributing to their undefeated 13-0 record.
Karma has become a widely used word and now we even are hearing it on Sports Center
Karma means energy. There are many ways to understand Karma and there
are numerous different takes on the word and its meaning. It is a word
that originated in eastern philosophy. Many people think of the past when they hear the word karma.
In order to understand karma, we need to begin with the present moment and then take a 360 degree view. I get quiet and still and I hone into this moment. How does it feel? How does my body feel? How does my mind feel? How is my life going? What
is going on at this very moment?
Whatever my observations are I find they are a result of my past thoughts and actions. The way I feel has to do with how I take care of my body on a day to day basis. My view of this moment or attitude has to do with the way I am thinking. Considering the average person has 60,000 thoughts and over 95% of them are reoccurring it is safe to say that our thinking is conditioning. We meet this moment with the lenses of the past. It is our parents, the churches we went to, the neighborhood we grew up in, our friends and all of our experiences that paints the texture of our present moment awareness.
Over the past two decades neuroscience has given this a name: neuroplasticity. This is the science of how the brain gets wired. We think a thought and the more we repeat this thought the stronger it becomes. This would explain why we tend to think the same way over and
over again. It would also explain why we can have a hard time changing and
why our country and world at large is in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction.
We sincerely want one thing yet we are stuck with a past prison that is rooted in repetitive patterns. We want to break free from our conditioning and be dynamic, fresh and positive everyday yet we find it impossible to change our behaviors. We tend to let go
of things we need to hold onto and hold onto the things that we need to let go
of. As we move along with life we become harder and harder and less flexible while the gap between our life and the life we want to live gets broader and broader.
Am I depressing you? I don't mean to yet there is a way out......will handle that next week in my next blog
