Karma just might be the biggest, grandest teacher of them all. We oftentimes simply fail to listen – or remind ourselves of the lessons when it matters.

We are all human. And as humans, we are perfectly imperfect – meaning that the flaws in our design are actually perfectly orchestrated because we are here to learn, to grow, to evolve, and to expand.

And every single human is on their own journey.

Even the viewpoints and lessons that I am sharing here today are fueled by my personal journey. Channeled through my experiences, my growth, and my current capacities of awareness.

I recommend grabbing a coffee or something nice to enjoy because this might be a longer article…with paths that aren’t exactly linear as we venture through several layers and slices of awareness.

That being said, let’s start with the fact that I truly, deeply believe that every single person has their own role in this world.

Once, during breathwork, I received absolute clarity on my own dharma, on my own purpose of who I am meant to be during my time on earth in this incarnation.

That clarity also showed me why judging others is, in essence, nothing more than a distraction mechanism from the ego.

Because the moment I saw my role, the moment I knew how judged I might be by others for it – for focusing on the light, rather than being an activist or a critic or whatever it is that society currently hypes up (because we all know that is also ever-changing) – was also the moment I knew that I had absolutely zero business judging others.

I was, in a way, freed from playing a role I wasn’t aligned with myself, and that also freed up my perception of others.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I absolutely had judged others in the past for their ways of life. For the choices people made, for the priorities they gave themselves…

As if they had something to do with me.

Kinda hilarious when you think about it right? How could another person’s hobbies, interests, personal life etc have anything to do with me?

But we all know the ego likes to look outside and judge…because when we’re busy looking outside, we can’t really focus on what’s going on inside.

For every minute we spend thinking and judging others, we could be devoting that energy to creating the life of our dreams.

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather build an existence that lights my soul alight than complain about another person. I mean, whatever we focus on is where our energy flows – our valuable, beautiful energy that shapes our reality. I don’t want my reality to be built on the unwanted…and I think neither do you.

Let’s do a quick example for those of you who are like me and can grasp concepts even better this way.

Let’s say you’re building a cute little shed. You have 300 bricks available that you need in their entirety to put this shed together (and to maybe not make it quite as harsh, if you need more bricks, you can get them…but it’ll take a whole year for them to arrive).

You come home from work, ready to start work on your shed you’ve been dreaming of…but you remember just how pissed off you are at the self-entitlement of a coworker who was acting like an absolute piece of shit. So that brick you’ve been meaning to put into the shed…

…it goes to the coworker.

Poof. Instantly transported there.

Then you look past your yard to the neighbor who decided to plant her plants way too close to your fence. It annoys the fuck out of you. What an entitled bitch, right?

Whoops, there goes another brick. Maybe two.

Now you’re already down three bricks and you haven’t even started work on your dream shed.

See where this is going?

As simplified as this might seem, it really is how energy works. And actually, those bricks you lost? Well, they just might end up falling off your neighbor’s balcony and onto your head somewhere in the future…

But we’ll come to that later.

So once that judgment I had for other people’s ways of life lifted…

I found a deeper layer of judgment. One I am still working on.

And this one has everything to do with awareness.

My personal awareness. The awareness of where other people are. And also those individuals’ respective awareness.

Now why am I even bringing judgment into this Karma and Dharma discourse? Because I wanted to point out that even as I share these insights, I too am still very much human. I do my best not to be a smartass about things because I know I also make mistakes. I know I am also learning. I know I will experience fuck-ups along the way.

And I know that I sometimes struggle with living according to these principles myself, especially when there is an emotional charge involved.

I’m also aware that perhaps my way of diffusing the charge by thinking “damn, they’re really fucking stupid” isn’t the high, spiritual path most people would expect a person to take, but hey, bridges that take us across the gap to where we want to go are perfectly fine as long as we are aware that that’s all they are. Tools. A stepping stone. But not the final result or final destination.

Honestly, I might look at all of this a couple of years from now and think, wow, I really had no idea, did I?

Because what I have learned over the years is that as our awareness and consciousness expand, they really expand.

Often, we have no clue just how limited our viewpoints were until we are looking back at them.

And that right there is the key.

It is the core piece that we absolutely cannot forget when engaging with the world (and ourselves).

I think most of us would love to live in a place where everyone had incredible awareness. Where everyone was evolved. But that’s the thing…who’s to say someone wouldn’t exist within that group who was even a step further than that and would look at all of us with that same “damn, kinda narrowminded” vibe?

Again, let me emphasize that we are all human.

We are all at different stages of awareness and enlightenment.

The further along we are in our journeys, I think the more it is on us to not fall into the same pitfalls of the ego as those we might see as “less” evolved do.

While I’m using this whole more-less verbiage, keep in mind that I am actively rewiring myself to not look at things from such a binary perspective, but rather understand that the personal paths of people cannot be compared, which also means they cannot be labeled. The labels I’m using here are only for easier understanding at this starting point before we dive deeper.

So now that we’ve touched upon the personal development and awareness aspect (no worries, it’s all going to get woven in and even clearer along the way), let’s see how Karma and karmic lessons come in.

For a long time now, ever since I went through a period of deep shadow work and inner child healing, I have been observing how the energetics of it all play out. The tipping point, however, was the death of a neighbor a couple of years ago.

This man, for as long as even my parents remember, had always only looked out for himself. He was not particularly kind. He was not considerate. He rarely showed compassion. He was pretty two-faced. Sometimes he would even do harm – not life or death kind of harm, but still things that hurt other people. And yet he seemed to thrive in life so much. He was one of those examples that fit the phrase “Some people just get away with everything” beyond perfectly.

But did he really?

I am sorry to say, but his final months were far from the thriving life he had lived. This man was robbed of every joyful aspect of life. He suffered. And ended his time on earth in a way I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

It might have seemed that there were no repercussions for the type of energy he showed up in and poured into the world during his time, but his passing tells a different story.

A lot of people often think that Karma is instant. Or, worse yet, that they should deliver the karmic pushback to a person who “deserves” it.

But what I have seen, time and time again, is that the Law of Karma will always come into effect.

It isn’t the punishment some people either crave for others or fear for themselves. But it is a reflection of the energy and intentions you put out in the world.

That always makes me think of people who so badly want to punish others. When really, what they are doing, is taking over the role of a massive natural force that does not need for us to take over…and as they step into that role, which is driven by the ego in almost all instances, they are usually unaware that they are putting themselves on the receiving end of things they probably don’t really want.

Because there is nothing beautiful about that energy. Nothing nourishing.

It tends to be devoid of compassion, devoid of the presence of a higher awareness…but brings satisfaction to the ego instead.

Now I am not saying we aren’t meant to have boundaries. Or that we should just allow others to do with us as they please. It couldn’t be further than that.

What I am saying, however, is that there is a distinct difference between setting a boundary when you are placed in a position where you need to protect yourself in such a way (although you might find that there is so much divine protection in place when you act from the heart) and inserting yourself into the role of Justice.

Again, let me throw it back to what I said earlier – every person has a role. Some are meant to be the human extensions of justice. But definitely not as many as there are acting on it.

Because let’s just think about it for a second…

If being an agent of justice isn’t your role…

How are you viewing the person you want to exercise justice over? Are you viewing them as a human being on their journey? Are you seeing them as a whole? Or are you equating them with the ego that is probably running the show and being the origin of whatever behavior had caused them to end up on your radar anyway?

I do believe that having the capacity to see people in their entirety is one of the highest values we as people can have. I also believe in having compassion. And no, neither of those things mean we approve of perhaps whatever horrible things that person has done.

Because none of this is about that person.

Yes, you read that right.

None of this is about the person outside of you.

It has everything to do with you.

Who are you being in that moment? Where are you coming from? The ego? Or your higher self? What energy are you feeding into your cells and emitting into the world? Is it an energy of light? Love? Or is it something harsher? Colder?

Because in the end, the other person isn’t going to live with your energy. They aren’t going to live with your Karma.

No, that’s going to be you.

The other person will reap what they sow anyway, with or without you getting involved in their journey. But you?

Can you see the person who’s been getting on your nerves for years with compassion? Can you see them in their entirety? Can you see a soul in a human body who might not have the self-awareness to understand they are operating from the ego? Can you see them for where they are on their journey and understand that, maybe, you should instead have gratitude for being where you are?

This is where I mentioned the bridge of rolling your eyes and maybe thinking “damn, how fucking dumb” someone is. Because as harsh as it might sound, it’s actually a very light energy in its essence. There isn’t hate beneath it. There isn’t the weight of condemnation or stark judgment saturating the energy.

At least for me, if someone is dumb, then I just shrug and move forward because I understand that they cannot see or act from my awareness if they do not have my awareness. I can wish for them to evolve. I might be annoyed by them, especially if I think they should know better.

But I will not hate them. I will not resent them. And, as I’m learning more and more, I will not judge them.

And while sure, this might sound like thinking of yourself as superior…as I said, this is only a tool to help bridge the gap to the ultimate goal.

So what is this ultimate goal?

Seeing every human being as exactly that. A human being.

Could you imagine looking at the worst person you can think of and feeling nothing except perhaps compassion for the position they are in and the point of their journey they are experiencing? Could you imagine being absolutely neutral toward them as you are to a tree that you pass by? Could you imagine perhaps sending the intention of them to find their to a better life because you desire for every soul to thrive?

Most of us aren’t quite there yet, right? At least I know that I’m not going to pretend I’m anywhere near having that kind of capacity, even though I have come a very, very long way from absolutely hating humanity when I was at my lowest point in life to being able to see humans as something wonderful, actually, even if perhaps not all of them.

But I can see even those I would once hate and despise as a whole.

I can see the ego operating.

I can see the programs running in the subconscious.

I can see so much more than what is on the surface.

And if I have to think of someone as fucking stupid just because that creates neutrality and allows me to see them from a viewpoint closer to my higher self, then I’ll consider that a win.

Ultimately, if nourishing love for humankind doesn’t really call to you, at least think of yourself and people in your immediate circle and how holding these negative energies might impact you and them in the long run. I already wrote about this once before, so feel free to read it here in case this aspect aligns with you more.

Right now, however, to wrap up this long spill of thoughts, let me hop back into bigger picture and one final thing that is so often forgotten.

Karma isn’t just the negative things reflected back to us.

It is everything.

The way you show up in life is the way life will show up for you.

And here is where I think so many people get caught up in all those ego scenarios we touched upon in this article.

I think, deep down, they don’t believe just how powerful Karma is in all aspects. They lack faith. They lack trust. They truly believe no one is looking out for them and so they have to look out for themselves.

But that is, once more, living from the ego.

Because as much as I observed how things always balance out (like with the example of the neighbor), I have seen an equal amount of instances where people were so blessed and divinely protected.

Including myself – and trust me, I was once the biggest non-believer in things ever working out in my favor.

Full disclosure, I will get shit from people who will say I’m too passive. To permissive. That I don’t stand up for myself.

But I know with absolute certainty that in 99% of those cases, I am protected.

So while yes, l will, for instance, voice my boundaries when someone is being manipulative, emotionally abusive, disrespectful, etc., there are many, many more moments where I won’t engage in a confrontation because I feel it in my gut that I am taken care of.

You would be amazed at how many times the issues solve themselves. Or things turn out in a way that events won’t touch me. Or I receive some sort of blessing that naturally guides me away from a situation.

The most recent wild experience was during a storm that brought down an ancient chestnut tree. A massive, massive tree. That somehow ended up damaging everything except for my parents’, my husband’s, and my property.

What’s the Karma in this?

The same neighbors that incurred damages were the ones who had often damaged our property in the past because they simply did not give a shit or a single thought about us.

Eventually, things started working out in ways that no matter what happened, we were somehow spared of all the crap.

And now, with this tree falling and smashing parts of the roof, taking out chunks of the building, and smashing windows…

By all logic, we should have also gotten hit.

But somehow, as the tree was falling, it split halfway up the middle, which changed its trajectory in a way that the only thing we had were a couple of branches in the yard and a mosquito net snagged on one of my parents’ windows.

This ancient chestnut, who had been a steady presence my entire life (and my mom’s entire life too), had left with one parting gift.

Wisdom.

The Universe isn’t cruel, guys.

The Universe doesn’t want us to suffer.

It simply fortifies the energies that we give out because it fully supports our free will.

If we collectively learned to lean more into this, to focus on ourselves and what we desire to create and give to the world, we would also bring forth immense changes in the collective and truly support this planet in what it was always meant to be – a beautiful playground for our souls to learn, explore, create, and grow.

And a final reminder, perhaps one of the most important ones – do you know what your dharma is?

Do you know what your soul has chosen to be in this lifetime? What role you are meant to play?

Allow that answer to come to you if it hasn’t already, and then be in your dharma.

Drop what was never meant for you and be who your soul has chosen to be instead. And I promise, I fucking promise so much clarity, awareness, insight, and blessings will come your way.

Things will make sense.

Even those that might not be logical to other people. They will fit so perfectly together within you.

So how about if, instead of looking outward, you nourish yourself instead?

What if instead of wasting your bricks on other people, you use them to bring to life the vision that has been living within you?

You only get one life as this version of you.

Your soul chose it to create.

So why not give yourself the gift of living the life of your dreams, knowing that you have the entire backing of the Universe to support you?