THE FEAR OF REACHING OUT TO OTHERS.

   I once continued to wait for my father to come. When he was there, when he turned up, everything was fun, then suddenly he was gone again, this kept me locked to the illusion that people would come, that others would help me, love me. Yet, what I was unable to grasp for a long time is that everyone else feels the same way as me. Everyone else is afraid to ask for the same things as I was.

  I continued waiting for people that were ambivalent & unable to make a commitment to me. These issues surrounding this fear or uncertainty as to what to do to make my make a mark in the world has been down to the incredible loneliness, & depression, that came from the combined effects upon me by my parents that I experienced as a child. Continually waiting for my father to turn up to take me somewhere, & then realising that he probably would not arrive, combined with the added disability of my mothers neurosis as an added influence upon me, I grew up without the conviction of a life full of passion. I grew up quiet, alone, & never really sure enough of anyone to believe in myself enough. My sense of self was very much tied up with others impressions of me. I relied heavily upon others for confirmation because I simply did not receive the relevant confirmation from those that I needed it from. A passive mother, & a dominant father, who was ambivalent & dismissive of me, & without the encouragement or support from either of them, I grew up afraid & unable to cope to much purpose in the world that I so wanted to be a part of. I would watch helplessly, without self-empowerment, as others got on with making a life for themselves. Then as I struggled my way through my twenties, my beloved brother was killed by a hit & run driver. Like an animal, he was tossed alongside the road, later to be found by a lady who lived outside the place where he was killed. Naturally, with the coping mechanism I had in place at 28 years of age, I did not cope, & went into full depression. Again, as my parents coping mechanisms were not effective, they too deteriorated. My father hid behind an even greater wall of narcissism, & my mother also stepped up her ante & found she had a voice.

 The times in my life that I did try to make a mark, some other more dominant person would come, like a school bully, & present me a challenge, that I would never step up to, & I would run off, dealing with the fall-out of these self-harming patterns later, in the safety of my own home. I would  then have to revert to a tried & tested, non-challenging path to tread because it was safe; whether that was a familiar job, a partner, or lack of money. As long as I knew it, everything would be fine, & the challenge, or the bully, would be over. I could count many times over the years when I have not pushed myself to function at a more optimum level, just so as not to have the challenge of standing up for myself in the face of perceived adversity. Oh, I could cope with the internal stuff, that seemed to be easy for me, it was coping in the outside world that I had issues with. Not even the outside world so much, but the lack of confidence at standing up for myself, should I be challenged, Like the man who goes out pretending to be someone else. He can become who he wants to be, but without the challenge of really being it. This person cannot handle any challenge to his sense of self, which is so weak & inauthentic.

So my theory of Karma, & how different it is to chains of events is very important to understand. Through outlining my own personal circumstances I can try to put across how my Karma has not really had anything to do with my behaviour. It has only been involved in, so far, the more solid, definite, structured events that I have had to contend with; the behaviour of my parents & the devastating loss of my brother. These two formidable sets of circumstances have led me to behave a certain way in the face of my life. Of course, it can be argued that I had no choice but to live according to my parents influences upon me, but the profound depth to which I went to maintain my parents influence upon me shows that I had the choice to drop whenever I wanted to. That is not Karma, but free will. The karma is having the parents & losing my brother.

 So here we can see that Karma is a system that is, by & large, out of our hands, while we are unaware of it. The moment we begin to understand it, then we can change it, if we desire. In fact, I would say that by becoming aware of ones Karma we will leave it behind & changes the outcome of our lives work. Change our destiny, if you will. My own personal destructive behaviour I have been able to work out by the space & the home that I live in. Again the home & the space is not Karma, but perhaps where I live is. It all depends just how in-depth you want to go with it. Losing my brother, in such horrific circumstances, was Karma. It was out of my hands, & anyone that knew him would tell you just how reckless he always seemed to be. This was his personal destiny, his Karma, that dictated the events of his existence. I chose to grieve the way that I did, according to my own in-built personal coping mechanism at that time. Again, my choice, my free-will.

 There is a subtle difference between Karma, what your previous destinies have built up for you in this life according to your behaviour & attitude, & our own free-will. At my age today, my late 30`s, I can see that my own coping mechanism were naive, & simply unable to cope with the two challenges in my life effectively enough.  But my free-will drove me to find a solution. My Karma caused me the problem of the two scenarios; my parents & the loss of my brother, but it was my own ability in the moment to cope that dictated my behaviour. I could of chosen to behave in any way I saw fit. In Japan, India, the East,  for example, a solemnity is thrown when someone passes over.

 By changing my behaviour, I have changed my life, so that I can cope better with challenges, & bring about the changes I know will happen. My Karma of my early life has been worked through & resolved. My personal issues pushed me to such an extreme that I was suffering at the hands of myself, & it has been the saboteur  in me doing it to myself because I was afraid of moving to the stage that I am today. My Karma now will present me with another transformational situations that will be in accordance with who I have become now.

 Peace