I have a friend who is adopted. She and I have talked about her internal struggle with ‘having to feel grateful’ to her adoptive family for adopting her. The thing is, her childhood was wonderful, she was loved deeply, and her (in her mind) special status was never an issue, never used as a weapon against her, either subtly or overtly. But she did have interests and personality traits that ended up being very, very different from the rest of her family. She’s got some concerns that she’s not girly enough, that being gay has let them down.
I lead with this because she and I have also had a few talks about reincarnation. We both believe that we meet the beings that are important to us over and over again with each successive life. Those beings may be a lover in one life, a best friend in another, an influential teacher in yet another. When I brought up that they could also be our parents, and that we choose, even in infancy, where we will be and who we will be most influenced by, this was a new thought to her. The next logical thought that she then didn’t need to feel gratitude for being “chosen” by them – that she, in fact, had been the chooser was pretty radical.
When I look back at my life and the beings that have been most influential, I find myself with a bit of confusion. If I apply my belief system to the fullest, it means that my abuser is really a being who has been important to me in past lives. Or maybe that being is trying to learn some lesson (that, in my opinion, they have obviously failed at in this life) and I for some reason volunteered to play a part in that. What is my life lesson here? What am I sent to learn? Did we preordain that this would happen? Would someone else have stepped in to provide trauma to my childhood had this not happened? Is this karma or is it about a sentient being trying to learn some important truth?
Okay, I’m totally rambling here. I’m preferring to believe that I am a sentient being, occupying this body to learn some specific lessons, and that the others who are important to me have volunteered to step in and guide me to where I need to be. Hmmmm – that doesn’t sound all that right either – it smacks of forgiving my abuser and realizing he is on some learning path, too. I’m not sure I want to do that.
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