Chapter 80 Instant Karma - from my book Changes

Chapter 80

Instant Karma

I first noticed a connection between my thoughts and hurting myself about a decade ago.  I noticed that when I had a judgmental or negative thought about someone, or some situation in my life, I would stub my toe, or bump my elbow, or some other little thing that would hurt my body.  The more it happened, the more I connected the two things.

I have worked on myself to pay attention to my thoughts so I wouldn’t be making judgements, or negative thoughts, that have no business in my mind other than to distract me from the positive, happy, and blessed life I want to live.   

If I’m not careful, I might break my arm patting myself on the back about how well I am doing in that regard.  But then, I have an experience that reminds me, once again, that I am far from perfect.

We had just finished putting away the remaining art, taking down our tent, pro-panels, and having everything ready to load into our truck.  We were approved to bring our vehicle in and load it up, so my husband went to get it.  The roadway was clear of other vehicles, and he was on his way to our spot.

Normally, we would be able to park right by our booth space and load up quickly so the next person could also drive up to their space.  This time, though, my husband was being directed to move past our space so another artist, with a great big extended van could pull up to the double space across the road from our space.  That other artist had a lot of bins and boxes and art to load up, much more than we had.

The part that annoyed me the most was that he parked right in the middle of the road instead of closer to his booth and all his boxes, etc.  That left not enough space for us to use our little wagon to haul the heavy items we needed to load, between his vehicle and the booth next to ours, to get our equipment to our truck.  Not only that, but the artist never looked at me to see if we needed more room.

What a jerk, I thought.

I was mad at him, and mad at my husband for letting them push him past where I needed him to be for our load out.  My husband had to pick up and carry all the heavy things further that he normally would have had to, because of this other artist’s thoughtlessness.

Most artists are very thoughtful and considerate of each other, especially during load in and load out.  This guy was not.

Anyway, as I was giving him the stink eye (which he never saw because he was not even paying any attention to me) I tripped over one of my ski bags which held part of my booth tent.  I fell over backwards, hitting my head on the cement and by butt on the ski bags.  I got a little neck strain and headache out of it, but fortunately not so bad to leave any lasting effects.

As soon as I fell I knew I was experiencing, once again, instant karma.

I could ask, was it was really karma, or simply being distracted by my thoughts to the point of tripping from lack of awareness?  The answer would probably be, “Yes.”  Why would the two be mutually exclusive?

At any rate, I am grateful for the lessons which will hopefully stave off any later more drastic karma I might receive from all the little ones building up, and not having learned from them.

Judge not unrighteously is what it comes down to.  Who am I to judge another person and call them names in my head.  For all I know, the guy could have been in distress from a bad show, or a recent break up or death in his family.  Or maybe he was just raised wrong (snarky haha).  But until I walk a mile in his shoes, who am I to know anything about him.

I would do well to remember something I used to do when I was tempted to be annoyed at another driver while in my car.  Someone taught me to imagine that other driver was Jesus, or my little old grey haired grandma who I loved dearly.  Would I lose patience with either of them?  No way!  I would give them grace and want to protect them.

I have to be careful as I get older.  Not only do I get more sassy and outspoken, I also get angry more easily; probably because my inner protective dragon is awake now.

I still have so much to learn in this life.  Experiences like this remind me that controlling my thoughts with wisdom, not reactions, is something I still need to work on.