At least one Sunday a month, I have an opportunity to facilitate an early morning discussion at the Fellowship Café located at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. These conversations cover a wide range of topics, and while I’m not involved in the selection, it has come to fruition that the very subjects I talk about are the ones I need to remind myself of the most. Isn’t the Universe funny? A few months ago, I was charged with speaking and engaging others in a dialogue about the Law of Cause & Effect. Ugh, yuck, why me? When I think about the idea of Cause & Effect, the next words that come to mind are Reap & Sow, which leads me to what goes around comes around, and gets capped off with the ever popular Karma. None of these words, ideas and concepts leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy, as I’ve always associated the aforementioned with negativity and punishment. Yet, I know myself well enough to realize that when I fight and struggle strongly against an idea, experience or person, the very thing I wish to avoid I need to tackle head on.
I spent several days researching this absolute and unbending law ~ for every cause there is an effect and for every effect there is a cause. Some even call it the law that never lies. Sometimes these effects are immediate (like drinking a cup of hot coffee and ending up with a burnt tongue) and some take longer to manifest. Often we aren’t conscious of what we did indeed set into motion months and years prior when something shows up in our lives. Additionally, although every thought, feeling, word and action is indeed a cause, which sets into motion an eventual effect, the cause doesn’t have to be huge. For example, in the past I’ve set the intention of feeling overworked and overwhelmed. My thoughts centered on not getting enough sleep and having the time to process the events and opportunities showing up in my life. Within a week, I was knocked down with the flu and for the next seven days, didn’t leave my bed. Instead of focusing on what I wasn’t getting done while battling the bug, I allowed my body to heal. With nothing to do but rest, I had opportunity to catch up on reading and journaling my thoughts.
What’s interesting is much of what I know and believe about the world we live shouldn’t make this law an issue, yet what I realized, for me, is a lot of my ideas about cause and effect come from old truths I learned growing up. If I made a bad decision, it would come back “to haunt me” and the idea of “instant karma” and the looking over your shoulder mentality because we believe somehow someway we’ll pay for a bad choice. However, the more I read on the subject, the more I remembered that we don’t live a linear life. We aren’t directed on a straight and unbending path. We have the power of free will to make a left or a right ~ to choose a life filled with positivity versus negativity. If I’m not happy in my career, for example, I do not have to stay for the next 25 years to receive the watch and retire. If there’s an area of my world that doesn’t bring me enthusiastic joy, I don’t have to sit in it, shrug my shoulders and say “oh well, it is what it is.” When we center our thoughts, feelings, words and actions on good for everyone and everything, guess what effects we cause? Limitless and ridiculous possibilities! The manifestations of abundant prosperity come back to us in trip measure to the good we give out, and they often touch and show up in the lives of others.
Where are you thoughts when you wake up on the “dreaded” Monday morning? What feelings start your day? How are the words you choose to use during conversation contributing to your day, as well as others you interact with directly or indirectly? How can divine ideas you’ve received from your heart and/or an area in your life you want to explore benefit from positive actions set into motion? With the power of free will comes the ability to choose our intentions. When we start our day, we can ask ourselves who are we willing to be and allow those words to seep into our core. The knowing we are living our absolute truth and affirming conscious acts of generosity and responsibility contribute not only to the quality of our lives, but the betterment of the world. Today I am willing to be compassionate, appreciative, focused, enthusiastic and generous. How about you?
