Karma?

I think Karma is just acknowledging the fact that if you live your life thoughtfully, with kind intentions, you are more likely to live a happy life. Seems reasonable to me.

Good or bad ? Depends on your perception. I believe that there is something to be gained/learned from any experience even if you consider it to be awful at the time. The more you resist a situation the worse it is. Infact I think pain comes more from resistance than from the actual things you are resisting !

Thanks for that, Greenmossgiel. Not out of the hole yet, but working on it. There are ongoing problems that I can't seem to solve, and I have few choices anyway. This time next week I'll probably be OK - perhaps it is all to do with phases of the moon

Joan, it's a couple of days since you made the post about feeling really down. No-one can judge about how another person should feel, and neither should you beat yourself up about having loads of things to be thankful for, but still feel miserable. So many things make up what our emotions do to us from day to day. I recognise the feelings that you may have had the other day. The feeling that a black hole has opened up and nothing can draw you away from it. It may be a 'mother' thing? Who knows? I know that I tend to feel that way when I'm worried about something that I know I can't discuss with anyone because they just wouldn't understand. The fact that you have a loving husband and family that love you sometimes makes no difference to the way you feel in that particular moment. I'm lucky in having a really good friend that I can talk to (as she can and does to me). Even, though, sometimes this is no good and I just want to 'shut off'. The 'pull' of going back to your roots is so natural. There was a reason that you left, though. Would it be an option to go back for a brief time to see what you've left behind? Would that perhaps lay the ghost for you? Perhaps as we get older we feel that we can't make the choices that we were able to make earlier in our lives. We can, though. We shouldn't just settle for what works for others, if just finding out something for ourselves might make us feel better. Like you Joan, I've felt like getting in the car and driving away into the wild, blue yonder. This to escape my low moods and worries. Of course I've never done this, but sometimes something will happen, however small, and I will feel better about things. I hope that you're feeling a bit better now, too. Be kind to yourself. XX

Strangely enough, the daemon idea was a bit of an afterthought when he wrote the book. To me it's the best part of it! Thread on it's way when I return from a very wet garden centre.

crimson, I like your meandering! Do please start a daemon thread. I'll have to think about mine. I'll see what DH thinks.

Life would be very strange if it was perfect. We want our children to be happy and free of sadness, but life is all about learning from such things..that which does not kill us and all that. I often think of people as being like sticks of rock and wonder what it would say inside if you opened them up. Some people I know are so full of bitterness that I feel sorry for them, and some are so downright lovely that I could cry. I also like the Northern Lights idea of people having their daemons and often meet people and wonder what their daemon would be..but, I'm sorry, I'm meandering again....

Agreed. I do believe there really are people who are essentially good. Nobody's perfect but there are plenty of people who live ethical lives to the best of their ability. It's not to be expected that anyone should do more. I'm not sure if I think there are essentially bad people, but there are certainly selfish people and people who have been indoctrinated with harmful ideas which then colour their behaviour.

Agreed, GA. And, being even more philosophical, there is good even in the bad things that happen though we can only see this in hindsight.

Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people - and every now and again good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. That's life.
(Slight philosophical detour: is anyone really 'bad' or 'good'?)

Is it Karma or Nemesis that has caught up with Rupert Murdoch?

Love of a place is very poweful. I've just seen a programme about Dave Davies who is now living on Exmoor and I ache to be in the south west again, even though all my family and ties are in the north and north east. Perhaps we're a bit like salmon and are pulled back to where we came from by invisible forces [or, with me it's where I was when I was 17/18; a very poweful age I think]. You don't want to be here, Joan; this thread is about karma, and there is not good karma in this country at the moment.

Joan as much as you love Yorkshire it wouldn't be the same without your sons and their futures are most probably in Australia. Homesickness really eats at you....I know. I have met quite a few British couples where one wants to go back and one is quite settled. It is hard to move countries, but often they go back and are not settled back home either. Annobel is so right!

Don't be cross with yourself, Joan. Ride it out and you'll be back on an even keel in no time. Look in the mirror and smile at yourself. The grass is not greener on this side of the hedge. it's probably about the same. Your home is where your people are and just think of those grandchildren still to come. So much fun, love and joy. And, when the worst comes to the worst, we're all here for you!

ST John's Wort. Joan, it is important to take enough. Some capsules are too small and you need about 500mg per day at least for it to work.
Believe me it is not worth going back to Yorkshire now unless you can afford it like the artist David Hockney. He lives north of the Yorkshire Moors near the North Yorkshire coast and is inspired to paint huge paintings of trees and fields. A lot of small towns in Yorkshire are full of boarded up shops, and look dismal and sad, with another generation growing up and rolling about drunk on Saturday nights.

There's the saying 'what goes around, comes around' Sometimes it seems to work and those who deserve 'bad karma' get it. But likewise, they also seem to get away with 'murder' and never get their cumuppence. So I suppose that means there's no such thing, and life is what it is - chance or luck.

Joan - Don't be cross with yourself !! I sometimes allow myself a self pitying wallow until I think the most ridiculous thoughts and then realise I am being daft. I usually feel great afterwards. ;-)

Maxgran said:
Doesn't sound like you have much to moan about to me. You seem to have a lot to be happy about.
We always feel down sometimes. :-)

I completely agree, which is why I am very cross with myself!!

Charlotta mentions St Johns Wort. We have some for my husband - I never thought to try it myself. There are few side effects, except it makes you sensitive to the sun,so perhaps our winter would be the time to give it a try.

Faye - I think there is more subtlety to the human brain than is yet known about, and it may never be fully explored, because you are dealing with emotions, sensations and memories which are deeply buried. Most people have had some kind of odd experience, from meeting someone you had thought about a few minutes earlier to "knowing" something you had not been told. I certainly have.

I think we take in hundreds of fragments of perception every minute, and our unconscious brains fit them together and present us with a conclusion without our making any decision. Rather like putting two and two together to make four, but in some cases putting countless separate specks together and making a picture. Some people are better at it than others, or perhaps practice has made them better at seeing the picture more clearly. I would guess that many psychics are in this category. It is not lying, but the unconscious clues they unconsciously catch are probably from the person being "read" and the evidence is then synthesised with the psychic's knowledge of human nature and the statistical likelihood of future events to give a reading. Some of course do a bit of fishing first - " Have you lost anyone called George?" etc, but I refer to those who have a genuine belief in their abilities.

There was once a famous animal act, where a handler would ask a horse called "clever Hans" a question. Hans would tap his hoof to answer. It was exhaustively tested, and there was no trickery, the handler was perfectly honest and believed himself that Hans was answering the questions BUT here is an account of the findings www.damninteresting.com/clever-hans-the-math-horse/

Joan,.. Doesn't sound like you have much to moan about to me. You seem to have a lot to be happy about.
We always feel down sometimes. :-)

What a big question. I'm not big time religious but am C of E and practising in a British kind of way quietly trying to be as good as I can and doing a favour or two when I can so when I quote the Bible its because I do use the texts to help me explain life to myself and ' you reap what you sow' (I paraphrase) its something I often think when someone is really horrible or nasty to me and I resist the urge to pay back in kind. 'Vengance is mine saith the Lord' is another comforter.

My husband is more devout than myself and has studied religion in greater depth. When I query life he says 'we are only here to learn and one day it will all become clear' and thats the basis of his faith. He's a very chilled out guy. unmaterialistic and content with his lot.

In my opinion there is no such thing as Karma. The way you feel comes from inside, not outside.

Joan it seems as if you are really down. So you have no choices- none of us have many choices left at our age. We had our choices in our young years and we made decisions and now we have to stick to them.
It sounds as if a few St John's Wort ( in German Johanniskraut))capsules may help. They helped me. Look it up on the internet.

I do sometimes wonder about Karma,specially this week when the neighbour next to me helped himself to the lovely display of plants that where in front of
my home,his reason was that as we where in supported housing the flowers
where communial,I asked him did he share with me the cost of the plants and the tubs? he said he didn't like plastic tubs anyway they where cheap and nasty
so I hope a ceramic tub jumps out and bites him,what goes around certainly fits
him I think.

I don't believe in fate or karma really, but sometimes I wonder about bad karma. You see I have all the ingredients for happiness: two grown sons, long since left home, both doing well in good jobs and happy with their girlfriends. There are weddings in the offing, I have husband who loves me (well, most of the time), a comfy house, a friendly dog, 5 chickens and a veggie garden, a few good friends and a couple of hobbies that use my creativity.

But tonight I completely lost it with my husband, we had a row, and I realised that one thing I don't have is choices. We are stuck here in Australia whether we like it or not - (I like it, he doesn't), and we both miss Yorkshire. His health isn't the best, with insomnia and IBS and other things. My health is fine. Sometimes I think I will pull all the stops out to go back to Yorkshire, but it would be a HUGE mistake, especially with Cameron in power, as we would have to live on the basic pension with no support network.Anyway, our sons are here, with grandchildren planned.

Sometimes I just want to get on a train and ride for ever, far away, never to arrive anywhere because that's when the troubles start. Sometimes, like right now, I want to go to bed and never get up.

Bad karma (if there is such a thing) reigns right now.....

What goes around comes around, do as you would be done by!