In his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung, the great pioneer of the psyche, reveals the intimate connection between personal history, the soul, and spiritual awakening.

Through a fearless exploration of his memories and dreams, Jung came to this realization:

Hidden within the patterns of your personal history is a code that once deciphered reveals the meaning, purpose, and direction of this life.

Your personal history isn’t just a “story” to be transcended.

It’s not just a distraction—which is why spiritual seekers (and teachers) tend to ignore personal history.

This misses the deeper point and deeper meaning of your embodiment.

Of course, identification with personal history is limiting—your culturally conditioned personality is not your True Self. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a sacred code—as Jung suggests—within the patterns of your history. Because, the deeper truth is that even these highly conditioned patterns of personality reveal—if you have the meditative eyes to see—deeper meanings and revelations.

Here’s an example from my life (perhaps it will remind you of one from yours):

The father figure disappeared early in my life.

And by that very disappearance, loomed large. At the same time, I was surrounded by women – grandmother, mother, and aunt. They doted on me.

A primal tension was reinforced through this family dynamic. I was both an object of affection and an abandoned child; loved and rejected simultaneously.

Primal tensions are at the heart of all family karma.

You have your own primal tension—your own spiritual paradox that pulses at the center of your soul. This tension is reflected in the dynamics and relationships of your family karma and weaves itself into all your important relationships. It’s primal, pulsing  in the center of your soul.

Now here’s the spiritually liberating insight: your primal tension is not a problem to be solved.

What is it then?

It’s the call of your soul.

As Jung suggests, it’s a code to be studied. You study this code not with thought but with the light of meditative awareness.

Healing your family karma, unlocking the code, is a meditative practice. It’s a discipline (a loving discipline) of listening and attuning to the paradoxical tension that weaves through your family karma.
Learning how to meditate on the tension that allows the energy and consciousness encoded within your family karma to be released—to enrich your life.

When we attune to the tension with meditative mind and loving awareness, it opens into a path of liberation.

We were born to parents who were embedded in their own family karma.

They had their own emotional wounds.

We may never know how clearly and compassionately they faced their karma, how wisely they transformed their wounds…how they set the emotional climate of your childhood.

It’s likely that your parents—like most people—never learned how to heal their own family karma or infuse their wounds with loving awareness.

Your parents didn’t know how to heal their primal tension or heed the call of soul.

So they struggled, reacted, and acted-out their emotional wounds, which is what most of us do. The poignant thing is that all this acting out is an attempt (unconscious and unskillful)  to heal our karma.

We struggle and perpetuate the patterns of the past.

I don’t know whether your parents acted-out their wounded-ness dramatically or subtly; with shouting or silence.

Either way, you were affected.

Either way, you inherited the family karma.

Your family karma inheritance doesn’t have to be a burden.

It’s not designed to be. It’s really a sacred pathway that leads beyond suffering to the fulfillment of your life.

The details of your story will differ from mine. That’s the nature of the path. It’s unique to you. Your family karma is perfectly structured to facilitate your awakening.

Your life—in its nitty gritty details—is your precise path to awakening.

That’s what C.G. Jung discovered.

That’s what the yogi’s discovered in deep meditation.

That discovery is possible for you. Family karma is not—essentially—a burden. When you know how to meet the karmic patterns with meditative presence—those very patterns become your path to awakening.

Most people turn away from this path.

Rather than turn towards their karmic patterns with meditative awareness, they turn away from the primal tension in the soul.

They don’t study the code and release the wisdom that’s hidden there.

Instead they act-out and perpetuate their wounded-ness. So it goes, from generation to generation… unless someone wakes up, stops, and turns around in consciousness and heals their family karma.

The beauty of the Healing Family Karma process is that it’s not just for you.

These liberating practices benefit you and those you’re connected to, living or dead. There’s a deep soul connection that links you to the members of your karmic family (which includes more than your family of origin.)

As you heal the wound in your heart, all those who are connected to you are freed.

Love & Shanti,

E

More awesome art & writing from Eric: 

How to Let Go & Move On.

The Difference Between Pain & Suffering.

Author: Eric Klein

Editor: Renée Picard

IAll images are original illustrations by the author