Soul's Growth — When we begin to make decisions about coming back into human form and entering this earth again, we consider all sorts of situations that would be helpful for our soul's growth. In some lifetimes we are wealthy, healthy, happy, and fulfilled. In other lifetimes we choose to experience poverty, dis-ease, lack of love and joy. We experience being male or female, being kind or evil, compassionate or narcissistic, generous or stingy.
We experience different cultures as well as different eras or timelines. We may choose to be cowhands on horseback or businesspeople on Wall Street. We can choose different religions as well. Basically, what our souls want to accomplish in this lifetime determines the outcome.
Karma — The definition of karma: the totality of a person's actions and conduct during successive incarnations, regarded as causally influencing his or her destiny; the law or principle through which such influence is believed to operate; fate or destiny resulting from one's previous actions.
Basically, karma is the cause and effect law. If I steal your toy in this lifetime, you steal my toy in the next lifetime, and then in the third lifetime neither of us will steal a toy because we know how it feels to have our toy stolen. That is how karma works. So if person A kills person B, then in the next lifetime, person B may choose to kill person A.
What really surprised me was learning that nothing happens to us that our souls did not agree to — and yes, that means rape, abortion, abuse, etc. When you begin to see this from a higher perspective — that we have had many lifetimes where we have been the good guys and the bad guys — you will start to understand why people are the way they are.
Have you ever met someone you automatically didn't like? You may not even know their name, but your gut tells you that person is no good. That may be from another lifetime, and your soul recognized their soul and the feeling is the same.
Practice
Write down three of the hardest experiences of your life. Next to each, write the lesson you suspect your soul wanted to learn.