Tatiana Khodakova
“Karma ends where conscious living of pain begins. The rest is merely a cycle of tension in nature”.
You may have often observed a scene where one person hurts another. This can be anything: an unjust shout from a boss, deceit in business, or even physical harm. At that moment, a silent demand usually flares up: “It shouldn’t be like this! This is unfair”!
Time passes, and you notice that the wrongdoer’s life faces trouble. Something is taken away from them; they lose status, money, or health. Instantly, a logical lock clicks in your mind: “Justice has triumphed”!, “God sees everything”, “There it is—retribution”.
This is how it seems from the outside. Even if you are not just a bystander but a direct participant in the events — for example, when you behaved poorly, and later the other person treats you in kind — you draw the same conclusion.
Now, let’s allow ourselves to move away from the idea that there is someone external who grants mercy or punishment. In this system, there is no judge keeping track of the balance of good and evil. All of this is done by the individual. The root of such events — both the initial wrongdoing and the subsequent “retribution” — is the same. This state of inner tension.
So, let’s examine pure psychology, without mysticism and “karma”. Imagine a person who feels bad. Inside them lives colossal tension — old internal pain, usually formed in childhood. This tension is nothing but a blocked emotion that arose in an acute situation but found no outlet. For instance, when one could not be angry with their mother, and retaliating against a father’s physical punishment was not an option.
This feeling literally gets stuck in the body, in muscle clenching. A person lives with it for years, and it’s so unbearable that the psyche desperately seeks a way to “release the pressure”. One of those ways, although highly ineffective and unrecognized, is to hurt another. Yelling, hitting, deceiving, or taking away. In that moment, a simulation of release occurs: the person seemingly pours out part of the accumulated tension externally. But this provides only temporary relief, after which the tension returns again.
However, there’s another scenario. This same heavy internal state, like a magnet, attracts those who are ready to inflict pain on the very bearer of that tension. This is the second way the psyche attempts to “discharge” — through the role of victim, through receiving an external blow. And this also does not bring the desired relaxation.
If we take a closer look, we can see that a person lives in an endless attempt to release tension: either by attacking another or by being attacked by another. There is no connection between the events. There is no punishment. There is no retribution. There are only two methods (note, ineffective) used as attempts to free themselves from their internal sensations.
From the outside, this may look like a coherent chain of cause and effect, but in reality, what we have is merely the consequence of a “packed” emotion seeking a way out. A person triggers these scenarios with their own state but is unaware of this because they search for the exit in the wrong place. When there is pain and tension inside, the mind looks for the cause outside: “this person is hurting me”. In the first scenario, they conditionally hurt this person, while in the second case, they hurt themselves “because of this person”. All for the sake of release. But the release is not complete, and the pain does not go away.
What can be done?
To start with — realize: “What am I feeling? What emotion”?
Then direct your attention not to finding causes in the external world but to your own sensations: where in my body do I feel this emotion? Allow yourself to immerse in this sensation. Describe it in words and start observing it as energy… and over time, you will discover that the tension dissipates, as if dissolving under your attention.
THIS IS LIVING THROUGH EMOTIONS
Not shouting, not fighting, not blaming, but observing your own sensation and allowing that sensation to finish.
So, we are beings so self-sufficient that we manage to be both victims and executioners in our own theater. Other people are merely decorations on this stage. There is no one who punishes, and no one who grants mercy. There is only you! And in one way or another, you deal with yourself through the help of others. And, of course, this is how you meet those who resonate on the same “tense” wavelength.
You can change the resonance by encountering your body’s truth. And then meetings with other people will also carry a different purpose than in the endless cycle of pseudo-boomerangs.
Translated by Maria Zayats
Read also:
You can do it through “I can’t”!: Why Willpower Jumps Destroy Our Lives
The Design of Fate: Why Our Desires Stumble Over Old Wounds
Татьяна Ходакова
Практический психолог
Интегративный подход
