Time to dig up an older topic:
Personally, I do believe in reincarnation. Perhaps it's because when the soul doesn't fit the body, the difference between the two can more easily be felt. For me, the fact that I am my soul and that this body is a temporary 'place to learn' has been an innate knowledge for most of my life. In the words of Alan Watts:
"Before you were born there was this same nothing-at-all-forever. And yet... you happened. And if you happened once, you can happen again."
Whether or not being born as a transgendered individual is a punishment or a lesson, this is a hard one to answer. When it is true that each of us reincarnates, this entails some things... Imagine that we could remember our previous lives. How differently would we have lived this life? Would we have been able to appreciate it in its true sense? What if we need to forget about old traumatizing or bad experiences, so we can have a fresh start this time around?
When given the choice, I would actually also choose to forget most things. Perhaps I've not been exceptionally kind a previous life to many people, and I came here to change that. Would my knowledge of being a bitch earlier on have influenced my self-respect in this life? Definitely, for me at least.
When I was even a little girl, I had this solid awareness that I had CHOSEN to be here, to be born this way and to these parents. Many of the lessons I've learned in the last 30 years have revolved around being less manipulative, more open and to empathize more with the people around me. As a little child, I remember I was very nasty and manipulative, this has gradually gotten better as I learned some humbling lessons.
Like: not being that popular girl I craved (and perhaps know) to be, what it was like to be at the bottom of the group hierarchy. What it meant to be a misfit, and how to learn to deal with my solitude and my knowledge of being different from the other kids around me.
To call this karma would be one way to go... I personally prefer the take that I needed those lessons in order to grow as a person/soul. Many a time when I ponder on what I would have been like were I born a cis-girl, I end up realizing I probably wouldn't have been the nicest of people.
So yeah. Here I am now, and I have definitely grown to be a different person. Maybe I chose this life in order to learn these things and give myself a way forward. That's not punishment at all. That's simply loving yourself and giving yourself another chance.
How do you all see this?
