Negative Karma What It Is and How to Break the Cycle

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When we talk about cleaning karma, it implies that karma has something “untidy” that would squat in our energy, hence the notion often heard of negative karma or “bad karma“. You may also have heard that sometimes we need to purify it; but why we need to purify our karma?

How to avoid negative karma?

To avoid negative karma, it’s essential to act with intention, kindness, and awareness. Choosing compassion over anger, honesty over deceit, and generosity over selfishness helps maintain balance in your spiritual journey. Small daily actions—like being respectful, forgiving, and mindful of your thoughts—can shift energy in powerful ways. By living with integrity and aligning your choices with higher values, you naturally cultivate positive karma and spiritual growth.

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What can cause you negative karma?

Karma is a concept that comes from the Hindu religion, practiced mainly in India. It is a law of cause and effect: in karma, everything we do, good or bad, ends up returning to us in equal proportions. What is important to understand is that karma is not just about our present life, it also includes our previous lives.

It is a spiritual principle

Initially, karma is a concept derived from Eastern spiritual practices such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Karma means “action“, which encompasses the intention behind an action, thoughts, words, and gestures. If one acts generously on the surface, but gives nothing in reality and has bad thoughts, their action will not be worth a good karma.

Nothing just disappears

According to this belief in karma, each action (thoughts and words included) is added to the previous one and nothing disappears. We could compare karma to what happens in a bank account: we count deposits and withdrawals, assets and liabilities, which gives a result x, good or bad. Thus, our karma would result from the sums of our bad and good deeds. Since Buddhists believe in reincarnation, it’s a bank account that lasts forever.

Is it deserved?

It would seem that when a desired result is produced, we tend to bring it closer to a good behavior. So, if we act well one morning and a good thing happens to us in the afternoon, we will tend to make a connection between the two; it’s as if we deserve that good result for the good deed we did earlier.

What to do to have a good Karma?

There are things we can do every day to have good karma. Below, you will discover the simplest ones:

Practice compassion: when someone hurts you, stand back and assess the situation with compassion. It will only serve to make you feel good and probably better when you let karma do its job.
Show affection for others: knowing that you care about people and people care about you makes you feel good on the inside and it generates the kind of positive energy that makes you happier and happier.
Respect yourself and others: recognize and respect your own worth and show respect for others. When you do this, you are more likely to make choices that are good for you and your karma.