Karmic debt.

Your past actions and choices can be heavy.  They can wear on your present state, limit your opportunity, influence your choices and your experience of the world around you.

Karma can be a debt.  It can hang over your head for eons until it is paid back.

Actions without mindfulness often lead to karmic debt.  Poor choices with short term interests often put us in a bind.

That debt weighs us on, we can feel its burden and often feel trapped by its presence.  That debt continues to define our present experience, influencing the choices we make, the habit patterns we play out and the neurotic behavior that we pretend isn't there.

We will continue to feel our karmic debts pulling on us in unhealthy ways as long as they are not settled. The process of resolving our debts starts with forgiveness, generosity and learning to rest in openness.

Forgiveness is an act of acknowledgement and a claiming of responsibility.
Generosity is a willingness to be present and to benefit others, to repay their kindness.
Openness is the practice of acknowledging and letting go of whatever it is that we are holding onto, in all of the nooks and crannies of our mind.

Our debts will never be completely resolved, but we can do our best to repay them. That opportunity is always available to us.