Most of us have had the experience of meeting someone and feeling like we’ve known them before. We become instantaneous best friends as if we’ve been buddies all our lives, or we shake their hand and feel an unshakeable sense that we’ve already met. But there’s another side to this phenomenon, according to a psychic advisor, especially when it comes to our romantic relationships. Described as “karmic debt,” it’s the unfinished business from a past life that you or a partner may have carried into the current relationship, which can turn it upside down, give us whiplash, or make things downright volatile.
If you don’t believe in reincarnation, you’re not exactly alone: According to recent data from Pew Research, only about one-third of the world believes that the souls of people come back around after death. Still, one-third is no small number of people, and reincarnation is an idea at least as old as religion itself. And more contemporary topics like generational and epigenetic trauma rest in similar, albeit science-backed ideas: Our pasts can have a way of coming back around again until we find a way to work through them.
When it comes to how this can manifest in our love lives, Solas, an intuitive at Psychic Source who focuses on love and relationships, says our romantic partnerships are often prime territory for working through “karmic debt,” the unfinished business of our past lives.
“Karmic love is both painful and transformative,” Solas says. “It can feel like you’ve met ‘the one,’ only to watch things unravel.” The whiplash is often as instructive as it is shocking. “These relationships are here to teach us soul lessons,” Solas explains, and says there are nine signs that karmic debt is underpinning your relationship.
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If you’ve ever had that “love at first sight” experience only for the relationship to abruptly turn caustic, it might be karmic debt. Which makes sense in a way. If you’ve only just met, how are you ALREADY embroiled in drama? Perhaps it’s because you haven’t only just met but have actually been tormenting each other for ages in other lives!
: 5 Signs The Problem With Your Relationships Comes From Your Past Life
If you and your partner are caught in a constant wash-rinse-repeat cycle of “breakups and makeups” where nothing ever changes or gets repaired, it might be that you’re reliving a karmic cycle, according to Solas. Your souls didn’t learn their lesson the last time (or the time before that), so they’re going through it again until someone breaks the cycle.
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If they drive you crazy but you don’t know why, and no matter what you do, you just end up locked in a cycle of the same old blowouts? It could be that you’re reacting to long-past slights and bugaboos that have never been healed.
This can look like many things: Avoiding texts, stonewalling each other, or issuing dramatic ultimatums. Regardless, when the communication breaks down, the relationship is destined to hit the rocks, but the breakdown itself might be coming from a source long in the past.
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At times, the karmic debt drama in the relationship may not even be yours, or at least, it might be shared. Solas says that when exes and old flames reappear and spark a love triangle that makes a mess, it’s often karmic debt in action for one, two, or all three of you.
If things switch up on a dime, it’s a red flag for something coming back to haunt you. If you go from idealizing your partner to kind of hating their guts, or you start out as soulmates and now you feel like strangers, something from lives past may be interfering.
This is the most basic sign of past lives. Those eerily familiar deja vu moments are often bits of past lives coming into your conscious memory. If you can’t shake the feeling like you’ve lived through this volatile relationship before, Solas says it’s likely unfinished business from another life.
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Solas says that if you notice that every relationship you have runs aground of the same issues every time, whether it’s jealousy, fears of abandonment, the inability to trust, being controlling, or something else, it’s likely something you didn’t complete your work and healing on in another life.
Similarly, if you find a relationship pushes you toward work on old traumas, your boundaries or issues with your self-worth, whether in a good or bad way, it’s likely karmic debt in action. This is the point of karma and reincarnation, after all: The work through the negative aspects of our selves and souls until we come to a place of wholeness.
Karmic debt in relationships is ultimately about working on yourself. So what the heck should you do if you think you’re stuck in this interdimensional relationship cycle? Solas says that, like everything to do with karma, it doesn’t mean that your relationship is a toxic lost cause that needs to be scrapped. Rather, these relationship situations are all about working on yourself.
“Karmic signs don’t mean you’re doomed,” Solas says. “They’re invitations to heal. When you focus on your own growth and integrity, the cycle resolves, whether together or apart.”
And just in case it wasn’t clear, Solas says it’s NOT about waiting for your partner to change. It’s rather about looking for the lessons being presented by the relationship and actually opening up to truly healing from them, even if that work is difficult. That will stop the cycle once and for all—not just in this life, but in the next!
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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
