SHE Asked Podcast
Welcome to The SHE Asked Podcast with Anna McBride—a space where the stories we tell ourselves are challenged, reimagined, and rewritten to unlock personal transformation.
Hosted by former therapist, storyteller, and lifelong seeker Anna McBride, this podcast dives deep into the power of narrative. Through personal stories and intimate conversations with guests, we explore how shifting our internal dialogue can change not just how we see our lives—but how we live them.
Each episode offers what Anna calls “practical hope”—real tools, lived experience, and emotional honesty for anyone feeling stuck, lost, or ready for change. Whether you’re navigating divorce, grief, reinvention, or simply trying to understand your past, The SHE Asked Podcast invites you to become the author of your own story—and the hero in it, too.
Follow along for weekly episodes filled with compassion, perspective, and the courage to ask yourself:
What story am I telling—and is it still serving me?
SHE Asked Podcast
Ep 8: What is Karma and Why Does Karma Matter?
Let's explore the deeper meaning of karma.
Not as punishment or cosmic revenge, but as the invisible architecture of cause and effect that shapes our lives.
Drawing from Buddhist wisdom, neuroscience, and personal experience, Anna unpacks how subconscious beliefs formed in early childhood can silently dictate our actions and relationships. She invites listeners to become conscious of their energy, their choices, and the intentions behind them as doing so moves us from autopilot to alignment.
Through reflections on meditation, healing relationships, and reclaiming self-worth, Anna reveals how our karmic patterns are not fixed - they’re invitations. Invitations to expand rather than contract, to choose love over fear, and to honor the power of our inner truth.
If you’ve ever felt stuck in cycles you didn’t choose, or questioned whether your energy shapes your reality, this episode will help you realign with your highest self and ripple something new into the world.
Listen now and ask yourself: What energy am I putting out today?
Hi everyone. It's Anna McBride. Welcome back to. She Asked Tools for Practical Hope. This podcast is about rewriting your story, discovering your truth and healing forward one step, one insight at a time.
Speaker 1:Today we're diving into a big, beautiful and sometimes misunderstood concept karma Not just what goes around comes around. Karma is energy as cause and effect, as the invisible architecture of our lives. Let's start here. Karma is not punishment, is not punishment. It's not cosmic revenge. Karma is the principle of cause and effect Energy in, energy out. As the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfeld says, you're not the victim of the world, but rather the master of your own destiny. It is your choices and decisions that determine your destiny.
Speaker 1:Neuroscience shows that 95% of our behavior is driven by the subconscious mind. Subconscious mind exists until we are about seven or eight years old. What that means is that it is the part of the mind's development such that we are unable to filter out anything. We accept all input as exactly what's coming in, like it is the truth. That means that all the energy that we put out, our reactions, words and thoughts are shaped by a programming we didn't even choose and it's formed. As I said before, we're even seven or eight years old. But karma gives us a chance to become conscious, and consciousness is everything. Without consciousness we're doing harm essentially, possibly to ourselves, to others, to the world. So it's important that we pay attention to our thoughts, to our words, to our actions and that we choose them responsibly. We could slow down, catch a thought, get in between the thoughts, not spiral. All of this is available with a trained mind. Takes just practice, meditation, yoga, whatever the mindfulness practice that resonates with you, so that you can become more attuned and a master of your mind.
Speaker 1:I can tell you from my own experience, you know, I started studying meditation and yoga at the age of 30. And up until that time, and even after that time, I was still very controlled by my thoughts, my feelings mostly my fears, my anxiety seemed to rule the show. And here's the thing I've come to appreciate is that feelings aren't facts. They pass, they move through. Yet if you over-focus on any one feeling, any one thought process, any one situation, and think that that is everything, then there is a likelihood that you will get stuck there. You will see that as the only possibility and in reality we have a whole continuum of feelings, experiences, and life is full of all of it If we become more masters of our consciousness, we can actually get in between our thoughts, in between this anxiety, and slow ourselves down such that we can breathe through it. Maybe let it go and not let it compulse us to take an action or say a word that might cause more harm than good. Here's the thing that I've come to appreciate is that that action, that words, those are, generally speaking, because we want to have an impact on the outcome. And our society, our world is obsessed with outcome, results, metrics, success. But karma teaches us that the outlook, the energy and the intention behind our actions is just as important. My meditation teacher used to always say outlook over outcome. We have no control over the outcome, only the way our perspective is about it.
Speaker 1:And I used to think that the service I did had to equal my success. I did had to equal my success, that if I gave that I had to get something measurable in return. But karma showed me that service is the success when it comes from love, not from ego. As the Bhagavad Gita says, you have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action. That line has humbled me so many times, so many times in my life, especially in relationships, especially with men. I've had to learn that one of my biggest karmic lessons is understanding how I see myself in relationship to men.
Speaker 1:I used to think like I had to shrink, I had to be smaller in order to be acceptable, to be loved. Not true. Life wants us to expand. That's why we're here to keep growing, to keep learning, and what I was attempting to do was to make myself fit into someone else's idea of who I was supposed to be, because I had this distorted idea that that's what love looked like. Love also wants us to expand, not to contract.
Speaker 1:I was giving away my power I didn't know I had. I was giving away my power I didn't know I had. I made myself small to be accepted. I thought shrinking would make me lovable. Not true. It made me so unhappy and so contracted that I wasn't able to be creative. I wasn't able to be myself. I was living a version that fit someone else's idea, and that's not what the universe wants. That's not what karma is about. Life kept crashing me into the same lesson again and again. Here's the thing every crash was a chance for me to wake up. It didn't feel like it at the time. Yet every time I crashed because the relationship didn't work out, which it won't if you attempt to try and fit into someone else's version. Luckily, you can't remain contracted forever, just like in the crash in the movie Crash, where there's a scene where the characters collide and everything changes in an instant. Characters collide and everything changes in an instant. I really think that the universe right-sizes itself. It seeks balance. So I was so out of balance, so contracted, that the relationship had to crash in order for me to expand again. I mean, it did, and I have expanded since then. That's karma too, remember, we're always crashing into each other.
Speaker 1:The question is what energy are you bringing to that moment? In my marriage that is now over, and in every relationship I have with a man since, I have been bringing an energy that was really unhealthy, that version that thought I had to fit into someone else's idea in order for me to be lovable Instead of owning my power, my self, the way I had been showing up or came into this world to be. So none of those relationships work, you know. Not a surprise. Yet I want to tell you the energy I'm bringing now, the energy I'm working on now is a healing energy Working on the thoughts, the self-concepts, the perspective, everything that ever thought I had to be different than who I am in order to be lovable. I am healing because I know the universe is bringing love my way. I just want to be healed, to receive it, and I think that that's really why we're here. We're here to heal, we're here to attend to the karmic energy, maybe of our ancestors. In fact, some traditions believe we're born into this life in response to karma from our past lives, and whether or not you believe in reincarnation, that metaphor is still powerful.
Speaker 1:Our healing work today rewrites old scripts. I was living an old script based on a wounded concept that I wasn't lovable, that I needed to fit into someone else's idea, I'd had to contract. Yet luckily, I've learned that that's not the way the universe wants us to be, that with every inhale must come an exhale, with every contraction there has to be an eventual expansion, and so the universe again is always seeking balance, and it right-sized me. That's why we are here to take stock of the energy we send into the world. If you are living a life contracted, it's important to consider what that means karmically to your life, not with shame, but with honesty and compassion. Be gentle with yourself. Healing begins when we're being honest and accepting of where we are.
Speaker 1:This work, this podcast, my therapy practice, the coaching I do, is how I stay in that expansion. It's how I keep asking what am I putting out? Am I adding to the solution, the healing, or am I creating more problems, living contractedly? I want to be expanded and I know you do too. That's why you're listening in today.
Speaker 1:So here's a question I get a lot because it comes up Do our negative thoughts cause bad things to happen? Because we do think negatively, don't we? And some of us might feel like, oh my gosh, my bad thoughts are causing this bad thing to happen, almost like superstition. I want to tell you the short answer to that question is no. No, the mind is wired for negativity. That's true. However, it's only an evolutionary trait. It helped our ancestors survive. But the good news is, a trained mind can observe itself, it can pause before spiraling, it can pause before action. It can pause and breathe and consider what do I want to put out? And that pause, that breath, is everything. Imagination is another tool. If you can visualize doom, you can also consciously imagine connection, compassion and possibility, and in doing that, you are reshaping your karma.
Speaker 1:So today, I invite you to ask yourself a few questions. What am I putting into the world today? What's my energy, what's my intention, what's my outlook? What energy do I carry into the room when I come into a meeting, to a restaurant, to anything that I am going to be connected with someone else? What am I bringing into that room? It matters.
Speaker 1:What if the work of my life is not to fix but to realign? Realign with what you might ask. How about the universe? How about with your karmic energy? How about with the intention for love, for curiosity, for freedom, which are my alignment questions? That's what I want. I want those three feelings. So, as you get to know yourself, get to know what you want in your life, I want you to begin to hold yourself accountable for the energy you're putting out. As my meditation teacher used to always say, what we ripple out will come back to us, almost like a boomerang right, it goes out, it flows out and it comes back. So what are you creating? Remember, karma isn't a mystical tally sheet. It is, though, your energetic fingerprint on the world and the world will respond. You matter, your energy matters. Your healing is your offering. Until next time. This is Anna McBride, with. She Asks Be well.