LIFE PLANS

Now that we have looked at the basic tools of learning lessons (Karmas and Agreements) we can examine the pattern according to which fragments generally use those tools in their lives.

The human life divides into seven year segments (aka "cycles"), during which certain physiological and psychological changes take place. In the larger scheme, therefore, each seven year cycle has a different set of lessons associated with it. Although there may be some variations on the following pattern, the plan of seven year cycles is the most natural, given human physiological development, and is usually followed pretty accurately.

Imprinting

IMPRINTING is the training that you get from your parents/caretakers and society about what type of adult you should grow up to be (you learn these lessons mainly in the first 14 years of life).

Imprinting sets up your morals, conscience, and idiosyncrasies, and the development of the use of your talents and skills. Your imprinting is what will make you unique.

It sets you apart from those of similar Role, Overleaves, and culture. Your parents, your birth order, your past life relationships with those in your family, your grandparents, your teachers, other influential adults, the things you read or watch on TV, even what is influencing the culture at the moment: all these "random" influences add up to you being the unique individual you are (and planned to be). You set yourself up by choosing a society and parents that will influence you to have a certain outlook on life later on.

Your imprinting prepares you to do particular types of Karmas and Agreements.

EXAMPLE:
If your father is a very dictatorial type (perhaps a King with a goal of dominance sliding often to the negative pole) and your mother is very soft, martyred, and submissive (e.g., a Server with a goal of submission or using martyrdom as an Obstacle), you are going to learn to identify with either one or the other.
The training to act out both roles is going to be imprinted into you as well. These influences will set you up to be able to go through the Karmas you have in your 14 year old period. Perhaps the way you emulate dominance will get you into trouble when you dictate to those around you. Or you may have karma with submissive Servers. You may get rid of these learned habits or tone them down later on if they no longer serve you.

AGE 0-7

You are born on the planet with a set of parents or at least someone older than you who takes care of you and makes sure you survive. During this time you get your major imprinting and learn most of the skills you will use as an adult in society.

AGES 7-14

You learn the last 20 percent of your imprinting and start perfecting the basic "form" your personality will have as an adult. In the 0‑7 year old period, while you are absorptive and malleable, your parents/caretakers make sure you act a certain way consistent with their idea of survival in society. In the next 7 year period, you become a person who is basically running her own life, while still using your parents and other imprinters as strong mentors and guides or visions of what you do―or do not―want to be. During this period, you begin to take charge in being in control of your life.

AGES 14-21

This is the young adult stage. This is when you do your "heaviest" Karmas. The hormonal shifts and changes you go through as you are growing into adulthood help further your ability to be in karmic intensity. You are stepping out into being intelligent and trained enough to handle a lot of things on your own, but you are still young and unformed enough to allow yourself to get into Karma that, were you older and wiser, you would probably sidestep.

AGES 21-28

You are still in a heavily karmic period in your life, but not quite as intense as the 14 to 21 year old period. You are a little more in control and more adult in your choices; you know a little more about what you want and who you are. You are "out on your own" and use fewer “props"―other people like parents, teachers, friends, or peers―to influence your Karmas. A lot of mating and Sexual Karmas come in during this time. Also, you may bring in karmic child agreements during this period. Non‑karmic child agreements can come in as well, if you are at the point where you are ready to have children, but the ones with whom you or your mate have the most Karma come in first.

AGES 28-35

During this period, you examine yourself, look at your imprinting, figure out who you are and drop old patterns that helped you get through your previous Karmas but do not really serve you as an adult. You start to stand up as who you are really going to be out in the world, as an adult in society. After age 28, you pull in much less karmic intensity. (If you are at the sixth level of any Soul Perception, however, you will still do a fair amount of Karma for the rest of the lifetime.) You focus less on Karma and start pulling in more of your Agreements. The period from 28 to 30 is when you start examining who you are in relationship to your parents, and separate the wheat from the chaff. Also, you may look at your own ability to parent by then. You get a truer sense of yourself in that middle ground.

AGES 35-42

You are manifesting as a fully contributing adult in society. You are usually handling life monetarily and being involved in a stable career. Some settle down into a mated relationship during this period. A lot of people split up relationships that were heavily karmic in this period, perhaps ones they started between the ages of 14 and 28. The most appropriate relationships are formed in this time. Most of the less karmic or "positively karmic" child agreements are brought in. After age 35, you work more on your own issues. Most of the Karmas you have are challenges you have given yourself―Self Karma. In the second half of your life, you do a lot more Agreements and Self Karmas. You also feel a lot more like you have a choice about the people and events in your life.

AGES 42-49

You serve as a guide or mentor, a mainstay of society. You devote yourself to your community, to your family, to your friends, to being the foundation or pillar of society that you are going to be for the lifetime. During this time your Essence examines its life task and looks toward the ways and means of actualizing that task.

AGES 49-56

You feel like you are coming to the culmination of who you basically are as a contributive citizen of your society. You feel proud of yourself, good about yourself, like you have fulfilled most of what you wanted to do when you came to the planet this life. If there are still things that need to be fine‑tuned―for example, you never managed to get the job, relationship, body shape that you wanted―you come to terms with that. Either you decide to like yourself anyway or you decide that you are going to go for those things now. You hit your stride of feeling like a competent, comfortable leader in some areas. Nothing can ruffle or rile you like it did when you were younger.

There is a sense of completion. If a person dies at the age of 56, the lifetime is considered complete, as far as the universal plan goes. You have examined all the main phases of a life. Almost all Karma can be completed by this time although, because of the longer lifespan now, people might hold off a few of their Karmas if they have planned a longer life. There is a sense of settling in to who you are. You enjoy life the most after achieving this period.

Alternatively, if you are a person who never gave yourself what you wanted, or who never looked at your imprinting during the 28‑year-old period, you may be agonized during this period and feel it necessary to break dramatically away from your life patterns. It is during this period that people often mate with someone much younger than they are, in order to pull themselves back to a youthful place and start all over again. They want to get back into that mindset, to handle the things they did not handle back when they were in their 20s and 30s. This can create a mid-life crisis situation. Otherwise, it is a very satisfying period where you can really bloom and people can look to you as an authority on what life is about.

If you die before age 56, you usually come back and do a very similar lifetime in order to complete. It is usually karmic when you die before age 56―formation, a payback of an Abandonment Karma, or Self Karma. You usually come back fairly quickly in the same or a similar culture―usually having the same sex and the same sorts of parents (if not the same ones!) ―and start all over again, changing circumstances enough so that you can make the lifetime successful.

AGES 56-63

This is a period of re‑evaluation. Life is quieter. People look at winding down from the rat race. During the 35‑56 year old period, you are enriching society with what you are contributing. From age 56, there is an energetic reduction where you are calming down, you are slowly withdrawing from the mainstream scene, getting more internalized. You are getting prepared to relax for the latter period of the lifetime, doing a lot more looking at who you are and what you are, and becoming a lot more philosophical. A lot of people pick up the religious or spiritual practice of their youth, find a religion they can believe in or get back in touch with their philosophy of life, whatever that is. You start turning things over to your children, the younger generation. You feel like you can relax. You begin to be more self‑oriented, rather than taking care of the older and younger generations all the time. By age 63, most people want to stop working at long-term careers altogether.

AGES 63-70

The re‑evaluation intensifies. You withdraw from your societal position, you spend a lot of time working on what you need to do to fulfill personal goals for the lifetime. You have served your family and society and your are now working on lessons in filling out the tapestry of your own life.

AGES 71-77

LIFE TASK

You are enjoying the fruits of your labors for the lifetime. Also you are learning some specific lessons about health, dependency issues, Care-taking Karmas (with people who owe it to you to take care of you in your old age). Or perhaps you owe it to someone to hang on longer and imprint them or take care of them, for example, raising grandchildren. Physical fragility is accompanied by increased wisdom and a greater internal sense of stability. Many long-term friends and family members will leave the Physical Plane and you become accustomed to appreciating the moment, knowing that you may complete your lifetime soon.

After the age of 77, a person either gets inspired by a new internal or external goal, or they wind down the lifetime. Most people feel complete at this point and only live longer if they have something specific that is keeping them here, like a Long-term Karma or Self Karma they have not handled yet. People who want to get so many things learned and worked through―so many challenges handled―that it is taking them a long time to get through it all will live longer than age 77.

In the future, more people are planning longer life spans, now that this option is available with improved nutrition and health care. They want to have the total release time where they are not responsible to anyone but themselves, they are past their Karmas, and they can relax. They want to have a rest break where they can totally enjoy themselves and do just a few Self Karmas about their bodies deteriorating and not being able to be as active. That way they can have some fun and enjoyment so that when they die they will feel ready to come right back to the Physical Plane. They use this time to let their Instinctive Center energy patterns get unblocked, unraveled, and processed.

A life task is a major lesson you want to complete during a lifetime, one of the purposes or foci of that life. Everyone has one, two, or more life tasks. A life task can be related to your career. For example, you might want to be a great healer, a task which will pay back Karma and be good for mankind. Often, however, life tasks are about handling an emotional, philosophical, or attitudinal problem you have not handled yet in any other lifetime. Your life task may be learning to be a good parent or how to be an optimist. You may have a task of working on your sexual or family relationships. You may want to learn how to be really good with plants or animals this life. Or perhaps you decided to have a major political influence on the world. Your life task can be four or five of these things at the same time. You can tell what your life task is because you keep noticing you are drawn to do lessons about it over and over again.

People start noticing their life task in the 21‑28 year old period. They start focusing in on it with great focus in the 28‑35 year old period. Most people bloom into really engagng their life task in the 35‑42 year old period although they do not usually perfect their skill in it this early. In the earlier periods, you do certain things moving towards your life task but you really aren't that accomplished at it yet. You get much better at it after 42 and are fully embroiled in your life tasks after that point.

MICHAEL EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION