It’s a good chance you are in a karmic relationship. A karmic connection is a relationship that you have carried forward from past lives to complete “unfinished business” and “unresolved issues”. It’s a bond that has been created before taking birth, where you have agreed to help each other to go through major life lessons or karmic lessons. These are soul contracts to help clear karma in the journey of the soul’s evolution across lifetimes. Such relationships need not always be romantic in nature. You can have karmic connections with friends, family members, children, and even work colleagues!

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, karmic relationships can be seen as opportunities to learn major life lessons. The sooner you realize the quicker you will move on in your journey.

“Put simply, a karmic relationship could be considered a relationship that engenders a lot of really challenging growth," says women's empowerment coach and astrologer Natalia Benson. This relationship could be encouraging you to reflect on areas of self-development and change, hence resulting in growth. For example, it could just be about how you communicate or take responsibility, your inner child trauma, or how emotionally mature you really are.

Without thinking too much unnecessarily, it’s important to note that the term “karmic” does not mean your prior misdeeds in other lives have caused you to “deserve” this relationship. It is just “an opportunity to neutralize, heal, or expand” in areas you might not realize could use improvement. Because of the nature of karmic relationships, people usually feel exhausted when they’re in one. “It feels exhausting because the soul is committed to growth at any cost.”

According to Erin Magner, “A karmic connection is typically one that really challenges us, but it’s an opportunity to step into the most powerful version of ourselves.” These relationships are filled with a rollercoaster of emotions and typically bring out past traumas to help us heal. It may seem difficult, but healing is possible! They are also essential to break the cycles of unhealthy relationships and help us grow as individuals.

Such relationships are always destined and go through many rough patches. It is difficult to let go of a karmic relationship. There is toxicity in such relationships that not only affects a person’s mental and emotional well-being, but some also develop karmic patterns of hurting each other. There is some sort of co-dependency that is created and that may also be the source of misery. These relationships can affect your personality in a negative way and bring out the worst in you. There can be a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication leading to arguments that can turn into several unresolved issues.

More often than not, these relationships take a turn for the worse; It is in their nature to do so. Because a karmic relationship’s only purpose is to teach people a valuable lesson, and nothing more. Ending karmic relationships can be extremely difficult, especially when the person is caught in an endless cycle with the other individual. They often believe that the other person might improve in the future, although it seldom happens.

So how do karmic relationships serve you? The most important thing about going through these relationships is that they teach us self-love. During these times, people often start neglecting themselves and do not focus on self-growth. But going through these relationships can help in clearing out karma or finish your pending life-lessons. As they hold importance, it is important to recognize these relationships early on and focus on the lessons learned and apply these to your life. There is growth to be achieved to move further in your soul’s journey.

“Even chance meetings … are the result of karma. …things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.” —Haruki Murakami