Past Life Regression
I am not really an expert on the subject of past lives, although a belief in reincarnation is directly related to my religious beliefs. A series of events in life, along with extensive personal study, has guided me to live life from a spiritual perspective rather than from a purely religious one. I have fewer preconceived notions about what is true or possible, and more often, I have an open heart and inquiring mind instead of a dogmatic persuasion that I have all the answers. Which naturally I do have but I am modest about it.
I try to steer patients away from past-life regressions, as I do believe if you are not in a strong mental and emotional position to accept the present status of your life you may not be strong enough for the memories of the past. I do admit that a past life regression can positively influence the current life.
I have to emphasise caution at all times with this form of healing. Never allow a practitioner to persuade you to do a regression unless you are very sure it is what you want. If past life regression is against your religious beliefs, I advise to leave it out of your healing sphere. The added guilt about venturing out of your religious frame may do more damage than good.
As always remember that your doctor knows best, stick to the medications and treatments prescribed. Natural healers such as myself can never replace the knowledge of a physician. Natural and alternative healing should always occur with the knowledge of your physician.
The route of Past Life Regression
In the beginning of a past-life regression, patients often feel as if the thoughts or memories are just products of their imagination, almost as if they are making up the story. However, usually quite early in the process, the past life story takes on a life of its own, and the patient feel the truth of the experience.
I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, and I have not studied a lot about Freud just read a few articles and have come to the conclusion that he was obsessed with sex more than the full concept of the human. Nevertheless, I understand that he believed that behaviour has a cause, usually hidden from the conscious mind.
Freud wrote that, “Amnesia lies at the base of all neurotic symptoms”, or worded differently, we might say he believed that our neuroses are caused by something we have forgotten.
He also said that, “Our goal is to reveal the forgotten memories through yet-to-be learned methods”, so perhaps one of those yet-to-be learned methods he referred to is Regression Therapy.
The act of remembering forgotten events in a past life is not a guarantee that the processing of such events through to forgiveness or change will be automatic. Individuals must choose to take deliberate action to make changes in life. However, working with a patient at the soul level, a Regression Therapist often in conjunction with professional counselling, can facilitate this important process of change.
I strongly advise against doing past-life regression merely for entertainment, although the experience can be fun. Sometimes it is offered as an entertainment event at certain esoterical functions or shows. Instead, I do offer Past Life Regression to patients if they are seeking insights and information that could assist them with challenging life issues. Regression therapy is just one of many tools to help you unlock the power of your own mind.
When considering a physical, emotional or spiritual healing element, it is important to understand its purposes as well the healing effects and limitations in its ability to move you forward in your health goals. This summary is designed to give you an overview of Past Life Therapy’s basic theory.
A Past Life Regression is not a stage act or a mind game and has serious implications about how we live our lives. It is deep work on the unconscious level. This often dictates our reactions to situations, people we choose as partners, our physical health and habits. With this in mind, when doing a past life regression, it is important that you work with an experienced professional who can assist you with issues that may arise following your regression.
With the warning done... there are very few healing practises that can offer the physical and emotional healing and insight that can be had through past life therapy. We are, as individuals, far more than we understand ourselves to be in this present lifetime. The numbers of previous life experiences that we have had are countless. Furthermore, I am sure we continue in an infinite number of future lives in order to realize who we are. As we experience, we continue to grow, change and become as we evolve into something more wonderful and wise than we can envisage. Past Life Regression is an important tool for us to understand what we (as a soul) have been becoming which assists us in moving forward on our path toward who we were destined to be.
I am often asked the question: “Are Past Lives Real?”
Most major religions have reincarnation as a basic principle. Early Christians believed in past lives as well until the Catholic Church banned it as a heretical offence, nowhere in the Bible is reincarnation denied as a spiritual reality. Because of this, the tradition of reincarnation in the west is new and takes an approach that often leads to limited understanding.
We want to know if we have been here before, who we have been and maybe to see if we were some famous past-life figure. Often times, the deep spiritual meaning as well as the importance and effect those may have on our current life situations are overlooked.
Hindu tradition views reincarnation as a spiritual prison where we keep going around an endless circle of lives and reincarnation until we reach enlightenment. This enlightenment can be reached at any moment ending the cycle of incarnations.
In Buddhism, incarnations are a way of development of the soul and the realization that there is no me/you or mine/yours. We come together in the realization that we are all one with everything.
In Wicca, we believe you have a choice of how you will perform your life, as either an angel, or a guide to an earthbound (human) or human. If you are a human soul, you will be born innocent and in love, you will live a life of abundance and love, your path will take you to the lessons prepared to guide you to who you are supposed to be. When you die, you die innocent and in love, you will then go to Summerland to await your destination.
If your lessons were learned well and you wish to evolve you will go into the light, if you wish to return or need to return for another life lesson you go through the river of memories, where you are cleansed of all the previous life’s ideas and experiences and you wait to be born again into another life.
Obviously, these are only short statements for dynamic religions that have been in practice for thousands of years.
While Past Life Therapists view reincarnation as a spiritual reality, this view is of secondary importance in a Past Life Regression. Primarily, the importance is the material that surfaces from the unconscious mind that is acting on the inner and outer life of the patient.
If, for instance, a patient has discovered that she was Buddha in a past life, the work around that manifestation is on the God within and the healing of that aspect of the self. Therefore, if a patient has an “unlikely” past life experience, it is necessary to treat that as absolutely real in order to get the full benefits of the regression.
The reason for this is simple. Whether you were God, or whether you deeply identify with that figure, your unconscious mind has brought this aspect of you to your attention. Perhaps the patient who regresses to a God life needs to bring that energy into her life.
It is possible that the patient thinks about herself as “too small”, by bringing up the possibility that she may have been God in a past life, may be a way to get the patient to think about herself in a larger capacity. Finally, it may be possible that this person was God. In getting the most out of the regression, do not judge your experience, just go with it and see what is uncovered about yourself.
Why do a Past Life Regression?
In my practice, I have found that Past Life Regressions are particularly valuable when dealing with issues that have no “rational” cause. Many people find healing with individuals that they are in conflict with at work, in social circles and in their families. These conflicts all have the quality of “insolvability”.
I find regressions are particularly helpful in solving relationship problems with partners, parents and family members because of the tendency to continue to share life experiences with these key people. I have also noticed that people with phobias tend to do well with Past Life Regressions.
Fear of heights, fear of flying, fear of water, etc. all seem to have roots in Past Life Traumas and I have found that past life regressions is especially effective in these cases. There is also remarkable evidence both in my practice and in the literature that chronic somatic illnesses, congenital illnesses and defects can be relieved. At times cured with Past Life Regressions. Our bodies are a reflection of our conscious and unconscious mind. As a result, certain traumas that occur in a previous life can manifest physical symptoms in this life.
While Past Life Regressions can have impressive curative effects on some illnesses, it is important for such people to continue their normal care and to realize that it is important to heal the body as well as the mind and spirit.
In approaching a regression and a new patient, I never know what that patient is going to see or why they have been brought to me in the first place. An intention allows the patient a framework in which to draw conclusions, gives me the opportunity to gain insight into the purpose of the regression and the person.
Many people are concerned that they will limit what could be obtained; my experience is that healing never disappoints or limits process. The intention is for us, not the healing. You will experience what was meant for you to experience in order to heal.
My advice is to have a goal or objective, remain open to the possibilities that will occur.
What kind of goals or objectives work well?
Anything that is problematic is really best. Specific questions about life circumstances, relationships, phobias or illnesses will all bring good results. Ensure that you remain within the realm of your everyday life and always about you only. This will also help you see how truly spiritual your everyday life is. If you stay with things that you consider problematic, you will be able to see how you have played out your problems in the past and what you are trying to accomplish in this lifetime.
The compulsion to repeat offers a clinical explanation of why we live out the unfinished business of a past life. Jung wrote, “A complex arises where we have experienced failure in life.” This compulsion to repeat is the method by which we finish our unfinished business for when we repeat the behaviour; we have the opportunity to change the outcome, in so finishing the business.
Past life, therapy offers another way in which to finish business while learning the lessons. The patient, after experiencing the failure of that particular life, is able to release the repressed emotions and see the situation from the hypothesis of his current life. This view allows resolution with his past situation as well as assists him in finding other solutions, improve or dissolving the existing problem.
I have found that many of my interests and talents come from past life experiences. My metaphysical, religious and healing intentions and interests seem to come from a past life as a medicine woman. These lives, yes I say lives as I have been a healer more than once at different stages in history were violent and ended in the predictable tragic deaths of those times.
Many of the initiatives of my own regression therapy begin by correcting the past mistakes I made and lived. Trying to understand the meaning of those lives, accepting my failures and achievements. Finally, releasing the repressed issues has cleaned the overall view I had of the path, which I am on in this lifetime.
What if I am overstepping my boundaries?
This is the most commonly asked question I hear at the beginning of a regression therapy session. The unconscious mind’s major ordinance is to protect the body and the psyche from harm; therefore, you can be sure that you will not experience anything, which you cannot handle. This is a reliable method built into humans. If at anytime, you feel uncomfortable or out of control, you may stop the therapy. You are never in a vegetative state and you cannot be violated against your will. In addition, you have the protection of your higher-self and esoterical guide.
We see this psychic primary decree working when discussing abuse. Often, people do not remember their abuse as a defence tool, allowing them to cope and survive in society. When one begins to remember abusive situations, they do not remember everything immediately instead they recall bits at a time; they spend years reconstructing their childhood. Total, one time recall would be devastating.
The same is true of past life experiences. My experience tells me that people have been through torture, separation, war and abandonment both as the victim and the perpetrator. To remember all of this in present time would be overwhelming. In regression therapy, the goal is to remember just a little bit at a time, process it, and remember a little bit more.
There is some debate in the hypnosis community about who is hypnotizable and who is not. My experience is that a person who is willing to suspend what they think they know and are willing to allow themselves to sink into an altered state of consciousness are good candidates. My answer is yes, if you are willing to allow yourself to become deeply involved in your experience.
It is like reading a book. While you are reading, you allow yourself to get into the flow of the action, become deeply involved with the characters in the story and draw pictures in your mind about what the characters might look like, their setting, perhaps what they’re feeling, etc. You become involved in the action and your other senses become involved. I find this most helpful for people doing regression work.
Past Life Regression is one of the most effective psychological and transpersonal tools available and can save many years of psychotherapy. However, nothing is a universal remedy and rarely do just one or two sessions solve a lifetime of problems and habits. People will notice profound changes after one or two regressions, but without continued work and follow-up, these changes tend to be short lived.
Rarely does one past life hold the answer to all of our problems, nor does one regression cover all the subtleties and insights of a given life. Our past lives were lived in the same way that our present life is, with growth spurts, times of stagnation, moments of sorrow as well as joy.
Dedicated and consistent effort in your healing process provides the best results. In the case of regression therapy, you will find that a series of lives around this issue. Successful lives around particular problems can be accessed to give you more resources and energy to move forward, difficult and painful lives can be brought to closure and redirected, again to give you more energy and resources to your own personal becoming.
When considering a physical, emotional or spiritual healing modality, it is important to understand its purposes as well the healing effects and limitations in its ability to move you forward in your health goals. This brief article is designed to give the reader an overview of Past Life Therapy’s basic assumptions.
A Few Tips to guide you
1. Be open to the idea of past lives
Some religions make the idea of reincarnation central to their belief system. Whether or not that applies to you, being open to the possibility that you have been on this earth more than once will increase the chance of a successful session.
2. Get a good helper
Often our past lives bring up emotional responses. You need to make sure that the person you are performing the journey with - the person guiding you through your past - is capable of helping you if emotions come to the surface. If you are doing it on your own, ensure that you are near someone who can help if the need arises.
3. Realize that your memory is fallible
If you are like most people, you probably do not remember what you were doing this time last month or last year. Consider that if a memory as recent as a few months can be hazy - and that memory is from this life - then one from a previous life can be even hazier. This means that you may need several practice sessions before you start to get results.
4. It is not television!
Do not expect clear pictures of your past life. Apart from anything else, you would probably be locked up if this were the case. Take the time to get a sense of what is happening. Chances are that your past life session will guide you through this. You will likely be asked what; if anything, you are wearing on your feet, what smells you are experiencing, that kind of thing. It is a good session if you can get the essence of these feelings. It is very unlikely that you will see yourself in full colour and audible sound
5. Esoterical guides can help
Depending on the method you are using, there is likelihood that you will have an esoterical guide to help you through the experience. They can offer helpful insights and literally guide you through the experience. A good regression will help to bring out your esoterical guide. If you have already met your guide in another experience then this part will come easily. If you have not, take the time to get to know your guide. They are often referred to as angels and many people believe they help us in all aspects of our day-to-day lives.
6. Apply the experience
Quite often a past life regression will be related to a current problem you are experiencing. This is more likely than you may think. After all, we are talking about one or more likely many past lives. You would have to have lived like a hermit in every single one of these for there to be nothing that was relevant to whatever it is you are currently experiencing. Apply what you learn in your past life journey to whatever is currently happening in your current life
