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Past Soul Life Regression Taught Me To Live Baggage Free In The Present
Do you believe in lives in-between lives?
Brian Weiss was all the craze in the mid nineties when I was growing up. Family members and peers were divided about their opinion on past life regression through hypnotherapy. I was personally fascinated by the idea and recently read a book by late psychologist Michael Newton, who took past life regression to the next level. He took people in hypnosis to ‘lives in-between lives’. In other words, to a soul level in between soul incantations.
The theory behind this is that if we are able to access information on a soul level, we understand our greater purpose in this life and what we need to focus on and achieve here on earth. My interest soon bordered on obsession and I searched for therapists who do this work. I was lucky enough to find someone who personally knew and worked with Dr. Newton. She was located in New York where I was travelling to and I booked an appointment.
The pre-requisite forms were a fair amount of work. It was a 6 page questionnaire of general details, as well as deeper ones like what is your current field of occupation, are you happy in this field, what specifically attracts you in spirituality, and what do you imagine is a spiritual journey. By the time I was done with this, I almost felt I had the answers I was looking for. I definitely had a deeper insight into myself!
I entered my first appointment at 6:00 pm (EST), severely jetlagged to the point that even a coffee the size of my head wasn’t doing much. My therapist was a fairly tall woman, who expended an inhibited, direct energy, accentuated by powerful red hair. Her gaze was commanding and she looked me dead in the eyes as she started her questions. The session was divided into two different parts, over a span of three to four hours each. We discussed my personal information from the forms, and what my areas of concerns were, mainly two.
“I have a lot of baggage,” I explained to her. “I can’t seem to let things go, in personal relationships as well as in the general scheme of things. I tend to sit and stew over my problems for long periods of time, and the anxiety is so strong that it becomes a physical sensation. And my second concern is figuring out what my purpose in life is”.
Soul searching. Image source: oorjapoint.org
The first session was human past life regression - to see former earth incarnations as humans.
The process was simple. Through one or two breathing techniques (a sort of guided meditation) the therapist put me into a trance like state of complete relaxation, in which she said that I can access 'the soul’ in spiritual reference. Scientifically, it is the state of accessing memories stored deep within the right and frontal cortex.
(Warning: Advised not to be practised without certified guidance)
I was then asked to visualise a tunnel of light with multiple doors, each one holding the memory of a previous life. With instruction from the therapist, I was shown how to access these doors. To be honest, with my looming sleep deprivation and in my dream like state, being asked to recollect scenarios, my mind started wandering.
I imagined elaborate Egyptian settings, and the countryside near Paris. But I kept thinking, is this just because I am obsessed with Cleopatra and French couture?
In one scene, my family driver was an uncle. But this could have been because I was away from India and missing the comfort of being chauffeured around. Could it be something as basic and banal as that?
When I woke up after the session, I felt like I had been in a 100 year slumber. I only hoped the aging process had stopped for the last 2 hours. I must admit I felt incredibly light and in a positive mind space. But to be completely truthful, I left that place half convinced. I wasn’t sure if I was personally connecting to ‘that power’ as opposed to hallucinating.
Looking for answers. Image source: psychcentral.com
The second session, was soul life regression. In other words, ‘lives between lives.’ This session was different. Before it started, I expressed my concerns about the previous one, and she talked me through it. “Answers come in a particular way. For example, they maybe verbalized, whispered, you may see pictures, and so on. Accept what you receive first. When you look for answers, be aware of your sensations and feelings. They will be your best guides. You can always feel your instant reaction to something physically, when you think of it. You will either feel pulled towards it, or away from it. This is the simplest way to receive an answer.”
Again back to the same process. I am on the sofa, visualising the tunnel and doors. “Enter this present life,” she instructs. I enter. “Go back to your earliest childhood memory, and then to being in the womb.”
I conjure up images of what that would look like. “Go still further, imagine brilliant white light around you. Now ask your question. What are the messages you are receiving from this higher plane?”
In my mind I ask, “What is my purpose, what should I spend my time focusing on?” The answer comes almost in an inevitable manner. “Communication,” I say out loud, “That’s what I am to focus on. Communicating for the sake of others.”
Well hallelujah! I am a writer. This means I have been doing it right all along.
I revelled in my convenient satisfaction for a while, and then resigned to the fact that whether this message came from ‘the source’ or from my own mind, it is where my happiness lays. So the message I took was this - find contentment in what you are doing now.
Looking back today I feel the most profound moments of the entire experience were my conversations with the therapist, in between hypnosis. One of the last things she asked was, “Once you receive the answers you are looking for, what then?
“What do you mean?” I inquired slightly puzzled.
“When you accomplish your purpose, what is the sensation your hoping to achieve?”
I contemplated this and said, “Lightness, I will feel a sense of lightness and ease, to be free of anxiety and worry.”
“How can you be sure that this will be the feeling you encounter? Is it perhaps because you have had a glimpse of it previously?” she probed.
“Yes,” I responded almost instinctively, “I know it, so I must have felt it before.”
“If you have glimpsed it, and felt it before, you know what it is. Why can’t you continue to hold on to that feeling, and make yourself feel like that now? As you are now?”
That was my light bulb moment. My awakening. I still cannot say for a fact that I regressed into the past, in a state of hypnosis, but I feel that the reason I was meant to go through this experience was to receive this message.
If we know what it feels like to be free from burden, why do we continue to carry it? Why can’t we drop it like any other piece of baggage we are unnecessarily lugging around? I’m reminded of Erykah Badu’s song, in which she says,
“Bag lady you gone hurt your back
dragging all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
all you must hold onto, is you, is you, is you”
Therapy session
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are independent views solely of the author(s) expressed in their private capacity and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of 101India.com.
By Radha Jetley
Cover photo credit: Avijit Pathak
