What it means to awaken

Belief in God is an Obstacle to Knowing God

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Eckhart Tolle, the spiritually awakened teacher and sage, and author of The Power of Now, said: “A huge number of people are going through the process of awakening, some in the early stages, some in the later stages, and it’s wonderful to see.”  Indeed, evidence of this is seen through the website Batgap.com, which stands for Buddha at the Gas Pump: Conversations with “Ordinary” Spiritually Awakening People. It is a website dedicated to the interviews of hundreds of these people. One of my many favorite awakened teachers, who is number 268 on Batgap’s interview list, is Leonard Jacobson. I recently read an article of his in one of his newsletters, and I wanted to share it here. Please enjoy these words by Leonard Jacobson:

“God is real. God is here now, but we are not. We are lost in the past and future world of the mind. We are lost in a world of illusion and separation. We are lost in ideas, opinions, concepts and beliefs including spiritual and religious concepts and beliefs.  If we want to experience the living presence of God, we will have to come to where God is, which is the present moment. Then we will begin to experience God as the silent Presence at the very heart of all things present. That’s what omnipresence really means! For believers it’s a comforting concept. For mystics who are awake in the truth of life, it’s a living reality.

Belief in God is an obstacle to knowing God. Belief is a function of the mind and God is unknowable with the mind. To believe in God is to create God in man’s image and it doesn’t work. The truth is that we are created in the image of God, which means that we have all the attributes and qualities of the divine. In Presence, we are love, acceptance and compassion. We are without judgment. We exist in the realization of Oneness and all these qualities flow into our daily lives if we are fundamentally grounded in the present moment. But if we venture too far into the past or future, we disconnect from the present moment and in so doing we disconnect from our divine nature. We separate from God and the present moment. We then seek to avoid the pain of separation by believing in God, which actually takes us further into illusion and separation. We can only know God through direct experience, which arises when we are very deeply present.

Did Jesus believe in God or did he know God?  Was he so deeply present that he could feel and sense the Presence of God in everything? Was he so present that he experienced Oneness with everything, and so he felt one with God? Christ is a state of consciousness, not a person. Jesus the man awakened to Christ consciousness. He opened so fully into the present moment that he could see, feel and sense the Presence of God in everything. Christ consciousness is available to everyone who is willing to surrender belief in God and become fully present.

If you want to go beyond belief in God to the direct experience of God, then you will have to learn how to be deeply present. As you deepen into Presence, the illusion of separation dissolves. You will feel fulfilled by the moment as it is and your constant striving for more dissolves. You relax. You accept the moment as it is. You can sense that there is a Presence in everything and somehow you know that the Presence in everything is the Presence of God. You feel overwhelmed by love and gratitude. Your soul rejoices. It is what your soul has been longing for from the very beginning of time. You are aware of the extraordinary abundance and beauty of the present moment. You feel one with God. It feels like you have come home.

There is one step beyond Christ consciousness. It is God consciousness. In Christ consciousness, you are so present that you experience yourself as one with God. In God consciousness you have become so fully immersed in the present moment and Oneness that all sense of yourself as an individual dissolves. Only God remains.”

Relief from Depression and Unwanted Emotions

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Depression and anxiety often go hand in hand, so we work with depression much the same way as with anxiety – by looking at the feeling under the microscope of hypnosis and discovering the subtle, negative thoughts that make up the heavy, stuck feeling of depression. Uncovering these subconscious thoughts and limiting beliefs is the first step in diminishing their power to impact your life. They are nearly always untrue, and belief in these false thoughts gives them their power to affect the way you feel and live your life. Dr. Bruce Lipton wrote a book called The Biology of Belief which demonstrates this. When these false beliefs are fully seen through at a higher and deeper level of consciousness, beyond the conscious and even subconscious mind, we can replace these thoughts with empowering ones that are based in a higher truth from the vantage point of your eternal soul self.

While anxiety involves subconscious thoughts that are often future-focused while based in the past, depression tends to be predominantly past-focused, often including the emotion of anger or resentment. Resentment or anger is often about having to put up with something unwanted, or not getting something that was wanted, such as a sense of being loved, wanted, valued, safe and secure, etc.

Sometimes, depression or anxiety can be passed down unconsciously through the generations, like an “unconscious virus”, in the form of thoughts, feelings and emotional patterns such as the way in which love or anger is expressed or not expressed. As children, we not only depend on our parents for food and shelter, but also for a sense of worth and safety. Sometimes parents of past generations were too absorbed in survival or else their own issues to be fully present with their children or to give their children a sense of being loved, wanted and valued. If these core feelings of value were not felt, a person may feel a subtle sense of unworthiness and the seeds of depression and/or anxiety are sprouted in the belief and emotional system of the person…And if this subconscious emotional energy is never allowed a chance to be “emoted” through us, by being directly articulated or expressed, it can remain as trapped energy in the body/mind system, and years later have a subtle “pressure cooker” effect on the body/mind by negatively affecting the way we view ourselves, thus clouding our experience of ourselves and the world. This is why there’s often plenty of negative subconscious self-talk beneath depression or anxiety, and this is what can unconsciously be passed down through the generations. In the Present Life Emotional Healing session, we can become aware of this passed-down thought-form energy and stop it at the unconscious level, as well as ceremoniously heal the past generations. You release this unbeneficial thought-form energy and replace it with your own source/potential that was lost when you took it in.

Also, we examine all other contributing factors to depression or anxiety, such as the food that is fueling your body. Since there is a food/mood connection, certain foods will contribute to a lighter or more grounded feeling. Exercise is also scientifically proven to help the neurotransmitters fire across the chemical serotonin in your brain.

Relief From Anxiety, PTSD and Phobias

Reading Time: 3 minutes

When we put the feeling of anxiety under a microscope (which hypnotherapy does), we see that it is usually made up of subtle, subconscious fear-based thoughts. These thoughts have a beginning point in a past situation, event or circumstance. Anxiety occurs when these outdated, subtle subconscious belief programs are still operating in your present mind and affecting your life in a negative way, even though they are typically not relevant or even true. Fears are designed to keep us safe and protected, not block us from living a fulfilling, enjoyable life. Anxiety happens when the fear that’s trying to keep you safe is working way too hard, far beyond when it’s no longer necessary. The root of the problem is not you – it is the subconscious thought programs in your head. One of the first, and most profound leaps a person can make on their healing journey is to know that you are not your negative beliefs or fears. These outdated beliefs will begin to lose their power and can be changed and corrected once we put the spotlight of attention and awareness on them from a higher soul perspective. Carl Jung said about healing: “That which is unconscious must ultimately be made conscious.”

Anxiety can also be due to strong emotional energy from the past that is stuck in the body/subconscious mind system. Once we tune into this strong emotional charge in the body, it can be energetically released by our present moment consciousness. It is especially effective while simultaneously tuning into an eternal part of yourself that has no fears, which is what we can easily do with spiritual hypnotherapy. It is easy because, try as you might, you cannot separate yourself from the eternal consciousness that is animating your body, so when we go deep within we can experience a level of your consciousness that has no fears and is already whole and complete.

The subconscious mind operates like a computer program that hangs on to old, outdated messages that no longer serve you. A subtle yet powerful shift occurs when you begin to see that you are not your thoughts, you are the eternal consciousness that can witness and change your thoughts. A session is about releasing the stored trauma in the body/subconscious mind while empowering you to change the thought programs that no longer serve you and replace them with those that benefit and strengthen you. Each session provides empowering and noticeable shifts in you. To gain a more thorough understanding about anxiety, please read about the Present Life Emotional Healing session and also the article Relief From Depression and Unwanted Emotions.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD is an example of a past stressful event being kept alive in the body/mind system. As mentioned above, we can energetically release this stored trauma in the body while connecting to the eternal part of you that has no fears and is whole and complete. In addition to this powerful method, another means to relieve the effects of PTSD is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Visit www.eftuniverse.com to learn more about this effective method. It is a self-applied acupressure tapping technique that calms and soothes the body and mind’s fears while you focus on the root of the problem – the past stressful event itself. This also releases the stored fear/panic energy in the body, or anything with a strong emotional charge. Another way of looking at it is that the subconscious mind program gets reset – the thought pattern that pairs this past event with panic thoughts and feelings gets reset. The result is that you can focus on the past stressful event and finally feel relaxed, with the same emotional charge as though you were remembering a relaxing afternoon picnic.

The problem with past stressful events is that the more we try to run away from it, and at times cover the pain of it with chemicals or other addictions such as work, food etc., the more it will subtly impact your life in a negative way. Oddly enough, trying to get away from the past stressful event actually fuels the fear of it and thus its adverse effects. Paradoxically, the key to putting out the fuel of the stressful past is to fully face it and release the energy of it. It is painless and only takes minutes, and you typically don’t need to do it ever again.

EFT, when applied skillfully, is a powerful method. To relieve strong PTSD, I often combine EFT with spiritual hypnotherapy to re-program the subconscious mind and the body which holds and stores the fear-based thoughts and feelings.

Phobias

We work with phobias in the same manner as PTSD. A combination of EFT with spiritual hypnotherapy is highly effective. Typically, one or two sessions are all that are necessary.

 

Stories of the Afterlife

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One of the most influential books I’ve read was Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls. I read it in the mid-1990’s and it propelled me into doing the work that I do now. It was about a psychologist who, initially by accident, found a way to help people connect to their wise and eternal soul self for the purposes of healing and gaining clarity and insights about their life as a person and as a soul. I knew I had to get training with him before he retired, and fortunately I was able to do so.

Michael Newton died in his mid-80’s a few years ago, but his work was so inspiring to so many people, an organization was created around his powerful and impactful hypnotherapy methods of helping people to awaken to their immortal identity and higher consciousness within themselves. The organization is called the Michael Newton Institute.

The organization has published many books about case studies of life between lives and our soul’s journey, as well as producing a quarterly journal called Stories of the Afterlife. I wanted to share a sample of the most recent journal so readers could get an idea of what it is about.

Here is December 2022’s Stories of the Afterlife. Please enjoy!

Love Image - June 21, 2020 blog

Returning Home to Yourself

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This blog is dedicated to waking up to our true self. Let’s begin with a jarring quote from one of my favorite teachers, Adyashanti, regarding one aspect of the human condition: “The world’s problems are, by and large, human problems – the unavoidable consequence of egoic sleepwalking. If we care to look, all the signs are present to suggest that we are not only sleepwalking, but at times borderline insane as well. In a manner of speaking, we have lost (or at the very least forgotten) our souls, and we try very, very hard not to notice, because we don’t want to see how asleep we are, how desolate our condition really is. So we blindly carry on, driven by forces we do not recognize or understand, or even acknowledge.” Although his message seems bleak, he is actually the bearer of good news.

The good news is that our problems, personal as well as global, can be clear pointers to what no longer works for us, thus the starting point to reclaim our power. And even while we as individuals may be stuck in a limiting pattern, there is also a part of us that remains free from the constraints of our mind programs, and offers a clearer way of perceiving. This internal wisdom is available to us and can offer guidance that is based in a more permanent reality, the soul state, which is motivated from a background of love and safety rather than a background of fear, which is common in the human egoic state. I see examples of this in nearly every session. Here is a case example of the insights that come from this relatively “more true” reality:

A woman (I’ll call her Jane) came for a past life regression to gain clarity on her life purpose and whether or not she should relocate to another state. In her past life regression, she saw herself as a woman in a blissful marriage with children until her husband suddenly died. For a long time after his death, she grieved, overwhelmed with loneliness, while closely guarding her heart from further emotional pain.

During the regression, Jane recognized that she was repeating this same pattern in her present life. But then as the past life unfolded more and she saw her past life personality growing older, a shift happened. She saw herself beginning to pour love into her children and grandchildren, which in turn, came back to her, creating a full, rich life once again. It was important for Jane to see how she could overcome her hurt and loss with love. When the life was over and Jane was steeping in the higher vibration state of the afterlife, she experienced her soul self as a much higher level of consciousness, free of the fear-based, limiting, egoic mind patterns. This is usually the most healing part of the session when insights and wisdom emerge as a result of the larger perspective that comes from tuning into a higher frequency. The eternal part of her was then able to reconnect with the eternal part of her husband in the past life, whose loss had created years of stuck anguish in her previous life. She was then able to fully experience the truth that love transcends all loss.

A week after her session, Jane wrote to me this wisdom: “You know that deep love I described feeling for someone else? I am now feeling it for the beautiful essence that lives in me. My heart feels full, complete, and perfect just the way it is. This morning I felt a deep comfort with the person I truly am and was able to begin experiencing what it is like to BE THAT person inside of this body.  And, I love it.  The answer isn’t “out there” as to where I need to move or what I need to do.  It is being at home in me where ever the path leads.  My fear was that in the regression I would run into a real YUK of a person from another life.  That was only my shame and guilt that is so made up.  The real person in all of us is so beyond the denseness we humans can so easily sink into.

 When I return for another session, it is not so much about going thru past lives as it will be staying in touch with the beautiful love energy I feel for ME. That kind of love will only radiate more of the same in others. Right now, I am so enjoying for the first time having a sense of who I am and it is with deep gratitude for your skillful way of bringing me home to myself. THANK YOU.”

One of the greatest benefits of past life regression is tuning into the permanent self that transcends these lives. You can actually experience this higher dimensional self to be deeply anchored in the present moment and free of the subtle, subconscious thoughts that hold us back in life. It’s a great respite to become rooted in the clarity of your true self, free of fears and feelings of lack. This eternal part of us is always available and lies just beyond our thinking mind. As we become more acquainted with our soul while here on earth, we will begin to awaken from the human condition of “egoic sleepwalking.” I believe this is one of our purposes for being here on this spaceship called earth.

What is a Past Life Regression?

Our Answers Lie Within Us

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We are on the threshold of a new paradigm. More and more people are beginning to understand and identify ourselves as multi-dimensional beings. I was recently invited to speak at my alma mater, Saint Olaf College, by some students who were interested in the work I do. I spoke for an hour about past life regression. Ten years ago, I was also invited to speak there about my work, but past life regression was never mentioned because it was too  “outside the box.” I was delighted to witness the expansion of people’s beliefs systems. I explained that although we are human beings, but we are also spiritual beings using a body. This means that as we go deep within, we can gain a respite from the busy world of our lives and of our minds. As we go deeper, we tune into a built-in inner guidance system that is invested in our growth and evolution. Deep peace and clarity can be experienced, as well as answers and solutions to long standing problems. Here’s a case example that demonstrates this:

One of my clients (I’ll call her Shelly) was curious about experiencing a past life regression and decided to focus on a feeling of anxiety that was always beneath the surface, particularly in large crowds. She had a vague fear of not trusting people and was often on edge, even at home, as though an intruder might break in. She also had a phobia of having anything around her neck.

As she allowed her consciousness to go deep within, she became aware of a life of an African male slave brought to America on a ship, feeling confused, scared and angry. Here are a few descriptive excerpts from the session: “Fields… cotton…I bond with others, but feel alone. We don’t laugh…always a sadness…I run away…there’s overwhelming fear, I’m going to be caught. I’m running as fast as I can go…starting to hear dogs…run through a stream…feet cut…they’re closer…caught me…whip me…going to hang me. I leave the body just before they hang me…I watch it from above…I’m free…”

In traumatic deaths, the soul often leaves before the body is actually dead. As we progressed further into the freedom of the soul realm, we released the fear and confusion that was left over from that life and replaced it with energy of the soul — happiness, playfulness and joy — the part that was lost when the fear energy covered it up. Because we are all energy beings, dense, fear-based energy can become like a sticky residue on our physical, mental and emotional energy bodies, particularly after traumatic deaths, and thus affect the current incarnation. During a session, a person’s inner guidance will typically show them a life that is most impacting this life. Several weeks after the session, Shelly emailed this message:

“It wasn’t until after the session that I really realized how anxious I was. Immediately after the session I felt different, lighter, like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I couldn’t believe how great and relaxed I felt! I was curious to see if the change was permanent or if my anxiety would slowly creep back, but it never did. After a week or two, I realized looking back that I had been anxious all the time, not just in ‘certain situations’. I had never felt as relaxed as I did after the session, nor for that long a period of time. What turned out being something I wanted to do out of curiosity and for fun, ended up being the most positive life changing experience and the best money I’d ever spent!”

The healing part of the session occurs in the peace and clarity of the soul realm. But it is important to realize that this is actually a higher dimension of ourselves. We are multi-dimensional beings, so an aspect of us is already steeping in what we are looking for at a conscious and subconscious level, namely deep peace, love and clarity. Within ourselves lie tremendous resources for insights, releasing of limiting feelings and beliefs, and discovering the truth of our being. Once we have experienced it, we know it. But it’s easy to forget in this dense physical reality…the veil is strong, but certainly is getting thinner. We all need gentle reminders of our inner resources.

From My Heart to Yours

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Warm Holiday Greetings from my heart to yours! I hope that the end of year festivities have an opportunity to provide some inner reflection, even in the midst of stress that the season may bring for some.

My sincerest wish for everyone is that they continue to further their unique path of growth and evolvement, as that as what we are doing here. Because in doing so, we begin to further wake up to who and what we truly are while living this human life. And the further we awaken, becoming more steeped in this higher dimensional Truth of ourselves, you’ll notice all sorts of “pleasant” trickle-down effects that happen as a result.

To name a few, you begin to feel an overall sense of well being that you know deep down is more real than even the strife, challenges and chaos around you…the thoughts, feelings, fears and beliefs from past programming and conditioning that used to hold you back are now fully seen through and no longer believed, and therefore no longer limit you…you no longer are identified with the mind’s negative messages, and may even be amused by them because they are so ridiculously untrue!…you become the love and compassion that you are at your core, as you sense the interconnection of all of life beneath the surface…you feel the freedom of not really needing anything from anyone outside of yourself. Your needs become elevated to preferences. Instead of looking to attain something from outside of you, you feel a desire to give, whether it be a small gift, an act of kindness, a complimentary word or a silent acknowledgement of a person’s divine Self.

These are just a few positive side effects, of course, so “evolving and awakening” is worth looking into if you’re wondering what to do with your life. And, truth be told, that’s what we’re doing here anyway, whether we’re conscious of this or not. But it moves along much faster as we become more conscious and deliberate on our life’s journey.

A powerful exercise for growth is to spend a few minutes to center yourself and quiet your mind. Then ask your angels and guides (of which you have several) to give you a thought, insight and perspective that would most give you joy and align you with your higher self. Then be watchful over the next few minutes, or even the next few days…the answers may come through a chance conversation with a friend, or a podcast, or an article you come across.

Warmest wishes to you and your continued unique journey of growth and awaking…a journey which we all share together…and the good news is that life generally gets much easier and more enjoyable the further along the growth path we go, even if it feels like two steps forward, a step back, two steps forward again, etc. That is the growth process.

In closing, here is an Asatoma prayer that a friend shared with me:

Lead me from the unreal to real

Lead me from darkness to light

Lead me from time-bound consciousness

To the timeless state of being that I am

-from the Upanishads

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Our Five Natural Emotions

Reading Time: 5 minutes

“Giving and receiving love” – As wonderful and simple as it sounds, this is not always an easy thing to do in this human experience. I think that one of our purposes here as souls is to learn how to freely do this. Yet in order to do this, we have to overcome a lot of our own baggage and unresolved issues. Also, many people have not been modeled how to give and receive love, or how to deal with many of our emotions in the healthiest way. I was thinking about this many years ago when I came across an excerpt about this topic in Book 3 of Neil Donald Walsch’s book series, Conversations with God.

The Conversations with God series was one of the first books that propelled me forward on my personal and spiritual growth journey in the mid-to-late 90’s. When I read it, I could feel the top of my head tingle – a sign that it was ringing true to my Higher Self. I would recommend that book series, beginning with book 1, to anyone on their personal or spiritual growth path.

I remember sharing the book with others, and they either loved it or dismissed it, saying, “How could anyone have a conversation with God?” I maintained that he channeled it from some higher source, and even if you read it as fiction, it was still permeated with logic, reason, wisdom and pure love and acceptance, and it flowed in such a poetic way. I have since realized that when the student is ready, the teaching appears.

Here is an excerpt from book 3 of the series about our five natural emotions. The first and last few paragraphs I have summarized. Enjoy!

Dr. Elisa Kubler-Ross maintains that the basis of all our emotions stem from the “five natural emotions”: Grief, anger, envy, fear and love. (At a still deeper level, grief, anger and envy as based out of fear, thus leaving fear and love as the great polarity. Ultimately, all of our feelings, thoughts, choices and actions are sponsored by and based in love or fear.)

Unfortunately, we have imprisoned our five natural emotions, repressing them and turning them into very unnatural emotions which, in turn, bring us much unhappiness. The model of behaviors for centuries on this planet has been: do not “indulge” your emotions. If you’re feeling grief, get over it; if you’re feeling angry, stuff it; if you’re feeling envious, be ashamed of it; if you’re feeling fear, rise above it; if you’re feeling love, control it, limit it, wait with it, run from it – do whatever you have to do to stop expressing it, full out, right here, right now.

It is time to set ourselves free. We have been living too long in a prison of our own devise. It is time to set our “Holy Selves” free.

Grief is a natural emotion. It’s that part of you which allows you to say goodbye when you don’t want to say goodbye; to express- push out, propel- the sadness within you at the experience of any kind of loss. It could be the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a contact lens.

When you are allowed to express your grief, you get rid of it. Children who are allowed to be sad when they are sad feel very healthy about sadness when they are adults, and therefore usually move through their sadness very quickly.

Children who are told, “There, there, don’t cry,” have a hard time crying as adults. After all, they’ve been told all their life not to do that. So they repress their grief.

Grief that is continually repressed becomes chronic depression, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of chronic depression. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Anger is a natural emotion. It is the tool you have which allows you to say, “No thank you.” It does not have to be abusive, and it never has to be damaging to another.

When children are allowed to express their anger, they bring a very healthy attitude about it to their adult years, and therefore usually move through their anger very quickly.

Children who are made to feel that their anger is not okay- that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it-will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their anger as adults.

Anger that is continually repressed becomes rage, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of rage. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Envy is a natural emotion. It is the emotion that makes five-year-old wish he could reach the doorknob the way his sister can- or ride that bike. Envy is the natural emotion that makes you want to do it again; to try harder; to continue striving until you succeed. It is very healthy to be envious, very natural. When children are allowed to express envy, they bring a very healthy attitude about it to their adult years, and therefore usually move through their envy very quickly.

Children who are made to feel the envy is not okay- that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it- will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their envy as adults.

Envy that is continually repressed becomes jealousy, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of jealously. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Fear is a natural emotion. All babies are born with only two fears; the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. All other fears are learned responses, brought to the child by its environment, taught to the child by its parents. The purpose of natural fear is to build in a bit of caution. Caution is a tool that helps keep the body alive. It is an outgrowth of love. Love of Self.

Children who are made to feel that fear is not okay- that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it-will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their fear as adults.

Fear that is continually repressed becomes panic, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of panic. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Love is a natural emotion. When it is allowed to be expressed, and received, by a child, normally and naturally, without limitation or condition, inhibition or embarrassment, it does not require anything more. For the job of love expressed and received in this way is sufficient until itself. Yet love which has been condition, limited, warped by rules and regulations, rituals and restrictions, controlled, manipulated, and withheld, becomes unnatural.

Children who are made to feel that their natural love is not okay-that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it-will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with love as adults.

Love that is continually repressed becomes possessiveness, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of possessiveness. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

And so it is that the natural emotions, when repressed, produce unnatural reactions and responses. And most natural emotions are repressed in most people. Yet these are our friends. These are our gifts. These are our divine tools, with which to craft our experience. We are given these tools at birth. They are to help us negotiate life.

We have been living too long in a prison of our own devise. It is time to set ourselves, our “Holy Selves” free.

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Using Past Life Regression to Find Your True Self

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Past life regression is one of the most potent ways to connect to the higher, wiser part of yourself in order to resolve issues or move through stuck periods in your life. We become so focused on the worries and stress of life that we rarely connect with the quiet, still witness behind the worries. We become hypnotized into identifying with the continual swirl of thoughts in our mind, rather than on the deep presence that can observe those thoughts. During a past life regression, you become that presence. Then the Buddha’s words become clearer, “All suffering is due to wrong identification.”

It is natural to be skeptical about past life regression when viewed from an ordinary ego-identified level of consciousness. Yet what is often overlooked in nearly every moment of daily living is that ‘you’ are the energy and consciousness that animates the body, and as such, that ‘you’ is eternal and indestructible. For most people, that truth may remain only as an intellectual concept until they die. So if an aspect of yourself is infinite now, then it makes sense that you can begin to ‘tune into’ or resonate with that ‘truer’ self. It’s simply a matter of identifying more with the part of you which is the constant, non-fluctuating self. An effective way to access that ‘self’ is to go within, closing off the relative world of time and matter. This leads to becoming focused in the present moment.  Hypnosis provides a quick and powerful means to accomplish this because it deeply relaxes the body and quiets the mind the deeper you go into trance. A gulf begins to grow between the peaceful presence/awareness of ‘you’ and your thoughts. It becomes easier to identify yourself as the awake and aware ‘witness’ of your thoughts rather than being sucked into the mind’s incessant chatter. In this state of stillness, you can set the intention to see other lives you have experienced.

Past life regression sheds light on your soul’s intention of using your life for growth and evolution. Here’s how it works: As you surrender to whatever your unconscious mind reveals, an impression of another lifetime will emerge. It’s important to trust the process and permit the story to develop. It will ultimately reveal something profoundly beneficial for you. If you try in any way to consciously direct the images that come, it will block the process. Typically a previous life will mirror a deep issue that you’re dealing with in this life, even unconsciously. These mental impressions can be interpreted either as a past life or a symbolic metaphor, like a dream image. After the death scene, you can reflect on how you lived that life from the viewpoint of the eternal soul aspect of yourself. Often the strongest healing part of the session comes when you experience the deep peace, freedom and insights after the human drama. You gain a sense of how you wish you had gone through that life. Perhaps you lived it governed by small fears that held you back in various ways. From the perspective of ‘now time’, outside of time/space, you can ‘re-script’ that life by making different decisions about how you would have wanted to live that life, much like lucid dreaming. You can create a life where you consciously allow the freedom, appreciation, joy and love of your soul self to shine through, unimpeded by subtle, fear-based mind programs and conditioning that are common in the human experience. You not only create that empowered life but feel in your body and mind what it’s like to live in this awakened manner.

At times your higher mind may show you a past life in which you’ve known deep wisdom and strength if your current life lacks these qualities. You’ll be given that life to see so you can merge the powerful love-based qualities of that life with your current one. It all comes from an elevated level of consciousness that corresponds with ‘tuning into’ a higher dimension/vibration aspect of yourself, namely the part that is animating you right now.

A recent, typical example was a woman who struggled with anxiety. She experienced her past life as a woman of high status, forced to keep up appearances in an uptight, rigid society. She was afraid to express her true feelings while trying to please others. Her deep concern over other’s opinions held her back from fully living life, which caused her to feel alone. She was then shown a second life as a woman living in a poor village who was deeply connected to the entire community. During harvest time, everyone worked together, forming genuine bonds without any pretenses. She felt what it was like to be her true self without concern of appearances, and felt the exhilaration of experiencing authentic human relationships. In the time between lives, she could see how the first life mirrored her current life, while the second life revealed a way to live in which fears were replaced with the excitement and freedom of forming heartfelt connections with others. She saw that she had a choice about which way she was going to live this life, and how, up until now, she had been living a fear-based life, overly concerned with other’s opinions. Thus, at a subconscious level, she was able to shift the perspective that held her back in life. Past life regression not only revealed her soul lesson, but also allowed her to fully feel what it’s like to ‘get’ that lesson and live without the subtle fears that blocked and limited her. Because this all occurred at a deep subconscious level, it had a powerful and lasting effect. Over a year later she shared that the session had been quite impactful for her. It’s not uncommon to experience noticeable results in one session.

We are multi-dimensional beings. We have a body, yet at a deeper level of relative truth, we are also the soul essence that animates our body. At the deepest, ultimate level of truth, we all come from the one energy source that animates all life, and from which souls emerge. As humans, we live life as unique, individual ocean waves that forgot that our true essence is the ocean itself. Past life regression is an inward route to gain an experiential glimpse of these deeper levels of your being with heightened clarity. Life trials come and go, and so do lifetimes, but what remains? You do. Past life therapy tunes you into this constant aware presence of ‘you’ that transcends all earthly dramas.

Overcoming the Deep Grip of Shame

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I’m sharing a case example of a client with her permission (I’ll call her Mary) because her experience involves a common human experience…shame. Mary was not even aware that she was carrying shame, and she didn’t come to her session with a clear issue to work on. She wanted to do a past life regression. It’s helpful with past life regressions to make a statement of intent for the inner journey, even if you don’t know what you want to work on. So in Mary’s case, her intent for the session was a good one given that she didn’t have an issue to work on. It was: “To become aware of patterns, behaviors and beliefs that are keeping me from growing, learning life lessons, and spiritual growth.”

During the regression to her past life, Mary saw herself as a young boy in his very early years growing up without a father. Then, around the age of 6, he also lost his mother. Living in a rural village, he was cared for only by various “volunteers” from the village who did it out of obligation, which he could sense. He never developed a strong bond with anyone and felt alone and isolated early on in life, feeling ashamed about not having a family like other kids. As the years passed, he grew into a quiet, gruff, lonely man who never had a relationship and whose only job was the monotonous, laborious job of clearing rocks from fields. His only entertainment was drinking in a pub, usually by himself, listening to the stories of other people’s lives. “There’s laughter and joy, but I don’t feel it. I wish I did. I feel sad when I leave the pub.” He lived alone, and then ultimately died alone.

After the life was over, after he moved into the higher consciousness of the soul realm, Mary remarked, “It was a sad, lonely, stuck life from the start, with too much shame to even seek help when I was young.” It was clearly evident how the early shame from not having a family expanded into a growing, dark cloud of isolation and loneliness that greatly impacted his view of himself and his experience of life. Mary then understood the lesson of that life: “To realize that I am worth being helped and saved, and it takes courage to take that step. I had to let go of the shame I held.” She then saw and felt the joy, peace, freedom, strength and empowerment that would have come, and does come, from releasing shame. After the regression experience was over, it became clear (as always) that she had received from her higher self/higher guidance precisely what she asked for in her statement of intent — shame was what she needed to release in her present life as well.

It might be more accurate to say that shame isn’t so much “released” as seen through and no longer believed, thus the energy of it dissipates. Shame is a deep-seated belief of lack about who you are…it cannot be easily released from the logical mind, so the antidote is to go to a higher level of consciousness, where it can be seen through. Albert Einstein suggested you cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it, but you can at a higher level. Shame does not make sense from the vantage point of the soul. So, in her session,  while immersed in the higher dimension of her soul self, Mary experienced the expanded vibrations of her truer “unconditioned Self”, free of the programming and conditioning of her past life and also this present life that contributed to her shame, and therefore she experienced the freedom and clarity that comes from being harmoniously grounded in the truth of her real eternal Self.

Mary’s higher self had showed her that particular past life and its lessons so that she could apply it to this life. But sometimes releasing the sticky beliefs of shame can be a challenge back on earth, and this was the case with Mary. She reported that after the session, heavy, negative feelings began to surface which she soothed by eating sugary foods. I explained that when you are in a higher vibration state of the soul, you are in pure freedom, and freedom calls anything to the surface which is not free. So when you come back to your earth life, negative feelings, thoughts and beliefs such as shame can rise to the surface if and when they are ripe and ready to be released from your body/mind system. We carry much of this toxic thought-form energy in the cells of our body. Keep in mind that this negative thought-form energy often gets passed down through the generations like a virus, so when you heal it, you are also helping to clean up mass consciousness from many generations. It is interesting to note that those negative feelings and beliefs of shame are low vibration and they want to be fed low vibration food like processed sugar and fast food, etc. The energy of shame doesn’t quite like fresh pressed juice and smoothies nearly as much. A by-product of healing the unconscious shame patterns that have been passed down through the generations is that it feels so much easier and more natural to eat healthier.

I explained that the past life session was all about pointing out what she needed to do, because she asked for it in her statement of intent. So Mary came back when she was ready to begin the process of releasing the thought-form energy of negative feelings and beliefs from the traumas and challenging experiences from the early years of her present life. We released that limiting thought-form energy from the cells of her body and subconscious mind with the Emotional Healing session. What I’ve found is that a person usually needs between 1 and 3 sessions…each session is like releasing a layer…the biggest layer is always the first session, and then after that if necessary we can do a 90-minute reinforcing session after a few weeks or months, even over the phone if necessary.

In Mary’s case, she only needed one session to release a large layer of shame. A couple weeks after her present-life Emotional Healing session, Mary wrote to me that her session had been a profound cathartic healing, and she felt so much lighter. Some repressed negative emotions would occasionally arise, but they were not overwhelming or frightening and she was easily able to let them go as they came up. Her chiropractor was even amazed saying that her body was checking completely different after her session.

This is a common example of how a past life regression and the Emotional Healing session can work powerfully and effectively together to help a person leap forward in their personal and spiritual evolution. The emotional healing session may sound scary and difficult because, after all, who wants to look at a swamp of negative feelings? But what keeps it stuck is subtly avoiding it, and the keys to release it involve giving it your full attention for a few minutes in a safe space. Then you will feel much lighter after the session. It is very rewarding. People tend to see, feel and experience noticeable results after each session.

I am reminded of Paramahansa Yogananda’s quote: “As you heal yourself, you do your part in healing the world.” Everyone benefits from your healing…from loved ones to strangers to even your ancestral generational line. You will also find it easier to love people, especially those close to you, because the repressed emotions within you which they previously triggered have now been dissipated. And you will experience that this is a much more free and harmonious way to live!