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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!

 

A New Understanding of Trauma that Changes Everything

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In a way, human life is about accumulating traumas which in turn create subtle fear-based beliefs that govern our lives until we awaken to them and realize we can heal and release these fears and limiting beliefs. We can heal them because they are based in the past, and the past no longer exists. Why does something that doesn’t exist still affect us? Because the traumatic “past” is stored in our body and subconscious mind.

We can become aware of the trauma blocks in the body and let them go when we become conscious and aware of them. We usually begin to become aware of them when they get in our way, like when we have anxiety about getting too close to someone we love, or about taking a test and making a mistake. We become aware of our limiting beliefs and fears when they create havoc in our life. Carl Jung once said about healing: “Healing is about making conscious that which is unconscious.”

Both my wife Maggie and I help people heal from past traumas, although we use different modalities. She uses Quantum Neuro Reset Therapy (QNRT), while I use a body-based hypnotherapy technique which I call the Emotional Healing and Awakening Session, which is about releasing the effects of traumas from the body and subconscious mind while connecting to the wisdom of your soul self. Maggie is so fired up about healing her own trauma as well as anyone else who wants to heal their trauma, that she wrote an article for her website which explains what many people don’t realize about trauma. I’m sharing that article here with her encouragement, and with a few tweaks that I took the liberty of making. Also, the last paragraph is written by me because it relates to my clients. So please enjoy most of Maggie’s words:

Is Trauma Affecting Me?

One of my driving missions in life is to help people understand trauma so they can recognize and move past it. Believe it or not, everyone on the planet has experienced trauma to varying degrees.

It can be debilitating to be affected by trauma and not know what it is or how to get rid of it. Many people don’t seek the help they need because they minimize the difficult things that have happened in their lives by comparing themselves to others who have had it much worse. It’s important to know that – like most things in life – trauma runs on a spectrum.

There’s an outdated mental health belief that you have to be really struggling in life before you need therapy or other healing modalities. Most people think that if they are high functioning in life, the pain of their past must not be affecting them. This isn’t the case. Seeking support to untangle from your past gives you the ability to thrive in life. You have the potential to feel even better.

The Definition of Trauma

Trauma is officially defined as, “a deeply disturbing or distressing experience.” That’s a pretty benign explanation compared to what most people think, right? We’ve all had deeply disturbing or distressing experiences in our lives. If the word ‘trauma’ overwhelms you or you just don’t care for it, try thinking of trauma simply as difficult situations and experiences throughout your life.

What’s tricky about trauma is that it’s not just in your past as a memory. The pain from the difficult experience is stored in your body, so when you have a similar situation repeat itself later in life, you are left vulnerable to getting triggered and having strong reactions. We actually form a belief about ourselves and/or life when something difficult happens. The trauma of your past can easily get triggered in your life now.

How to Recognize if You’re Affected by Trauma

Many people simply write off their poor behavior or chalk up their ‘weaknesses’ to not being a good person. They feel flawed. They think it’s just part of life to be plagued by anxiety or depression. What a painful way to go through life. There’s more to this story.

We don’t show up as our best selves when we have trauma stored in our body. The latest trauma research shows that it’s stored in our brain, nervous system and other parts of the body, which means you are not going to be able to simply ‘talk’ your way out of trauma. That’s why a body-based approach to releasing trauma is imperative. Some body-based therapies include Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT); EMDR; somatic experiencing; a powerful technique called Quantum Neuro Reset Therapy (QNRT), or a body-based hypnotherapy approach. These modalities address more than just your mind. Using talk therapy to understand your past and how it affects you can certainly be helpful but may not move the trauma out of your body. It’s helpful to make these connections, but it’s imperative to go further so that you don’t keep getting triggered.

A way to know if you’re being triggered by past trauma is by gauging your reaction to something or someone: is it bigger than what the situation warrants? Let me share an example. Let’s say you’re someone who has trauma around not being included, stemming from the time your friend group purposely excluded you on the playground in third grade. Now, as an adult, you find out your family planned a spontaneous get together and (unintentionally) didn’t invite you. You may have intense feelings of anger, sadness or isolation. You may even lash out at them.

Let me also share an analogy. Imagine there is a bloody, raw wound on your knee, which symbolizes not being included by others. And in this above example, your family not inviting you to a party is like someone taking a sharp razor and scratching the surface of your wounded knee. It’s very difficult for most people to not get triggered by their trauma when it gets stirred up by life’s events. Keep in mind, people’s reactions to trauma differs. Some people start to rage and yell while others get sad and withdraw.

If a person does not have trauma around being excluded (a.k.a. there is no bloody wound on their knee) they may simply think that it must have been an oversight and someone forgot to call them. It feels more like someone took a stick and scratched their knee, which felt slightly uncomfortable (a.k.a. disappointed), but not like the intense pain if there was a bloody, raw wound there. See the difference of living life without trauma?

Signs that You May Have Experienced Trauma

Many people I work with are unaware that the root cause of their challenges is past trauma. This list is based on signs of trauma I see in my clients. Can you relate to any of the items on this list?

  • You have an addiction: food, alcohol, phone, drugs, overworking, exercise, etc.
  • You struggle to make friends.
  • You are constantly worried what others will think.
  • You feel inadequate: in your job, parenting, marriage, or friendships, etc.
  • You have an overall feeling of being unworthy and not good enough.
  • You feel you’ve never lived up to your potential.
  • You spend too much time ruminating about your regrets in life.
  • You sabotage yourself when you start to make progress in your life.
  • It’s scary for you to be vulnerable with trusted people in your life.
  • You are anxious, depressed, or both.
  • You have done years of therapy but still feel stuck in your past.
  • It’s hard to consistently get good sleep.
  • You have health conditions that don’t make sense given how well you care for yourself. (Resources: Ted Talk and The Deepest Well by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris)
  • You hustle for your worthiness. You’re always trying to do and be enough in life to be loved.
  • You struggle to connect well with your family.
  • It’s difficult to allow yourself to be loved.
  • You’re uncomfortable accepting help, gifts or compliments from others.
  • It’s difficult for you to take consistent, good care of yourself.
  • You can’t relax and simply do nothing.
  • You are afraid to not be in a relationship.
  • You are afraid to be in a committed relationship.
  • You don’t know how to relax and just play.
  • You operate most of life from your head versus your heart.
  • It’s difficult for you to be in the present moment. You find yourself constantly thinking.
  • You are often reactive to what happens in your life.
  • You are hypervigilant and feel that ‘the other shoe’ is going to drop.
  • You have an ‘all or nothing’ way of operating in life.
  • You worry about money far too much.
  • You avoid feeling your emotions.
  • You have a lot of fears in your life.
  • You feel like nobody truly understands you.
  • You feel like your needs and wants are ‘too much’ for your partner to handle.
  • You have to rely on medication to adjust your mood.
  • You feel like given all the great things in your life you should be happy, but you’re not.
  • You want to be in a loving relationship, but you have fears it will never happen.
  • You often feel overwhelmed by life.
  • You feel like good things happen to others, not you.
  • You keep your life small even though you truly want more.
  • You accept ongoing, poor behavior from your partner and make excuses for them.
  • You find yourself attracting friends and relationships that cause you pain and disappointment.

I could go on and on. This is not a comprehensive list, but hopefully you get the idea. Our natural state is one in which we feel present, open hearted, peaceful and happy. Sound utopic? Well, releasing the trauma stored in your body will certainly get you much closer to these feelings. I think of all of life as spiritual and releasing your trauma helps you wake up to who and what you are at your core….love and pure presence.

What Types of Situations and Events Can Create Trauma?

First, it’s important to know that what creates trauma in one person may not be what creates trauma in another individual. We are all unique and some people may brush off a comment while another person may be deeply hurt by the same comment.

Here are some examples of situations and events that can create trauma:

  • An ongoing experience of parents being distracted and not present with you
  • Parents or caregivers having an addiction of any kind.
  • Kids making fun of you at school
  • Transitions of any kind such as changing schools, moving to a new city/state/country
  • Getting divorced and/or parents divorcing
  • Growing up in poverty or experiencing financial insecurity
  • Being criticized
  • A parent making negative comments about you either overtly or subtly
  • Feeling like you don’t fit in with your peers
  • Not getting your emotional or physical needs met
  • Not being able to fully express your feelings in childhood or adulthood
  • Any physical, sexual or emotional abuse
  • Making a mistake and getting in trouble for it (or not)
  • Experiencing a break up
  • Losing a friend
  • Struggling in your career
  • Growing up in a restrictive religious faith
  • Witnessing violence
  • Physical pain or injury
  • Surgery
  • Losing a loved one
  • Getting fired or let go from a job
  • Being separated from someone you love
  • Getting cut from a team
  • Any type of embarrassing or shaming situation or event
  • Not dating until later in life
  • Being the oldest in your family and parents relying too much on you
  • Being told you’re ‘different’ by someone you care about
  • Having to excel in school and/or extra-curricular activities in order to get love and attention from your parents.
  • Having a parent who tries to live your life because they haven’t successfully created their own
  • Having a sibling who took up an unfair amount of your parents’ attention
  • Struggling to make friends

Again, this is not a comprehensive list, but hopefully this shifts your perspective on trauma.

Don’t We Just get over Trauma with Time?

Time will not heal trauma.

Why do we continue to be affected by past trauma when it’s in the past? One, because as I shared earlier, it’s literally stored in the body and needs to be released using a body-based therapy. And secondly, we unconsciously form a belief about ourselves and/or the world when something distressing or disturbing happens to us. In a way, these beliefs lock the trauma in place. We live our lives 95% based on these (often unconscious) painful, subconscious beliefs. We are walking around in life as if these painful beliefs are true.

When difficult things happen in life, we unconsciously form beliefs such as:

  • I can’t get my needs met.
  • I shouldn’t communicate what I need and want because it will only end in pain.
  • I’m unlovable.
  • I’m unworthy of love.
  • I’ll never get married.
  • I will never have enough money.
  • I don’t fit in.
  • I have to hide my authentic self in order to get love.
  • What I have to say doesn’t matter.
  • I have to accomplish enough in life in order to get love.
  • I have to exhaust myself helping others in order to get love.
  • I can’t trust others, especially those I love.
  • I have to be smart and useful in order to connect with others.

These are just a few examples. You may notice a common theme in these examples – love and connection. As Brene Brown says, “Love and belonging are irreducible human needs.” When someone doesn’t feel unconditionally loved and connected with others when growing up (or as an adult), a lot of trauma can build up over time.

If I asked anyone if they had any of these beliefs, they would often answer ‘no’ because most people are unaware of their subconscious beliefs. But sadly, we live our lives based on these limiting, subconscious beliefs.

How Do You Release Trauma?

Engaging in a body-based therapy such as those mentioned above will allow you to release trauma stored in your body.

How Might I Feel Differently if I Release the Pain of my Past?

My clients report feeling lighter, because of the absence of negative thought-form energy which feels mentally and emotionally heavy. They also report feeling more free and more in touch with their true authentic self which is non-reactive. Also, as you heal the past within you, the “law of attraction” no longer takes place, and you will no longer draw to you situations, events and circumstances that match a low internal vibration of negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs that can be by-products of trauma. Thus, you are no longer caught up in the cycle of being triggered by loved ones who triggered you in the past. Strangers may even respond to you differently, in a more positive, non-reactive way, because you have shifted the energy patterns within yourself, and between you, others and the world. As Paramahansa Yogandanda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, wrote: “As you heal yourself, you heal the world…far more than you could ever know.”

Using Past Life Therapy to ‘De-Hypnotize’ Yourself

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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, nonfluctuating 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. It uses your mind’s powerful ability to do this. 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 your incessant mind 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 will show you a past life that you’ve lived with 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 reveals a person’s soul lesson, but also allows them to fully feel what it’s like to ‘get’ that lesson and live without the subtle fears that block them. Because this all occurs at the subconscious level, it has a subtle, yet powerful effect. It’s not uncommon to experience noticeable results in only 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.

Q & A Interview with the Edge Magazine

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I was featured in the March 2018 edition of the Edge Magazine. I’d like to share it with you to give you some background about how I became interested in hypnotherapy. This interview shares details about my work and also who I am as a person.

The article also gives me a chance to highlight the Edge Magazine and the valuable role it has played in my life. It’s a metaphysical magazine that has helped me grow and evolve over the past 25 years. It offers consciousness-expanding interviews and articles of practitioners on the forefront of healing and spiritually awakening.

Please enjoy the Q & A interview here!

 

Alternative Ways to Heal Depression and PTSD

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I recently wrote the article below for the Edge Magazine. Although I specialize in dealing with the emotional causes of depression, anxiety and PTSD, there are a number of different ways that can also help with these issues. Below is the article that discusses some of these other approaches. Please enjoy:

After working on a psychiatric unit for over 23 years, I watched some people find relief with medications for depression. Yet, I’ve also witnessed many times when a person either experienced no relief or the side effects of the meds far outweighed the benefits. Not only are people complex, but so is depression, and it often has many triggers and causes, both physical and emotional in nature. Let me share some alternative methods that can help alleviate both the physical and emotional roots of depression. Often, combining several modalities can be the most effective approach.

First, a simple, yet often overlooked modality is homeopathy, which works to bring the body back into balance physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It’s not an overnight fix, but you’ll find an upward spiral of growth happens over time with no side effects. Occasionally, you may notice your symptoms reappear for a day or two and then subside because an old pattern often reappears before it’s released. Keep in mind that homeopaths study for 4 years, and homeopathy has a long history of being a popular medicine which can also increase the effectiveness of other modalities.

Secondly, if you’re eating a lot of low vibration foods such as processed sugar, white flour and food products with artificial ingredients, you may experience low energy and lethargy, with a mood that matches the way your body responds to these foods. Consuming more fruits and vegetables is an excellent way to shift not only your mood, but your health. Experiment for yourself by eating more whole foods and notice if your mood is positively affected. I do understand that when you’re struggling with intense symptoms such as depression or PTSD it may be difficult to choose fruits and vegetables as they aren’t as comforting or numbing as processed foods. However, try adding one additional fruit, vegetable, smoothie or juice per day.

A healer who has had a profound effect on my health is Anthony William. In his paradigm-changing, best-seller book, Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic Illness and How to Finally Heal, William explains that PTSD is a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by trauma. When there isn’t enough glucose stored in the brain tissue to feed the central nervous system, PTSD symptoms can develop from relatively minor stresses. He explains that fruit sugar and raw honey in their unadulterated states are the only sugars the body accepts for glucose storage in the brain. He suggests wild blueberries, melons, beets, bananas, sweet potatoes, figs, oranges mangoes, apples and dates, among others.

William also discusses how depression can stem from non-emotional causes such as adrenal dysfunction, viral infection, electrolyte deficiency, heavy metals or other toxins in your body. For these conditions, he suggests specific foods to help heal these conditions such as wild blueberries, spinach, hemp seeds, cilantro, walnuts, coconut oil, sprouts, kale apricots and avocados. He also provides a list of healing herbs and supplements that can help. He just released a second book, Life-Changing Foods, which connects one to the power of food.

For emotional causes of depression, such as traumatic loss or stress growing up, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and EMDR are effective tools to release trauma from past events or circumstances that are stored in the body and subconscious mind.

Often times when we don’t get emotional needs met growing up, negative beliefs about oneself can set in at a deep level. Shame programs such as feeling unworthy of love or success can be so strong that affirmations don’t easily work because a subconscious part of you doesn’t believe them. In these situations, it’s helpful to find someone who can guide you in transcendental inner journey work, where your consciousness can take a separate, observational look at your egoic mind patterns. Any type of transpersonal hypnotherapy, such as past life regression, the emotional healing process or other such inner journey work, is helpful in releasing the grip of false, limiting beliefs that may feel true but are absolutely not. When these false beliefs can be seen through from a higher level of consciousness, they no longer have the same effect on you, and thus support the releasing of depression.

Lastly, it’s important to connect with others. We were meant to love and support one another, and the burden of depression can lighten with more connectedness. I understand that one of the biggest challenges with depression is having the motivation or confidence to reach out to others, so you may want to get some support from other modalities first and as your spirit lifts, you may more easily cultivate the wisdom and courage to know that you are worth seeking out support and connection.

What Past Life Regression Really Is

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To many people in our western culture, past life regression can seem far-fetched. I understand this. Growing up as a pastor’s son, we didn’t talk much about reincarnation, much less about past life regression. The purpose of this article is to explain the process in a way that makes more sense, not only for those whom the concept of reincarnation is new, but also for those who are considering doing a past life regression someday. This article is even for those who have already experienced it, because anyone who has ever gone deep into a past life regression knows that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fully describe it in words…and there’s a good reason for that. After 20 years of guiding over 4,000 clients through past life regression, I want to articulate how the process unfolds.

In western culture, our primary identity is a body that has a soul. Yet it would be far more accurate to think of you as a soul who is using a body. If you’ve ever witnessed a dead body that had his or her eyes open, you’d notice that something seems obviously different than when they were alive. The life, energy and consciousness is missing, the animating light called the soul is gone from their eyes. The body then appears like a shell and who and what they really are is no longer attached to their body. The part of you that lives on after you leave the body is pure energy. You can’t harm or destroy a soul because it is outside of this physical dimension. The energy particles are vibrating at a much higher frequency and consequently no longer visible to our sight, similar to a fast-moving fan blade.

So this is what you are now as you read this – a soul using a body. The ‘relatively real you’ never dies. The body is released and you transition to a higher vibrational state, and then eventually return to a different body to continue your soul’s mission (usually). Perhaps the strongest evidence of this is the multitude of cases in which people remember intricate, personal details of past lives and then later verify them. I won’t go into that here, but for those who are interested, there’s a website dedicated to many of these cases…reincarnationresearch.com, especially note Ian Stevenson’s research. Or visit victorzammit.com. Anyway, the point is that as a soul, you are eternal, indestructible and transcendent of this dimension of time and space, and these days there’s enough evidence of that that even a logical minded skeptic can believe in reincarnation just on the sheer evidence.

What keeps you anchored in this realm of time and space? Your identification with the body, along with your full focus and attention being placed on all of the objects in this physical dimension, such as another person, a tree, a cat, etc., rather than on the life energy behind these forms or even between the space of objects. Not only that, but at a young age you begin to subtly identify with all the mind programming and conditioning from each life experience that goes along with the growing up of this body. So we take the body and the conditioning of the mind to be who and what we are, rather than the life energy force that animates the body and transcends this existence. It is why awakened sages have compared the human experience to “the greatest slight of hand card trick.”

So if you’re already this eternal being, you should be able to tune into what you already are, the part that lies beyond this realm of time and space. How? You begin by withdrawing your focus and attention from this outside, material world and turn it inward. Hypnosis is a great tool to do this, quickly creating the effect of an extremely deep meditation. To the degree that you ignore your left-brain or analytical mind, and instead focus entirely on the right-brain’s intuitive flow of information in the present moment, is to the degree you begin to tune into and resonate with this eternal part of yourself. The logical left-brain is an important tool to navigate and live in this physical dimension, but it certainly blocks you if you want to experience the higher vibrational dimension, and the soul aspect of yourself.

Past life regression is an efficient means to ‘tune into what you already are’ because it offers a slow, steady, systematic method: You first allow yourself to ‘un-identify’ with the dominant thoughts surrounding your current body. Then allow yourself to identify with a different body/mind personality that begins to form in your awareness. It is important to focus your full attention on the intuitive information that drops into your consciousness regarding this different body/mind, while simultaneously letting go of your left-brain’s analytical tendency to comment on that information. Another way to say this is to experience the information that comes to you by sensing and feeling it with your body wisdom. As you do so, a slow unraveling of information regarding that life will drop into awareness piece by piece in the form of mental pictures, emotions or intuitive insights as the journey of that life becomes increasingly clearer. The information may alternately come to you from the 3rd person or 1st person point of view. The life may take unexpected turns, but eventually you’ll get an impression of the end of that past life. This is the point where you begin to slowly identify with the lighter dimension of your soul-being that experiences a variety of lives for its own journey of growth, evolution and awakening.

As you continue to focus your full attention on the experience of tuning into and moving deeper into soul identification, you’ll notice the following: A deep sense of well-being; the continual mind chatter in the back of your mind completely stops and is replaced with a vast, expansive, calm awareness that feels like ‘you’; information ‘drops into’ you in a very different manner than usual….the reason that words cannot describe it is because words belong to the realm of our mind, and now information comes from beyond the mind in what can best be described as a ‘telepathic download’ of simultaneously occurring pictures, sense impressions, insights and/or instantaneous intuitive ‘inner knowings’. Clients notice that words feel inadequate to describe what they’re experiencing, as if words capture merely the tip of an iceberg. As you continue to tune into and resonate increasingly more with the soul aspect of self, the above characteristics become more pronounced, and insights that drop into you are permeated with love, clarity, wisdom and selflessness because there is no more sense of self that is lacking anything. From this higher state of vibration, you have access to all the love, joy, peace, security and creativity that was ever lacking in the human experience, should you choose to place focus and attention on it. At this point, there’s a deep sense that your ‘real’ self is actually never separate from these qualities. Most clients will feel this higher dimensional aspect of themselves towards the later part of the session. And if they go even deeper during a Life-Between-Lives session, they may notice that there is very little information that they do not have access to.

Keep in mind that we are multi-dimensional beings. So past life regression is ultimately an exercise in tuning into the spiritual aspect of self that is vibrating at a faster rate, a rate that allows you to move closer in resonance with the spiritual dimension of guides and departed loved ones, as well as accessing information that will enable you to grow, evolve and awaken. From the soul’s higher vantage point, it becomes clearly evident which subconscious thoughts and beliefs are holding you back and limiting you, as well as who gave them to you and which life experiences caused them to take hold. Most importantly, you know beyond words that they don’t belong to the ‘real’ you, so they can be released. It’s an exercise in awakening to a more conscious aspect of self. Carl Jung once wrote, “Healing is about becoming conscious of that which is unconscious.” Past life regression is certainly an excellent means of shining a spotlight on any unconscious, limiting beliefs or perspectives that are holding us back in life, in addition to experiencing the freedom of what it would feel like to let them go.

When you come to the session with an intent to gain a sense of another existence that you’ve had as an eternal soul being, especially with the intent to gain insight, clarity and resolution with any sort of problematic issue, your inner guidance system will show you a life that will be precisely for your benefit to see, and it will contain one or more soul lessons that will perfectly pertain to your present life situation. However, the process will be blocked if you try to consciously direct or analyze the session, because the information can only be accessed by tuning into a different, more subtle, intuitive stream of information.

The mystic Edgar Cayce once declared, “Imagination is the gateway to the soul.” This is true for past life regression. Your imagination launches this inner journey. The past life information then starts coming to you slowly and feels like you’re making it up. However, research shows that it may be an actual past life, a metaphor, or a mixture of both. To the degree that you focus on whatever impressions your intuitive guidance shows you without analytical mind commentary, is to the degree that you’ll move deeper into the experience. Roughly 10 minutes after the first past life images begin to come, the session kicks into a ‘higher gear’ and information begins to drop into your awareness in that ‘telepathic download’ of images coupled with ‘intuitive knowing’ described above. It later begins to feel ‘more real’ as emotions may suddenly emerge out of nowhere, followed by the reasons behind the emotions 5-30 seconds later.

Paradoxically, even though the session begins by feeling like you’re making it up, it always ends at a level of consciousness that feels much more ‘awake’ and ‘aware’ than your ordinary, everyday level of consciousness. Trying to describe this state creates a conundrum. How do you describe a state of awareness that makes your normal, everyday level of waking consciousness feel like it’s asleep? What goes along with the process of tuning in deeper with your soul self is becoming increasingly anchored in the present moment. As this happens, it becomes more apparent that our ordinary states of waking consciousness rarely consist of being completely present…we’re usually lost in the world of our minds, subtly pulled into the future or past, along with the mind’s endless commentary, which according to sages is exactly where all of the suffering resides. So when you are free and separate from all of the mind’s negative self talk, limiting beliefs, continual chatter, etc., a vast, calm clarity replaces it, along with a ‘knowing’ beyond words that you are never separate from this clear, awake, peaceful awareness. This cannot be comprehended by the mind, because it’s a state of consciousness that is best described by Eckhart Tolle as “above thought”.

Thus, past life regression ultimately brings you to the truth of your being, the truth of who and what you really are, which can only be experienced when limiting thoughts and beliefs from the past are no longer part of the equation and your mind is silent. This truth can only be felt, sensed and known as a direct, immediate experience in the ‘eternal’ here and now moment, as it is unknowable by the mind…words can only point to it. Past life regression is an exercise that connects and anchors you in this higher level of consciousness. The vast majority of clients experience this understanding by the end of the session.

After the client emerges, I often hear: “Wow! That wasn’t what I expected.” Indeed, it is an experience that is literally beyond words. There are few experiences as sacred, profound and holy as tuning into your own wholeness and completeness.

Approximately 95% of the time, clients emerge from a past life regression with a greater understanding of themselves and their present life experiences. The degree of positive impact ranges from subtle to profoundly life changing, depending on the essence of the person, and the ripeness and readiness for change. There is a theme to this work: As you go within, your inner guidance gives you precisely what you need, usually to the degree that you are urgently seeking answers or resolution. Problems tend to dissolve into solutions when viewed from the vantage point of our higher spiritual Self.