Tag Archive for: Spiritual Growth

Case Study: A Lifetime of Anger Released

Case 13: A Lifetime of Anger Released

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A client (I’ll call her Ann) came in with “demons of anger”, in her words. It’s valuable to set an intention prior to doing a past life regression session. Her intention for her past life regression session was to “see a life or lives that can most help me understand and heal my anger about not feeling good enough”.

Ann saw herself in a past life as a boy who never knew his parents and was raised by relatives in a home in which there was care, but not closeness. Home felt cold. As a teenager, he fell deeply in love with a girl at school, but she died of an illness. After graduating from school, he moved to a new town and found a job cleaning. Eventually he married a woman that he didn’t really love, describing the marriage as “a convenient escape from loneliness…there was no love between us and no bonding with the kids.” As he grew older, he worked as a blacksmith in a small town, and felt stress and guilt about not being able to provide more for his family. “My wife and I have nothing to say to each other. After the kids grew up and were out of the house, they don’t visit much, and life feels hopeless and wasted.” He died in his mid- 50’s in a hospital, alone and scared.

He felt regret soon after his death as he reflected upon his life, saying, “I didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t accept the life I had.” He then moved into a shaft of light that pulled his soul into a higher vibration in the spiritual realm. Ann described it in this way: “It’s getting lighter. It feels like waves of energy are taking care of me. I feel calmness, forgiveness and not alone. There’s an energy that makes me feel connected, and a forgiveness for myself. It was a hard life with not enough money or food and I felt stress that whole life. I couldn’t provide as a man because there wasn’t enough. But I also didn’t provide love for my family.”

In the spirit realm, I typically ask, “What you would do differently if you lived that life all over again, only from the higher vantage point of your soul?” Ann responded: “I would have shown my wife and kids love and acceptance.” She then immediately began to feel what her life would feel like if she had actually done that, which is typical in the past life session. “I can now feel how different and much lighter that would feel if I lived from that perspective. I would have taught my kids things and been at weddings, and then enjoyed grandkids.” She described the soul learning in that life to be: “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Appreciate the life around you…the family you do have. Appreciate what you can in life.” She then felt a deep compassion overcome her for people on earth who are hurting.

It became evident that the feelings that were left unresolved in that past life carried over to affect the mental and emotional energy bodies in this present life, thus contributing to the feeling of anger about not feeling good enough. We then released the thought-form energy from the past life that had carried over and replaced it with the wisdom and light of her higher soul self.

Two weeks after the session, Ann shared how her session impacted her. She wrote in an email: “I have noticed a huge change. Driving home after my session, I felt an immediate sense of calmness and comfort. I felt like the empty and questionable pieces of me had a tangible reason. I finally felt free to feel better. I had no idea what to expect from the session and the fact that I was given a glimpse of a past life was riveting…especially the fact that I was a man. The trauma from that life, without parents, gave me such compassion for the life I live right now. My relationship with actual parents may never be repaired, but I have a clear understanding of why I may have been a difficult child for them. My life is forever changed and my anger for not feeling good enough is gone. I have already had success in my personal and business life because of my session. Thank you, Eric! I am truly grateful!” 

This is a good example of how a past life regression session works. A client can discover where the root of a problem or issue lies, release it, and then view both the past life and present life from the higher-dimension vantage point of the soul. Wisdom, clarity and compassion are natural by-products from resting in this high-vibration state of being. It’s a level of consciousness that we all have access to as we go deep within. We ultimately are not separate from it, but it can easily become obscured while living in this human experience. That is, until we can awaken to this higher level of awareness within our own being, and that IS our true permanent self.

Love Image - June 21, 2020 blog

Returning Home to Yourself

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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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Using Past Life Regression to Find Your True Self

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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, 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.

Love Image - June 21, 2020 blog

The Evolution of Humanity

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“The difference between duality consciousness and unity consciousness is profound. In the former, you appear to be separate from all others, and clashing is nigh unto inevitable. In the latter, you experience total connection. You do not think about the connection, for then you are still in duality. Nay, you shift your perspective to the experience of oneness. What does this feel like? We could describe it in a thousand words and you still would not know. But the soul knows. The soul remembers. Ask within to know oneness while sitting quietly. And then, go there often, most especially when you experience strife within the duality. This is the beauty of awakening. You are so very loved.” – Sanaya, channeled through Suzanne Giesemann

I would encourage anyone on the path of spiritual awakening to sign up for these free daily pearls of channeled wisdom from Suzanne Giesemann. They can help re-align your perspective from human to soul, and from bondage to liberation.

Since we are multi-dimensional beings, we have access to different lenses to view life from. It is common and natural to view life from the human perspective that is often based in the fear of losing something…another person or pet, health, life, money, success, admiration, etc. This is natural because this human realm is the realm of loss. Yet behind the scenes is another part of you that is eternal, free of loss and based in love. Humanity is just on the verge of awakening to the soul part of us that is animating our bodies. A multitude of books about the soul are emerging, such as A Lawyer Presents the Evidence of the Afterlife by Victor Zammit. There is now even a popular Netflix series called Surviving Death. When we begin to identify more with the soul aspect of ourselves, it will be the perception shift that brings freedom. One part of us experiences hurt and death, while the other part of us cannot die and is based in love. And we cannot separate ourselves from this part of us.

One way to experience the transcendent part of us is through past life regression. Probably the greatest attribute of one of these sessions is that it ultimately allows a person to experience what it is like to be outside of the programming and conditioning of the human mind, take on new perspectives from a different human role, and then ultimately be free of the human mindset altogether after the life is over. At that point in the session, the deeper you go into the spiritual realm, the more you’ll experience the soul’s perspective that is based in love and is interested in growth and evolution.

One part of us is mostly based in fear and lack, while the other, more permanent part of us, is based in love, peace and a freedom which lacks nothing. This part of us seeks to be the source of so much for others…a source of compassion, comfort, love and strength. To be able to express this in human form is what feels the most harmonious to the soul.

What if you absolutely knew you were role-playing your life? Like a lucid dream in which you could be awake while living in the role that you’re playing? That is what life feels like during the part of the regression experience where you connect to your soul self. You gain the understanding that you can choose how you go through life, how you respond to challenges and how you relate to others. This choice then often helps to create what comes back to you via the law of attraction. What you put out in the world tends to come back to you.

I will close with another quote from Sanaya, the group of wise spiritual beings channeled by Suzanne Giesemann:

“Would you ask the deep life questions if one you love had not passed? Would you wonder about the purpose of life, the eternality of it if you did not feel a longing to be with them for eternity? There is purpose in the brevity of the physical life. Brevity, of course, is a relative thing, for there is a psychological aspect to time. At times it seems to drag, and yet, when one you love is gone, it can seem an eternity until you will see them again. You are all eternal. You will see each other again, but the absence of seeing, for now, serves a purpose. It nudges you to discover the purpose of being. We could tell you what that is, but that would be cheating you out of the experience of experiencing your purpose. And so, there is great purpose in our silence. There is great purpose in birth and death in this parenthesis in eternity. Ask the questions. Experience the answer, Love. You are This.”

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Freedom and Truth – a Perception Shift Away

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Many months ago, I wrote an article for The Edge Magazine, a valuable resource for anyone on a journey of personal and spiritual growth and evolution. Last December’s topic of the month was on living without fear with trust in the divine. Since that seemed quite relevant to these Covid-19 times, and helping people do that is often what my work is about, I felt it appropriate to share that article here….please enjoy!

“All Suffering is due to wrong identification.” – The Buddha

The process of dissolving my deeply rooted fears probably began when I was backpacking around India as an impressionable 24 year old. I decided to work at one of Mother Theresa’s homes for the destitute and dying in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The experience of sitting with people as they died seeded a belief in me that we are not our bodies, and that our consciousness transcends this dense earth realm.

This belief eventually sprouted into an inner knowing as I encountered experiences that reinforced this truth. For example, when my girlfriend died of breast cancer 13 years ago, an evidence-based medium was able to tell me things no one would know but us. Also, as I became fascinated with past life memories, I researched numerous verified past life memories of children as well as adults who recalled past lives through hypnotic regression.

In their book, A Lawyer Presents the Evidence For the Afterlife, Victor and Wendy Zammit argue that if all of the evidence for the afterlife were put in a court of law, it would win easily and unanimously. Evidence of the afterlife reveals that we are eternal, indestructible soul beings. Although we one day will lose our body, we can never separate ourselves from the energy and consciousness that animates our body. Thus, a key premise in releasing fears is to know that you can never be harmed. From the vantage point of the body, that sounds absurd, and it is, because the body gets hurt, sick and dies. But truth is relative, and from the “more relatively true” vantage point of your “more permanent self”, you ultimately cannot be harmed, because you are energy and consciousness that comes from Oneness, and how can Oneness be harmed? The more Truth can become embedded in the belief system of the ego, which is based on the illusion of separateness and identification with our body, the more our fears begin to melt away, being replaced with a calm, inner assurance that all is well and always has been and will be.

Fears are built into the human experience. Fears come with a body that can get hurt and die. Messages of fear also come in when we’re young and we are completely dependent on outside caregivers for a sense of love, value and security. When it doesn’t happen, because and our parents are humans operating from their own issues and beliefs, subconscious fears can take root such as not being loveable, being judged as “less than”, or fear of failing, etc. We get conditioned early on to look for our sense of self through outside sources like family and friends rather than from within.

Thus, a big key in releasing subconscious fears is to identify more with the aspect of you that cannot be harmed. Freedom comes with an identity shift. When I help clients release limiting fears, I initially guide them on a deep inner journey within to connect with their Higher Self and Source energy. This is possible because no one can be separated from their Higher Self and Source energy…it simply gets covered up in the human experience. Thus hypnotherapy can be used to help de-hypnotize yourself from the source of all suffering — ego identification. From the vantage point of Source, all fears stem from false beliefs of the ego self. They feel true from the ego’s mindset, and may have become embedded into our subconscious mind’s operating system at a young age, but these beliefs are not actually true from the standpoint of a higher dimension of yourself and of Truth.

As we begin our spiritual journey of awakening out of ego identification, there becomes a trickle-down effect of releasing subtle fears that are not in alignment with our Higher Self. We as souls are challenging ourselves to allow our body/mind systems to be clear vessels for the brilliance of our true selves to shine through. As we operate and live less from our false fears and outdated programming, and more from our true selves, we are naturally guided by our own passions, gifts and strengths. We become the beings of freedom and love that we always have been and always will be.

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The Key to Unconditional Love in Relationships

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Several months ago, I wrote an article for The Edge Magazine. The Edge is a valuable resource for anyone on their journey of personal and spiritual growth and expansion. As souls, we are all on this journey. However, as humans, we are seldom conscious of it. When we finally become conscious that we are here mostly to learn and grow towards awakening to the unconditional love that we already are, we have reached a milestone in our soul’s development. It may happen early or late in life, or not at all in this lifetime. But it’s probably a good sign that you’re on your way if you’re reading this blog.

Each month, The Edge Magazine features a new topic. This month (July, 2019) is about: The Present Moment — Maintaining This State of Being. Last March, The Edge’s featured topic was about how to move toward unconditional love. Below is my article….please enjoy!

In their 1974 song “Already Gone,” The Eagles sang, “So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.”

I don’t know whether or not The Eagles meant it, but it perfectly fits to interpret the “chains” to be the identification with our ego. The ego is based in separation and individuation. Think of the ego as our body/mind self, which contains all of our programming from early on in life. Limiting thoughts, feelings, beliefs and fears are based in the ego.

Our lives can become imprisoned and unconsciously governed by limiting ego beliefs such as “not good enough” or “fear of failure” or “it’s too scary and painful to open up and fully receive love.” The ego works overtime to protect us from possible emotional pain, yet it is also striving hard to find love, joy, peace and security, mostly outside of ourselves.

When we incarnate here, the dance of the ego begins with the trauma of separation. We are dependent on our caregivers for love, security and a sense of well-being. We become conditioned to search for unconditional love outside ourselves, and if we don’t find it, limiting beliefs about our self can form and we can develop a tendency to guard our hearts.

Yet, we are multidimensional beings. There’s another part of us — the soul. The soul comes from Source. Like drops of water which form the wave that belongs to the ocean, we are a human, a soul and we also belong to the one creator Source. In other words, we are not separate from Source energy — and we are not separate from the love, security, peace and joy that we are searching for outside of ourselves.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Not only does love lie within us, but we are unconditional love. As Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, once said, “We come from love, we go back to love, and we are love.”

Going back to The Eagles’ song, telling us that we live our life in chains, never even knowing we have the key, “the key” is a mere perception shift. Adyashanti, another spiritual teacher, equates human life to “the greatest slight-of-hand card trick.” He says, “Enlightenment is really just a radical shift in identity.” He means that spiritual awakening is about identifying primarily with the pure light, energy and consciousness that animates all of life, the part of us that can never be harmed or die.” Another name for this level of consciousness is Christ consciousness or Oneness consciousness.

When you operate from Oneness consciousness, you see yourself in others. You see through other people’s ego state of consciousness, which is unconsciously striving for love and connection or else protecting itself from love and connection, and instead view all beings with love and compassion. It is automatic. “Oneness” needs nothing from another, and instead is motivated and fueled by giving and being love.

Experiencing this level of love is a subtraction process. As we quiet our thinking minds and go within through meditation or an inner journey, or by simply becoming fully present, we can experience peace and love within ourselves. When we let go of the mind’s filters and programs and are truly present, we can feel a reservoir of deep peace beneath our fears.

Another way of experiencing ourselves as love is to practice what Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversation With God series, suggests: “If you want more joy in your life, be the source of joy for another. If you want more love in your life, cause another to feel loved.” Experiment with it. Relationships go much smoother, he says, when we view them not as a cookie tray to grab something from, but rather as a container to pour something into.

Here’s another experiment: Adyashanti writes, “When the divine part of you silently acknowledges the divine part of another, their divine self knows that it’s being acknowledged and it will feel good being in your presence. They may not even know why.” To be the unconditional love that we already are requires a perception shift out of our ego consciousness. Practice identifying as the love that you are, and then begin to view others as that same love behind their human form and their ego consciousness. It’s like a muscle that you exercise. Over time, it becomes your natural state, mainly because it is your natural state!

Measuring Your Spiritual Growth

Reading Time: 3 minutes

One of my favorite Spiritual teachers is Adyashanti. He said a measure of how advanced you are on your spiritual journey, or your level of spiritual “awakeness”, is how you treat others that don’t agree with you – especially spiritually or politically. Do you overtly or silently judge them? Or do you allow other people to have their own beliefs and opinions with the understanding that everyone is on their own soul journey of growth and development?

God/Source/Life is a large enough container for all beliefs…and we are a microcosm of that Source. As humans, we are meant to carve out our experience with our own learned perspectives and beliefs, and hopefully they change, evolve and expand over time if we allow ourselves to be open, curious and driven to grow. It is natural for us to do so. The human ego self has its own personality, quirks and beliefs. But simultaneously, there’s a part of you that does not change…a part of you that is in the eternal now because it is the Eternal Now. We are multi-dimensional. Which part of you are you going to identify with? Spiritual awakening is about identifying more with the higher, more permanent part of you that is ok with all beliefs. It doesn’t mean that your ego self doesn’t have its opinions and may even feel drawn to go to an anti-Trump or a pro-Trump rally. But while you do that, can you do it with the awareness of Oneness, rather than “us vs them” mentality? If you can, you’ll find that your efforts yield better results than if you simply contribute to the ongoing dance of polarity.

The higher consciousness of The Collective (see August’s Blog for an introduction to The Collective) explains that we are in the 3rd dimension, moving towards the 5th. The 3rd Dimension is a lower vibration frequency of duality and contrasts…good/bad, black/white, happy/sad, love/loss, love/fear, ignorance/wisdom, restlessness/peace, acceptance/judgment, right/wrong, right/left, etc. It is a plane of existence to provide contrasts for us to decide who we want to be and what we want to create in this place of polarity and contrasts. Earth is a spiritual playground of role plays that appear very real for the purpose of challenging ourselves to decide and create who we choose to be…do you wish to be a person who operates primarily from love or fear? You’ll create or burn karma depending on how you respond in this plane of contrasts.

The 5th Dimension, on the other hand, is a higher frequency plane with fewer contrasts. There is a natural letting go of the judgments of right and wrong, being replaced with an understanding that people either operate with a clear sensing/knowing of their Oneness/Source nature or else they operate with ignorance of that Truth. When you are aware of your own divinity and connection to all life, you are aware that what you do to another you actually do to yourself, and there will be a natural love, compassion and acceptance that replaces all judgment. Compassion and an explainable love for others (even those who are very different than you in beliefs or culturally) is simply a by-product of spiritually awakening. You don’t have to try to cultivate it, it simply is natural when you begin to identify your self with your Higher Self that has Oneness consciousness.

The 5th Dimension is more about moving towards what you want, what sparks your passion and enthusiasm, with an acceptance that others don’t have to want what you want. When you operate with Christ consciousness or Oneness consciousness, your passions naturally tend to be less self-serving and more others-serving or life-serving.

In closing, here are some inspiring words from The Collective: “When you incarnated, your intention was to bring the greatest measure of your divinity to your experience as a human, to recognize what you are while in this dense physical dimension of forgetfulness. Always increase your recognition of what you are capable of as divine beings. Dwell in a lower frequency while mastering living as the divine Being and master Creator that you are.”

May we recognize this challenging life as a role play to help us grow and evolve in awareness of our true divine nature.

Uncovering and Healing the Roots of Anxiety and Depression

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I recently wrote an article for the Edge Magazine. It’s relevant these days as many people’s subconscious issues are coming to the surface while the consciousness of the planet shifts and raises. This happens for the purpose of releasing what no longer serves you from your body/mind system and integrating the learning of it into the fullness of your being. Freedom calls anything to the surface that is not free. Please enjoy these words:

Anxiety and depression can be physiologically, spiritually and/or mental/emotionally based. But since the body, mind and soul are all interconnected, they overlap. Often anxiety or depression has to do with the past affecting you, and this can be uncovered and healed because you are far more than your past. If we put anxiety and depression under a microscope, we see that it is typically made up of a myriad of negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs that began somewhere in the past, occasionally even a past life. The good news is that although the past can have a strong grip on you, it no longer exists except as a memory, which is a combination of thoughts, feelings and corresponding beliefs that get formed, otherwise known as “thought-form energy”. Yet there is a larger, higher, “more real” part of you that transcends the thought-form energy from the past. When you connect to that part, you can uncover and release the roots of the past that limit you.

Einstein said that you can’t solve a problem at the same level of consciousness that created the problem, but you can at a higher level. Your soul isn’t anxious or depressed — and you are that soul more than you are the ego personality that is anxious and depressed — because one part of you lives on, the other doesn’t. In fact, you couldn’t escape that whole, complete part of you if you tried, it just gets covered up with false beliefs from the human experience. Using hypnotherapy, you can connect to and identify with your wiser soul self that is forever anchored in the here and now, and that part of you can help heal your ego-based body/mind self. You then experience what the Buddha meant when he said the thinking mind is the source of all suffering.

Here are some examples: A woman (I’ll call her Linda) came to me recently feeling very depressed. Underneath her depression were feelings and beliefs of shame, unworthiness, and “not good enough” due to growing up with abuse and neglect. These heavy feelings made life feel as if she was trying to run a marathon with armor on. Using hypnotherapy, she envisioned her consciousness moving up above her body, above and beyond the earth, and into Source energy where she melted into it and felt and compared various qualities of Source such as peace, joy, love and security. This can only be done if you’re not in your thinking mind. From this highest dimension of your being, there is a knowing that nothing in the Universe can harm you, and it is a perfect place to heal the ego part of you that feels stuck.

From this high vantage point, feeling connected to Source, Linda looked down at a timeline of her life — specifically above the 2-month old version of herself. I asked, “Should your infant self, like all infants, ideally be made to feel loved, wanted, valued, safe and secure?” “Is your infant self worthy of love?” The truth is yes, all infants are worthy of love, so it became evident to Linda that unworthiness is not inherent to her being. Shame and unworthiness are messages that feel true, but are not, and Linda could see that she picked up these perspectives early on from her parents. Since it didn’t belong to her, she envisioned and actually felt that heavy thought form energy going back to her parents, who in turn passed it down to where they got it from, their parents, and then down through the generations and into a fire pit to be incinerated into Source energy. She then got back the part of her that was lost when took on the feelings of “not good enough”, feeling the sensations of love, empowerment and joy come back to her. She then sent this energy down to her 5-year old self, Jr. High self, and all the other times that she needed it in her life. Four weeks later, Linda emailed me to say that she felt as if a huge weight had been lifted since the session, and that she had propelled far onto her path of growth and healing.

In another example, a man with high anxiety did a past life regression and saw himself as a young Viking whose beloved grandfather was murdered by a group of three men. He was consumed with anger, hatred and revenge, and he died with this rage. These heavy feelings kept a sliver of his soul consciousness stuck around the earth plane, unable to move up into the higher realms after death. We did a soul retrieval and thus healed and re-integrated this lost soul aspect of himself. Six weeks later he reported that since the session he felt much less anxious, and things which would previously cause him much stress and worry no longer affected him.

It is indeed profound and helpful to connect to a higher part of yourself that already is whole and complete, that you can never really escape from, in order to heal the part of you that feels stuck. Then it becomes clear that happiness is actually a perception shift away.