Tag Archive for: spiritual hypnotherapy

Overcoming the Deep Grip of Shame

Reading Time: 5 minutes

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!

Becoming Who We Already Are

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In a recent Edge Magazine, their theme of the month was “How to Awaken to Our Divinity”. Below is the article I wrote that offers a practical approach that many have found helpful. Please enjoy!

“We are on a journey to become what we already are.” These are the words of the modern and local sage, Leonard Jacobson. Another modern sage, Adyashanti, put it another way: “Enlightenment is really just a radical shift in identity.”

We are multi-dimensional beings. We are souls that use and identify as specific bodies. As souls, we all come from the same energy source. At the highest level of our being, there is only Oneness. Hence the teaching of sages is non-dualism.

Those who have spiritually awakened know at the core of their being, without any doubt, that the consciousness that animates them is the same consciousness that animates you, or a cat or a tree. They identify with that consciousness more than they identify with their bodies and the ego mind chatter that goes with it.

The tricky part, however, is that this Truth can only be realized and known without the analytical thinking mind. It is an experience, a knowing that comes only in the present moment when there is a gap between the incessant chatter of the thinking mind, and/or you are identified as the calm, still observer of your thoughts.

The thinking mind is the tool that we as humans use to function in our present reality, but it also keeps us identified with our body. Although our thinking mind is very helpful to live this earth life, it does nothing but hold us back if we decide we want to discover the truth of who we are. That is why people use meditation to quiet the thinking mind. Many health benefits have been measured by quieting the thinking mind….what the Buddha called the source of our suffering.

When you are fully present with a flower, a sunset, a lover, a latte, a pet…there is nothing wrong in that moment. Only when the mind pulls you into the past or the future with worries and concerns, or arguments about how the moment should be different than what it already is, only then is suffering generated. Thus another modern Australian sage nicknamed Sailor Bob said, “What’s wrong with this moment, unless you think about it?”

Yet another present day sage, Byron Katie, says when you go to war with “what is”, you’ll lose every time. If things should be different than what they are, they already would be. This doesn’t mean we can’t change the world or our lives for the better, but change it while anchored in the peace and love of Oneness consciousness, or Christ consciousness, and you’ll notice much more effective results.

Not many people realize that hypnosis can be used as a short-cut to enter a profound state of meditation to quiet the thinking mind, and thus anchor yourself deeply in the present moment. Applying hypnosis to go on an inner spiritual journey, such as with past life regression and life-between-lives, is probably the fastest, most effective way for the average person to tune into and identify with the higher dimensions of themselves, partly because it cannot happen unless you are deeply anchored in the present moment and the brain wave activity has slowed down from beta to alpha and then theta and even delta.

In past life regression, once the thinking mind is quiet, you consciously dis-identify from your present body/mind system and assume a different body/mind…one that drops into you only in the present moment from your subconscious mind. You are shown a life that could be either challenging, amazing, or boring, but it will automatically by default be something that can help you grow and evolve as a soul either by healing an unresolved trauma or by learning and applying wisdom gained from the past life experience.

Eventually the past life comes to an end and you identify with your soul. Thus you are no longer identified with neither your present nor past life self in that moment, but rather the soul consciousness that animates all the lives you’ve lived. During a Life-Between-Lives spiritual journey, you go deeper into the spirit realm, deeper into the present moment and deeper into a higher dimension of yourself…all of these are synonymous.

It is no wonder that as people go further and deeper on their soul’s journey during a Life-Between-Lives session, they feel lighter, freer, and no longer separate from the joy, peace, love and security that the ego personality has long been seeking outside of itself. And as they keep going, they inevitably feel a sense of  “home”,and a stronger interconnection with life. “Home” is a place deep within themselves. No incessant mind chatter is noticed…that part of you becomes silent when tuned into the higher dimensions. In fact, it feels as if it would take effort to apply the thinking mind. All information drops into you as a download of combined thoughts, feelings and senses in the moment.

If you want to experience who you really are, try going on a deep inner journey within yourself to re-identify with the higher aspects of your being. After all, you couldn’t separate yourself from that part of you if you tried…it simply gets covered up in this human experience.    

An Eloquent Description of Experiences with Past Life

An Eloquent Description of Past Life Regression

Reading Time: 4 minutesRecently a client shared with me her narrative of her past life regression experience. I am sharing it with you because it such an articulate description of how past life regression can work. Describing your experience can be quite a challenge. One of the first things people notice after a session is the lack of words there are to describe the experience. There is a reason for this…words and language belong to the thinking mind in this physical dimension, and the entire past life regression experience can only be done when this conscious thinking mind is a silent, uninvolved witness. Therefore, information drops into you as a “download” of intuitive inner knowings and feelings along with some visual impressions, like a strong intuitive hunch. Words can only describe the tip of the iceberg of your experience. In fact, describing what is happening during your regression can feel a lot like multi-tasking. But the most important part is that as the conscious thinking mind gives up control of the process, an entirely new information flow is accessible….the same information flow that might give you a strong intuitive knowing about something. And it gives you precisely what will be of most benefit to you, even if you cannot fully articulate beforehand what that is. This narrative provides an example of this. Enjoy!

Past Life Regression

As a preacher’s kid, and pretty mainstream thinker all my life, I was surprised at 49 to discover a new fascination with the concept of reincarnation and past-lives. I was experiencing some pretty major changes in my life and was not handling them gracefully, so I decided to see if a past life regression would help.  I seriously didn’t expect it to be life changing, and before the appointment, prepared myself to walk away believing that in fact it was a hoax.  I could not have been more wrong.

I did three regressions and a life between lives session over the course of a year, and as time went on, I began to see patterns.  While I generally had specific things I wanted to know, the most valuable insights I received had nothing to do with my questions, but everything to do with what was deep in my heart.  The questions I didn’t know how to ask became the topic of the story.

There were many similarities between the different lives that I found are also themes in my current life.  In three of the four lives, there was a big kitchen table that kept showing up, and significant things kept happening around it.  Even today, I love to cook and feed people. That same big table sits in the center of our home, and life still happens around it.  My current husband was also my husband in two of my lives, and my current sister was my wife in one.  In all the lives, I lived in rural areas, and spent a lot of time outdoors, often gardening, which is also true in this life.

I expected that if this whole past lives thing turned out to be legit, I would find some kind of dramatic wisdom, but in fact, most of the wisdom had an elegant simplicity to it.  In one life, there was an epidemic of some kind in our village, and we had to move.  The major scene in that life was the conflict between my husband and me as we dealt with my fear of change.  By the end of the life, we had happily settled in a new place and raised our family, and I died very happy.  The lesson?  Change is ok.  Relax and go with it.  That lesson is not an earthshaking revelation, but at that moment in time, in this life, accepting change was exactly what I was struggling with, and had been unable to see clearly through my fear.  Experiencing the regression and seeing myself successfully navigate a similar situation allowed me to handle the changes that were occurring in this life.  I found a peace that had been out of my reach before the regression.

The regression that had the greatest impact on me was a life where I was a man who was unable to connect with people.  Because of my self-imposed isolation, when I needed my community to help me save my land, they were not there for me. I lost everything, became a bitter mean man, and finally died alone and depressed. To those around me, I looked like a cranky old man, but inside, I was lonely and in pain, with no clue what was causing it or how to ease the pain.  The heaviness of the depression I felt in the latter part of that life was something I will never forget.

Initially I thought the lesson was about the value of connecting with people and learning to work in teams, which I still believe it was, but there was more.  In the weeks following the regression, another theme also began to emerge.  Visiting that life enlarged my understanding of what compassion really is, beyond sympathy for the poor and downtrodden.  Since the regression, when negative behavior is directed at me, instead of feeling attacked, I see pain and fear.  Having lived that pain, I have a different perspective, and tend to feel compassion rather than anger and resentment.  I can’t change people’s behavior, but I can change my own, and find a healthier and more compassionate way to respond.  It has made a huge difference in how I work with people!

By far the most comforting result of these regressions is that I have lost my fear of dying.  Do I want to die now?  No.  But I have experienced death four times, and I can confidently say that it is not the end; it is just the beginning of another season in the eternal life of my soul.  Death, from the soul’s perspective, is neither difficult nor the end, and the place we return to, whatever you choose to call it, is a place of love.

What is a Past Life Regression?

What Past Life Regression Really Is

Reading Time: 8 minutesTo 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 23 years of guiding over 4,000 clients through past life regression, I want to articulate how the process unfolds.

We are multi-dimensional. 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. Or go to youtube and type in “Children Who Remember Past Lives.” 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 a higher version of ‘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? As we tune more deeply into our soul self, we become 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, their soul, 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. The reason for this was simply put by one of my client’s spirit guides: “Just as the body’s instinct is to breathe, the soul’s instinct is to grow and evolve.” Thus, you tend to see what will be most beneficial for your growth as a person and as a soul, and problems tend to dissolve into solutions when viewed from the vantage point of our higher spiritual Self.