Have you ever felt a strong and inexplicable attraction or repulsion towards a place you have never visited? Have you ever dreamed of being someone else in a different time and place, but it felt very real and had no fantasy elements? Or maybe you have an unfounded phobia that cannot be attributed to any event in this life?
When traditional therapy and Western medicine cannot answer these questions, some people turn to past life regression.
Past life regression is the process of using hypnosis to explore a past life. There is a growing interest in past life regression therapy, as evidenced by the exposure and popularity of authors like Brian Weiss on shows like Oprah.
Curiosity aside, why explore past lives? Poet and philosopher George Santayana stated, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” While most of us generally do not remember all or any of our past lives while awake, we can access those past lives under hypnosis to help us with our current life lessons.
You would think that most people who come for a past life regression want to verify that they were once the King of England or maybe Marilyn Monroe. Honestly, no client has ever come to confirm a famous past life (at least not that I know of!) In fact, I have yet to experience a client regress to a life as a famous person.
From the clients I see, the most common reason people come in for a past life regression is to explore the root cause of a problem that cannot be attributed to any event in the current life. Many people also come to better understand relationships with key people in their lives, such as family members or romantic partners.
In fact, past life regression has several valuable therapeutic purposes. Here is a list excerpted from the book “Past Life Regression: A Guide for Practitioners” by Mary Lee LaBay:
• Cycles of Behavior: Seeing the cycles and patterns of behavior that repeat themselves over many lifetimes provides greater insight into our unique quirks, habits, struggles, fears, choices, hopes, and dreams.
• Physical healing: In many cases, the health problems we experience in this life have roots that extend into other lives. For this reason, past life regression can provide important information for healing physical symptoms.
• Unexplained pain: Unexplained pain and syndromes, chronic pain and illness, birthmarks, and other health-related phenomena often have their roots in other lives.
• Phobias: A regression can also reveal the roots of phobias or other emotional blocks. Sometimes simply being aware of the relevant past life experience will be enough to shift the energy, allowing a breakthrough or healing to occur.
There are many other often unexpected benefits including:
• Overcoming the fear of death. If you experienced death and knew for sure that you are still living, would you still be afraid?
• Stay connected with our loved ones. Experiencing the crossing affirms the continuity of life. One of the hardest things about death is losing the connection and presence of those we love. One of my happiest sessions was with a client who had recently lost a child. Experiencing a past life with this child’s soul and knowing that they will meet again was very healing for this client. There is so much peace and relief to see our loved ones there on the other side and to know that we really haven’t lost them.
• Discover your inner strength. All souls have lived at least a few (usually many) difficult lives. Sometimes we suffer. When you re-experience the previous struggles and realize that you have already survived so much, the current challenges become more bearable. You recognize that “this too shall pass.”
• Tap into your inner wisdom. Even in our current lives, the intensity of a lesson can fade over time. Reviewing past life events can awaken hard-earned but buried wisdom. As you connect and integrate all the pieces of your whole being, you can regain greater energy and awareness.
• Access skills and abilities from the formation of lives. You have transferable abilities from your past life. You do not lose the talents developed or the awareness gained in previous lives. Sometimes these talents can be active at a young age, in which case society might label this child a prodigy or genius. Other times, these abilities may lie dormant and may be activated by reliving past life experiences.
WHAT IS A PAST LIFE REGRESSION SESSION LIKE?
In a typical past life regression session, you will be guided into deep relaxation. The practitioner will help you mentally relax your entire body and then focus inward. There are many methods and images to return to the past life, such as stairs, corridors or tunnels. Generally, you are given a suggestion to return to a life that is relevant to the problems you are currently facing.
He then visits some key experiences in that life, as well as the death scene. After the death scene, you can review what you got from that life and how it can help you in your current life. After the session you will usually remember everything. Some professionals also provide recordings of your session for later review.
OTHER WAYS TO REMEMBER YOUR PAST LIVES
If you don’t have access to a past life regressionist in your area, you can work to discover your past lives yourself with these methods:
• Self-hypnosis: you can record yourself reading a past life regression script and play it back
• Dream: You can direct your consciousness to give you a memory of a past life through your dream. Everything you have ever experienced is stored in your consciousness. Your conscious mind that focuses on the outside world blocks out most of this information while you’re awake so you can focus and function in your daily life. At night the filter of your conscious mind rests while you sleep and you are more receptive to messages from your subconscious and superconscious mind. Simply hold the intention to remember a past life as you fall asleep. Leave a notebook and pen next to your bed and write down your dream first thing in the morning.
• Meditation: Meditation naturally connects with your whole being and facilitates greater awareness. Regular meditation seems to stimulate spontaneous past life recall in some people.