Past Life Regression

A prayer we used to say at night, when we were young, was ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray to the Lord my soul to take.’  Personally, I think you have a better chance of dying while awake.  What a prayer to ask a child to recite!  Consequently, the last thing I thought of, every night, whilst lying in my childhood bed, was of dying.  I would get distressed thinking that I would have to die one day.  Everyone must.  It terrified me.  All I could imagine was that you were put in a coffin, buried in the ground, I had been to a cemetery after all, and then your body slowly rotted away.  How dreadful.  Not something I was really looking forward to.  Who would?

Between 1988 and 1998 I lost three Grandparents, several uncles, and a younger cousin. Around this time, I found a book on Near Death Experiences, or, NDEs.  It fascinated me.  There were several stories about people from all walks of life who had clinically died but ended up coming back to life.  Almost all the individuals who were interviewed did not want to come back to their life here on Earth, even though they had children and a loving spouse, or parents, if they were young.  The other side was beautiful and peaceful and beyond imagination. They were told, by a being of light, that it wasn’t their time yet, they still had things to do. I was very intrigued by this since this was quite the opposite of my ghastly imagination of death and dying, and what I was taught in the Catholic church.  You know, the whole Heaven and Hell thing and when you died you had to go through a period of Purgatory, to answer for your many sins on Earth.  Only the truly Holy, like Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II, received an express elevator to the Pearly Gates.  On a side note, I had the honor of a private tour of the Vatican while in Rome in 2009, and as I walked past Pope John Paul II’s tomb, I started weeping uncontrollably.  It didn’t occur anywhere else but at his resting spot.  My guide said it happened all the time and not to be embarrassed.  I believe John Paul II was a truly holy man, whom I admired greatly, and I didn’t hold a grudge about his fast track into Heaven.  But, after the debacle of Adam and Eve, no one was perfect, right?  Why should I have to sit in Purgatory for years and years before I was allowed into Heaven?

After I exhausted all resources on NDEs, I consequently came upon books discussing Past Life Regression.  What is this you ask?  A trained Hypnotherapist would put an individual into a meditative state or hypnosis and walk you though steps to reach a past life or multiple past lives.  You are put in a very deep relaxation, but you are aware of your surroundings always.  The Hypnotherapist would guide your journey by asking questions.  Your subconscious mind is free to open and explore different possibilities. This is not like in the movies where you would be made to do crazy things while under hypnosis.  Totally safe and you can open your eyes at any time.

Do you ever wonder about why you drawn to certain people and feel like you have known them before or, if you have experienced déjà vu when you visit a new city or country?    Do you have a natural talent, displayed early, for a musical instrument or languages?  Unexplained phobias?  The answers to these questions and more are revealed during a Past Life Regression. This was a different animal then having to go through an NDE to experience what happens when you die.  This was something anyone could do.  I was very curious to experience it for myself!

Alas, another decade had gone by before I got the nerve to make an appointment with a Hypnotherapist.  Her specialty was a Life Between Lives regression.  What prompted me in 2010, my father was in a health decline and I knew we wouldn’t have him around for much longer.  He would tell me dreams he was having about roller skating down a street and a bus came by loaded up with his parents and his deceased brothers all telling him to get on the bus.  He knew what it meant, and he shouted ‘No!’ and skated away.  I was worried that his time was drawing closer and closer and that one day he would say ‘Ok!’ and get on the bus.    What would he experience when he died?

The first time I tried hypnotherapy was a bust. Nothing happened.  I couldn’t relax enough to be guided through a meditation.  It was a workday evening and I had been stressed all day with meetings, traffic and the upcoming appointment.  My therapist suggested that we try again, but maybe a Saturday morning, early enough that I would still be relaxed from a good night’s rest.  A few days later I was back and ready to give it another try.  It worked.

I will do my best to explain what I experienced during my Past Life Regression, but some things I sensed, or saw, are beyond description.   You start out by doing breathing exercises, deep breaths in and out through your nose, while lying comfortably, out of direct light, with your eyes closed.  The Hypnotherapist will then guide you through a scenario where you walk through a forest or the beach, in my case up a hill to a tree, then, have you sit down and describe what you see before you.  Here is what I saw, as I looked down the hill, with my back against the tree…