Tag Archive for: hypnotherapy

Alternative Ways to Heal Depression and PTSD

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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.

A Fascinating Past Life Account

A Fascinating Past Life Account

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Recently a client sent me a narrative of her past life regression that she wrote as part of a collection of past life experiences that I’m gathering for a book. It was a fascinating session on many levels, so with her permission I’m sharing it here. Since her soul had been an American soldier fighting in Vietnam prior to this life, the information that she obtained in the regression experience was recent enough that it could be verified through research. The session demonstrates many things besides the authenticity of past life memories and our transcendent soul nature: (1) very young children can often be aware of the spiritual realm until they learn to shut it down later in life; (2) souls can travel across the world after death to be with loved ones, and then later be aware of how their loved ones are getting along; (3) souls often incarnate in groups; (4) love transcends time and space; (5) the subtle feelings you receive from your soul are worth listening to; (6) although this physical life may seem like it’s all there is, the lives behind the forms here are involved in another experience in the spiritual dimension, and they can intersect with ours. I’m sure there are others that you may pick up on. I’ll add on a side note that, interestingly, this is one of several cases recently in which a client has reported a huge spike in intuitive abilities that somehow got kicked off after their session. The veil between this physical realm and the spiritual is getting thinner.

Enjoy this fascinating account. It could have been much longer, but has been written in a condensed version.

 

“Throughout high school I had a persistent urging to do a past life regression.  I had read books on the subject but had no idea where to go about finding someone who would be able to do something like this.  I often thought about my career goals and had an inner knowing that I wanted to work in a Medical Examiner’s Office and specifically helping families find answers to why their loved ones had died.  Although I had not personally experienced death, I often dreamed that I was a man floating above my body as it was leaving this earth.  I would wake up crying because I missed my former family so much.  It felt strange but at the same time so real.  It was almost immediate upon enrolling in college with Mortuary Science as my major, that these dreams subsided.  Upon graduating from college, I landed my first job as a funeral director.  Although I wanted to work in a Medical Examiner’s office, at the time it wasn’t something readily available and I had this nagging feeling I wasn’t qualified or skilled enough to meet the requirements.  I worked as a funeral director for approximately one year.  In hindsight I realize that the hostile work environment, while extremely challenging at the time, was in many ways a mixed blessing.  Feeling somewhat downtrodden and dissatisfied, I resigned from that place of employment and which literally empowered me and gave me the necessary time to set about doing a few things on my “bucket list.”

The internet was very resourceful to learn more about past life regression and how to go about making an appointment.  When Eric’s name came up, I had a strong intuitive response and immediately knew he was the person I needed to go visit.  I wasted no time scheduling my appointment.  In a way, I felt like this was just a way to entertain my long-standing curiosity and I would go with an open mind and see where it would take me.  I honestly wondered if perhaps this might be a little over the top but there was no way I was going to miss this opportunity.

On the day of my session, Eric and I discussed my purpose for coming and I expressed that I wanted clarification as to what I should be doing in regard to my career.  We also talked about what a normal session would be like and that if at any time I did not feel comfortable enough to continue he would bring me back to a safe place and I was free to express my concerns.  I quickly settled into a state of relaxation and Eric asked me questions about what was coming to me.  I began seeing static, sort of like that of when you push your fingers into your eyes.  While I was present with that I observed it turning into black and white rushes and forming plant-like shapes.  After what seemed like seconds of this, I began to see green jungle-type trees and a lush array of green plants that appeared to be everywhere.  Suddenly, I sensed myself in chaos, in a jungle, there was fighting.  Eric asked me to look down.  I noticed that I was wearing black combat-type boots, green itchy clothes, and could feel a helmet on my head, and my hand and arm clinging onto a rifle.  I kept turning, watching my back, knowing there was an enemy closing in on me.  My comrades were beside me.  Panic was overtaking me and just then I saw bright flashes of white light from bombing and fire.  Eric sensed my anxiety and gently asked me to let go of that realm and back into a gentler and earlier time in my life.

Before me was a red barn, tall green fields of corn, and a white-washed fence.  Tears flowed down my cheeks and I began crying.  There was a consuming feeling that I did not want to leave my family behind; I did not want to go to war.  As my sobbing increased, I could sense Eric’s concern as he asked me what was my name and about my hometown.  I actually gave him a person’s name and the state I was living in at that time.  He asked me to go back in time even further.  I breathed a sigh of relief and there I was a young boy, perhaps about 10 years old.  I was sitting on a bar stool in what appeared to be an old soda shop from the 1950’s.  My parents were behind me and my three siblings were off to the side playing.  Gazing out the window, I was observing cars from the 1950’s era driving down the street.  This was my childhood and it felt so familiar.

Again, Eric asked me to go forward in time.  I am seeing a pregnant young woman and a 2- or 3-year old boy next to her holding her hand.  I recognized her immediately as my wife, and coincidentally enough, she looks exactly like I do now.  I am feeling an excitement as our second child is soon to be born.  A sadness and tears flow again.  I have a consuming feeling that I don’t want to leave them behind.  Eric senses this and again took me forward in time.

I am at base camp.  I see a large green truck with what looks like a white star on the side.  There are endless small buildings every direction, planes overhead, a landing strip in the middle of the camp, and a tall sniper tower.  I turn around and see men in white jackets behind me and feel surrounded by troops at the camp.  I am walking into a building and there dead bodies scattered endlessly.  Oddly enough, I am not scared.  Eric asked me at this point if I see any combat and then the scene changes.

My vision turns black.  I cannot feel my lower legs, and a prickly sensation vibrates up through my upper legs.  I am walking in something deep like thick mud or quick sand.  My gun is heavy above my head; it is night-time and I am in a heavy swamp.  There’s a comrade on each side of me and we move together as a unit.  We make out a vision of a small boat in the far distance; there are men on it, and they are wearing pointy hats.  I struggled to site in my rifle and was aiming when suddenly I am blacking out.

I have no idea how much time has passed but I am waking up in what seems like a prison.  My hands are tied above my head in a dimly lit room.  There is a man in some sort of cage to my left.  There is also something very significant about him, but I cannot comprehend what it is.   There are many fellow comrades and they are caged and tied up as well.  I see a man in a chair that is tilted back being water boarded and it is by Viet Cong.  A dense and overwhelming sense of doom comes over me and I desperately need to get out of here.  At that point, Eric again sensing my anxiety, suggested moving forward in time.

I am lying on the ground in some sort of field, on my belly, my face sweats of blood and there’s a sensation that my face is smashing in on me.  I feel the uniform that I am wearing.  My strength is draining and I am so weak.  Seconds later my spirit is rising and it is leaving my body.  However, there is still a perpetual sadness.  I am missing my family; I want to be at home.  I resist rising with my spirit and hang on with all the resilience I can muster.  I need to see my family.  I get a vision of me beside our toddler.  He is in a highchair.  He sees me.  He is giggling and waving at me.  My wife and other son are with him.  I am here; how can they not see me.  This contributes to my intense grief.  The baby continues to realize my presence and we have this almost telepathic way of communicating.

My wife goes through a dark period of time after my passing.  Eventually she remarries.  I do not like her new husband.  I see a dark shadow around him as if he were wearing a dark suit and hat all the time.  He seems like some sort of a salesman.  Again, I am pulled into the moment realizing I am crying and that all encompassing sense of missing my family is filling my heart.  I have a knowing that they feel like I ran away and deserted them.  My body has not been found.  At that point, Eric gently guides me to my afterlife and asks me to describe my experience.  I experience a huge shift into the most beautiful, peaceful, and loving place and feel like I am a part of it.  It is beyond words as if being part of a heaven beyond what we are capable of even imagining.

At this point in time, Eric asks me about my family from that lifetime.  I know my sons are still alive and living in the state that I was able to pinpoint earlier.  He asks me about my wife and I see a rural cemetery where she is buried.  The date on the tombstone is 1989, which is after I was born in this current lifetime.  I begin to feel her spirit and a heartfelt elation comes over me.  It almost feels like I am having some sort of outer space experience.  I see her outline as a female with a glowing pure white star where her heart should be.  It feels like we are locked in hug that should go on for eternity.  We belong together in this realm and are reunited at such a soulful level.

Eric asks how she died and she points to her heart.  I have a knowing that she is still in the spirit world and she tells me that she is going to come back to me in another form.  She will be incarnated and born to me as my daughter one day.  She assures me we will be together again.  I feel another male spirit kind of “butting in” and Eric wants me to talk to him.  This spirit looks the same as my wife except for a male outline to his spirit.  He takes me back to the torture scene and shows me that he was the man next to me in the cage.  We had so often talked about going back to Nashville where he was from and that we were going to make it out of this prison together.  Eric asks me if this person had reincarnated and he responded to me that he was for a while but died as a baby.  Eric asks me if I knew him and I answer, “of course, he was our neighbor’s baby that died a month before I was born!”  Our mothers were pregnant together much of the same time.  Eric asks me if he knew he was going to die and he replied “I died of SIDS and I did not necessarily know that was going to happen.  It is okay though because we will meet again in this lifetime when I am born as your son.”

Needless to say, this experience with Eric was deeply profound.  I found so many answers to questions that I earlier could not even be prolific in identifying.  What was deeply moving was the emotional breakthrough into feelings I had never come close to touching.  They were so real and so intense.  My heart experienced a thawing and for the first time ever, I was in touch with who I really am on a deeper level.

I went into this session with Eric wondering about my career goals and came out knowing my life purpose.  I was put on this earth to be the voice of the deceased and give families answers that they need to know or hear in order to begin healing and finding peace in the passing of their loved ones.  I know this especially because of the pain I felt in my family by what they went through not knowing.  I realized that my vision of working in a Medical Examiner’s office is exactly what I needed to pursue.

Not only do I know why I was put on this earth, but I know that I will get to be with my soul mate (my wife from the past life who will be in a precious form which I can love and nourish) as well as my future son and that death is never the end and love really does have an eternal realm.  I have learned how to love and appreciate the people important to me in this life and also how to empathize and have compassion for people in a variety of life circumstances.

I want to end this on a note where I am proud to say that a few months after my session with Eric, I was offered and secured a position at a Medical Examiner’s Office.  I absolutely LOVE my job!  I also have realized my life partner in this realm and we are engaged.  Had I not done a past life regression, I shudder to think that I might still be stuck in a same old previous pattern and going through life half-heartedly coherent enough to know something significant was just under the surface but clueless as to what that might be.  Most importantly is that I have learned what it means to love another person in a spiritually unconditional way regardless of gender, circumstances, and have experienced  how that eternal love transcends time and space.  In miraculous ways this regression session with Eric integrated an unconscious past into a current consciousness where I am much more aware of life on many levels and with this special knowing the past integrates and guides me as I move forward.  With this known confidence, I am able to deal with challenges from a much higher state of consciousness and assist others as circumstances present, not only in everyday life but in my career with the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

An Eloquent Description of Experiences with Past Life

Changing Times

Reading Time: 2 minutes

As the consciousness level of the planet rises, we can see evidence of this not only in the conflicts of the world, but also the fact that most people’s mental and emotional issues are beginning to surface….all for the sake of growth and evolution. Dr. David Schnarch, author of the book Passionate Marriage, puts it in a beautiful way: “Nature has an eloquent way of holding our happiness hostage, and the price for ransom is our own development.”

This shifting of consciousness is a time of re-evaluating past beliefs, old systems of doing things and out-dated modes of operation.  Everything from past authoritarian governments that rule with an iron fist, to our own personal beliefs, is challenged.

One belief to re-evaluate is how we react to uncomfortable emotions. It may seem that life is about avoiding the uncomfortable feelings, situations or emotions that arise. But this strategy back-fires because of the Law of Attraction. Life events happen that will trigger whatever thoughts, feelings and beliefs within you that no longer serve you. So the best way to move past an issue within you is to fully face it, feel it in your body, extract the gift of insight and wisdom that is contained within it, and release what no longer serves you from your body/mind system. This is how you can change yourself from within. It is then that we realize that the subconscious fears that have been governing our lives turn out to be paper tigers of pure imagination, and we can begin to operate in a manner that is freer and easier. The Present Life Emotional Healing session is an effective means to experience this.

Many times, a soul’s greatest work here on earth can be simply summarized as, “Stop believing the false mind programs.” It’s our egoic mind programs that hold us back or make us feel “less than” or not good enough. Probably the best thing about past life regression is that it connects you to the ‘you’ that is free and transcendent of the ego’s negative conditioning. The false programming that you were given doesn’t make any sense from the soul’s viewpoint, so it’s quite a respite to experience your true self without it. The unconscious mind programs that had been governing your life stick out and seem ridiculous. An awakened teacher, Neelam, once said, “First things first. First find out who and what you really are, and then see if your problem still makes any sense.”

Eric-J-Christopher Home3-Present Life Emotional Healing 166 700x400

What is Hypnosis?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

‘Hypnosis’ is perhaps one the most misunderstood words that exists. It is actually the opposite of what most people think, which is often derived from stage hypnotists and movies. The two main myths are: 1) you are not in control; 2) you are not awake and aware. No matter how deep you go in hypnosis, you will be in control and you will always be wide awake and aware. For example, when you are swept up in the drama of a film in a movie theater, you are actually in a fairly deep state of hypnosis. In an engaging movie, you are very focused on the story that is unfolding on the screen to the point that you barely notice the people eating popcorn near you. But of course you’re not asleep…you know that if you wanted, you could get up at anytime and buy popcorn or use the bathroom. The same is true with any form of hypnotherapy – even at the deepest point of the session — if you wanted to, you could open your eyes and declare that you want to use the bathroom, or write something down, etc. It’s just a different level of consciousness that you’re accessing.

Hypnosis is a relaxation of the body and mind, together with a focusing of the mind. A definition of hypnosis is “a bypass of the analytical and critical thinking factor of our minds.” To apply this to the movie example, it’s when we don’t continually tell ourselves during the film: “what’s happening on that screen is not real, it’s only light images from a projection booth, and besides, those people on the screen are only acting, none of this is real, etc…”. If we continually focused on those facts, we could not let go and enjoy the movie. We go into varying states of hypnosis every day, such as when you are driving down a road while being lost in a daydream. Therefore, anyone can and has been hypnotized.

It’s important to know that all hypnosis is really self-hypnosis. I don’t actually hypnotize you – you hypnotize yourself using my suggestions and your imagination. Therefore, you can allow yourself to go into as deep of a hypnotic experience as you want to be, and you’ll always be awake and aware, knowing that you’re in the chair. During the experience, you may hear a car going by, or a dog barking outside, but none of that disturbs you as you continually focus inward.

The power of hypnotherapy is that we can use it to access and change the subconscious thought patterns that govern our lives. When we dream at night, sometimes those dreams are filled with metaphors that mirror the issues that are going on with us, whether we are aware of them or not. Who gives us these dreams? No one else does, yet we don’t consciously give it to ourselves. It comes from an unconscious, very wise part of us. Using hypnotherapy, we can easily access the same part of us that gives us our dreams, yet the difference is that we are awake and aware during the process. It is a very effective tool in healing because we can access and heal the emotional core of our anxieties or any stuck, limiting pattern where the root of the problem lies – the subconscious mind.

With spiritual hypnotherapy we can also access information from other lives that our eternal soul has lived, simply because we cannot separate ourselves from our indestructible soul self which exists outside of time and space. As we quiet our thinking mind and go deep within, we can tune into our “more permanent”, eternal aspect of ourselves.

What is a Past Life Regression?

What Past Life Regression Really Is

Reading Time: 8 minutes

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 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. I personally believe that most of the lives that clients perceive are actual lives their soul has lived, especially if you ask for it. Yet whatever life images you see or perceive is precisely what will help you move forward in some way in your life. 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 helps you connect 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. Most clients experience this sense of expansion 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.