“If you don’t make peace with your past it will keep showing up in your present.” ~ Wayne Dyer
Past life regression (PLR) is a healing technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations. The core practice of past life is about traveling through various planes while in the physical body.
In a hypnotic state, where through progressive relaxation, the practitioner transcends the boundaries of the physical world and enters his own subconscious mind and experiences various incidents from past lives.
Eric J. Christopher in his research paper – Exploring The Effectiveness of Past-Life Therapy – mentioned that people who have experienced this state describe it as “Powerful, dramatic, spiritual, sacred, profound, transforming and exceptionally effective.”
During my past life regression, I laid there with my eyes closed to this reality, but experienced a whole new world of different realities. An Arabic girl, an old woman, a cruel African villager who was head of the clan, an old man carrying people’s luggage in deserts, an Egyptian lady in the kingdom, a young carefree girl, I saw myself life after life, meandering through various planes in different sessions only to come back with information that transformed my life.
Past life regression therapy acted as a blessing, I now see my past troubles as a response to my actions and freed myself of the burdens I carried for years. Also it brought about mental peace, release from victim attitude and experienced a heightened state of intuitive awareness.
How Past Life Regression works
Based solely on the belief of reincarnation, PLR takes the practitioner back to the source where it all started. In order to initiate the process the therapist with the help of progressive relaxation techniques calms the whole body and enhances our connection to the subconscious mind with focused awareness.
It is then upon the practitioner to pick up what comes to him/her and witness it like it is happening right now.
Christopher mentioned, “One way PLT commonly works is that the therapist may simply ask a client to go back to the source of his or her problem. If in a deep enough trance, the client may likely begin to envision himself or herself (in either gender) in a vivid past-life scene that relates to his or her present problem. The image is often so clear, lifelike and vivid that the client feels as though he or she is actually reliving the scene, and may express the appropriate emotions as if it were so.”
A cathartic process, although science finds it difficult to explain the real reason behind it and often the issue becomes a matter of debate among people who don’t believe in its healing power, but only those who experience the regression but only those who experience the regression can talk on the truth of the matter.
Apart from hypnosis, suggestion techniques are also used by the therapist, which allows the practitioner to recall the incidents of the past. Also, bridging technique is used where the incidents or problems of the present lives are used to form a bridge to the past life memories so that they can be brought to conscious awareness for helping the patient.
Signs of having a past life
While all of us whether we believe in the concept or not are enticed by the efficiency of it by testing it. But the soul world works on the principle of what is the age of your soul, which translates into how many lifetimes have you had.
Once, in a group PLR session, we were asked what was the purpose of our life? If everything else was constant & could not hinder, what will we like to do with our lives.
Some said, I want a big house, some said fame, some said to help people, money etc. Based on our answers we were told whether we are an old soul or a new one. Those with desires pertaining to material world were considered new souls, who were still learning, while others with deeper aspirations were the older ones, gradually overcoming the material desires.
Here are some of the signs you have had past lives
- Any kind of phobia or fear, for instance, fear of heights, confined places, darkness, water etc. usually relates to a situation in the past that has led to the fear. If you did not experience anything in this life related to your fear, but you remember having it from your childhood days, it is most likely one of your past life incidents as the point of origin.
- The feeling of Déjà vu is yet another indication that you have had past lives. Some of us have déjà vu more than others and this could be because we have many old lifetimes to relate to. Dr. Brian Weiss, author of Many Master Many Lives said, “one of the most common signs of a past life is déjà vu—the sensation that you have met a person before or have visited someplace previously. Sometimes, this déjà vu feeling is a sign of a past life with a particular person or in a specific place.”
- The feeling of experiencing dreams likes true incidents, where every detail of the situation is crystal clear. We travel across time and space when we sleep and usually encounter incidences from our past lives.
- A certain pull or push from places/situations/people/subjects/jobs etc. without any real reason occurs when we have our previous lifetimes’ memories at work. Many of us are born with certain talents, attractions or tastes while our current family backgrounds do not match with these talents or skills, and this is again a sign.
- PLR often addresses the issues of being attached to certain people or a person. Dr. Brian Weiss insists that we all have soul groups traveling together in different lifetimes, coming into each others’ lives for lessons, help, guidance, love etc. Soul Mates, Soul Family, Karmic Teacher etc. falls in this category. Relationships between two or more souls may vary in different lifetimes, but are there to resolve or create karmic patterns to reach the ultimate goal of nirvana.
Benefits of Past Life Regression
I had many questions in my mind when I visited my therapist. With the past life regression therapy, I could resolve issues and know the reasons for the circumstances I was facing in my life. In one of my sessions, I visited a life where my friend cursed me for letting the lion shred her to pieces and not helping her when I could have.
The curse traveled with me, acting as an obstacle in my life. When we got closer, the curse turned into signs (crescent-shaped moon) and was printed on my whole body. We lifted the curse and replaced the symbol with unconditional love that made me feel whole and complete.
“PLT has been described as a method that can offer a glimpse of the mind’s enormous capabilities in a variety of ways. This mode of treatment has demonstrated that beneath the levels of consciousness within individuals lies profound wisdom, astonishing abilities, and above all, the power to heal oneself and/or empower one to improve life circumstances.” (Hickman, 1983).
Regression is considered to be a good exercise as it allows us to re-energize ourselves and also go into deep meditative states. Accessing deeper levels of consciousness helps us to understand the power that lies within us and gain self-confidence.
Fear and phobias can be overcome in just one or two sessions and many of us get answers to life problems, leading to catharsis and eventually a stress free life.
Doubts and skepticism about the therapy still prevail. While some might find themselves arguing that it is a figment of imagination others like Dr. Brian Weiss said, “When symptoms disappear, that’s usually not from imagination or something like that. It’s usually from the real memory, the experience. Imagination doesn’t cure symptoms.” Experiencing it yourself is the only way to be certain.
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Past life regression
Past life
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