know why she had always felt so responsible for her sister and had a compulsion to rush to her side whenever she was unwell. As a young child, this had caused her great anguish when she was sent away to school on the other side of the world. As an adult of mature years, it created many inconvenient situations, continually disrupting her life. In the regression, she was a happy healthy child, with an invalid sister. It was her duty to stay with her sister, she was told, whenever she wanted to go out to play. Indeed, her sister would beg: “Don’t leave me, promise me you will always be here.” She was, not just in that life but in the present one too. Recognizing that fact allowed her to detach from the old, no longer applicable, promise.
The result of such an experience may not always be dramatic, but it can be. It may not always have physical repercussions, but it often does. The effect of a past life can be emotionally crippling. It may also explain a great deal about present life relationships.
My first solo regression was instigated by someone saying to a friend of mine: “I see you dressed as a nun.” His method of regressing people was to ‘tune in’ to their past lives himself, and tell them what he saw. The person was then supposed to join in. It triggered a ‘flashback’ in her, but one she strenuously tried to block out. She immediately began to shake her head emphatically and to make a most distressed noise. Tears poured down her cheeks. As the ‘regressor’ was not looking at her, he did not at first notice what was happening. When he did, he simply said: “Oh, don’t want to do it? Ok, I’ll go” and did, leaving me with a woman still deeply distressed and violently shaking her head. The noise had risen to a crescendo and she was wringing her hands. Clearly something had to be done.
I took her through a difficult incarnation as a nun, one with no physical comfort at all and little spiritual sustenance. She had, apparently, been put into the convent to stop her marrying her great love, and she missed him every moment of her life. To her, love was something set aside and sacred. It had nothing to do with physical life. The regression was graphic: she had body lice and scratched at them continuously. Her clothes were heavy and uncomfortable and she pulled fitfully at them. Her hands and knees were raw from kneeling and scrubbing floors. On the rare occasion she took a bath, it was in cold water in her linen shift. She never saw herself naked. The body was anathema. Her hair had been hacked off by the mistress of the novices, and her scalp never healed properly. Interestingly enough, she commented: “And she bloody well did it in this life too.” I had to return to that comment later as I felt it had great bearing on her life now.
The only way out of that life was to take her forward through death, but she was still wearing the robes in the between life state. She took them off and burnt them. She pictured having a bath to clear the lice and fleas. We grew her hair and used lotions on her skin. She dressed herself in silken clothes. Eventually she burnt the convent down, but she kept the chapel as she had found what little sustenance and comfort she had there. All the time her language grew stronger and bluer and she was not a person who ever swore. Indeed, in her present life she prided herself on never having lost control of herself, “in anger or in passion”. Burning down the convent seemed to be a release for great feeling, of deep anger that had lain beneath the surface all through her present life.
I asked her about the ‘she did it in this life too’ comment. She explained that, as a 15 year old, she had gone out with a boy against her mother’s wishes. Her enraged mother hacked off her waist-length blonde hair with shears, cutting into her scalp as she did so. Her mother, whom she hated in her present life, had been the mistress of novices in that past life. Her great love then was her great love now. But she had not married him. Her mother had broken up the relationship. However, they had continued to see each other every week for over forty years as they were “deeply in love”. The dichotomy between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ love was strong in her. Her distaste for the body and ‘things of the flesh’ all too apparent. She had married someone merely to have children. When she had a child, the sex stopped and eventually the marriage broke down. She had never had sexual intercourse with the man she ‘loved’. She said she did not know what it was to ‘make love’. Her emotional life was frozen back in that previous life. Her difficult relationship with her mother certainly seemed to be a reflection of just how much she had hated that mistress of the novices. These were just some of the many correlations between that life and the present. Much reframing and releasing needed to be done.
THE BETWEEN LIFE STATE
A state of non-physical being to which souls pass after death. It may be a bright light, a place, a colour or energy. Cultural and religious expectations influence the experience. People see what they expect to see: heaven, hell, paradise, Valhalla, or whatever. Conscious awareness and memory is retained and expanded here and an overview of all lives is possible, forwards or backwards. In some levels of the between life state, the soul may appear to be housed within a body, while in others it is non-corporeal. Healing and reframing can easily be carried out here and the effect carried forward into the present life.
REFRAMING
To reframe a past life experience involves changing the ‘life script’. It may entail a change of scenario, replaying it with a different outcome. It may need to be seen from a different perspective. Changing the past in this way changes the present life experience.
That that ‘regression’ was precipitated by someone else and not carried through illustrates one of the pitfalls. Not everyone is prepared, or able, to deal with something that traumatic. They may activate it but not know how to handle it. I was fortunate in that I, as well as having a natural affinity with the work, had been in training with an expert who had over forty year’s experience, and so I was able to pick up the pieces.
But!! It is difficult to ensure that all past life therapists are knowledgeable, experienced and properly trained. There are some gifted amateurs who simply fell into the work and found it came naturally, as I did. But most of us supplement that natural ability with other training. Many therapists come into past life therapy via other disciplines such as psychotherapy or hypnosis. But even then, extensive experience in the specific work of past life therapy is essential if the therapist is to be able to deal with everything that arises. Some hypnotherapists do not believe in past lives, and if they trigger one, they will not work with it.
There are several approaches. Techniques differ. The number of sessions required will vary. The approach you seek will depend on whether you simply want to explore other lives, or to deal with deep-seated problems. Some therapists merely re-run the past life. Others work at reframing and healing the root cause, utilizing a variety of therapeutic options. Which one will suit you depends on your reasons for seeking therapy in the first place.
Whatever your reason, prospective users of past life therapy should seek knowledgeable guidance and a reputable therapist. Personal recommendation is always a good start, but the right therapist for you is still very much an individual matter. Do not be afraid to ask questions before you book a session, or to go for an exploratory chat before a regression. You need to feel safe and well cared for by an experienced and empathetic professional. Such people do exist. This book will show you what to look out for, and your life may well change for the better as a result of meeting such a person.
CHAPTER 1
Past life therapy is an holistic therapy, that is to say it works on the body, mind, emotions and spirit. It takes you back to before your birth, regresses you to another lifetime, to sort out difficulties you may be experiencing in the present. The reason for undertaking past life therapy is to improve your life, now. Its object is to make life easier, better and more fulfilling, in this present moment.
REGRESSION
To re-experience or relive a former life as though it were happening now.
Past life therapy is based on the principle of cause and effect (also known as karma). What has been set in motion at some time in the past creates an effect