Well, I have to admit, an episode of Oprah where the author of Many Lives was guest led me down the path of exploring this past lives thing. I mean he is a Yale-trained psychologist and they had a woman who was regressed by him saying that she used to never want to leave the house with her daughter because she felt unsafe and that in her past life, she had been a woman who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and was abandoned by her family and left to die in the wilderness. When she relayed this story, this shadowy picture popped up in my mind of this woman in the wilderness.
So I chose a therapist who advertises all the time in the Creating Community magazine they have outside of Whole Foods. I went on her website and saw that she had authored a book about past lives as well as had been interviewed on national networks. So when I finally went to the appointment, this shadowy image I had in my mind of the woman in the wilderness is what we went with.
Backtracking for a sec: At the appointment, she said that regression is a little like using your imagination. I mean she has been interviewed by Oprah and Dateline so this coming from her was a little dissapointing. I was like, "so I'm paying $300 to use my imagination?" But I have to say, after the whole thing, I have a whole new take on imagination. She had me try to become as relaxed and as still as possible, just like meditating, and then we used a trigger situation in my present life, one where I had a really strong emotional reaction. We chose a night when I was alone with my two kids and DH was out working. They both woke up in the middle of the night at the same time and I had this though "I can't take care of them both" and I nearly had a panick attack right there in her office as I was remembering this. She said OK, use that fear right there and tell me where you felt that in a previous life. So this is where it gets very subjective. I've read sections of Many Lives Many Masters where the patients where so deep under hypnosis, they saw vividly right away a past life. I don't think I was that deep under hypnosis as I have a lot of trouble quieting my mind. Most of my awareness was still very centered on being in that room on the therapist's couch. I said to her, I just keep seeing the same image I saw when I watched that TV show about past lives. This is where she told me to "use my imagination". OK, I went along with it. I don't know if the details of what I "imagined" will be interesting to anyone. To cut to the chase, she asked me after a while, so what significance does this story have to you, what insight have you gained, and all of a sudden, I told her, this story showes me that subconcsiously, I don't want to be a strong person, because strong people out-survive everyone and are left to fend for themselves after all their loved ones have died. And that phrase, or something like that has been on my mind ever since. So I could have just totally discounted this whole session as a total waste of time since she told me to just use my imagination, but how then do I explain that just making something up off the top of my head has so much significance to me?
I've got more to say about this but I've only got a few minutes on the computer everynight after dinner.
when I was 17.
One way or another it gives a new definition to my outlook on spirituality, and makes sense to me on many levels.
