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Do you feel you have lived before? If you think so you are in good
company. Some estimate that over half of the world’s population
believe in reincarnation.
So what does this mean? Literally that you have lived more than
one life. I believe we have had many lifetimes and have experienced
all sorts of circumstances. It is as though this planet provides
a school for our souls to learn and grow and we do this by coming
back into physical form over and over again. Sometimes, if we just
haven’t ‘got it’ we’ll be given a similar
set of circumstances to try again. Indeed there is often a core
theme that can be discovered running through our lifetimes.
In my work as a therapist I have guided many clients into their
past lives. I believe it can be very healing to revisit lives. Often
they provide the key for present life feelings of ‘stuckness’,
being in patterns of difficult relationships, phobias, dealing with
medical problems and mysterious pains or issues that seem to have
no basis in ‘real’ life injury or illness.
Is it important to verify past lives? Well no, I don’t think
so. There have been many studies, particularly with children, to
establish historical evidence for the remembered life, but I don’t
think it is important to prove the facts. Some will say that the
remembered lives are not of the individual, but are taken from the
collective consciousness- an ocean of memory and knowledge we can
dip into. If so, the memories that surface are still of importance
to the individual at that point in their lives. It doesn’t
really matter if they ‘own’ them. Some will claim that
past life memories are just facts stored unconsciously from this
lifetime, or imaginative responses. I don’t believe this -
the emotional responses of clients on the couch are too real in
my opinion. However if this was true there is still therapeutic
value to be gained. Why has the brain provided this particular response
now?
It seems that we do come back into incarnation with at least a
couple of soul group members each time. Sometimes these are past
partners, sometimes friends or family, even our enemies. Often when
we meet a soul group member there will be an uncanny set of circumstances
that throw us together, or you will feel magnetically drawn to each
other. It can be that we are back together to work through unresolved
karma from the past, or to support and love each other. Sometimes
souls will have contracted between life states to test another in
their group. Hence some of our hardest relationships could have
been set up to prove our mettle.
How can you discover your past lives? Keep a record of your dreams.
Often the places we go to in dreams and the people we meet are oddly
familiar, but not from this lifetime. Keep a notebook by your bed
to record them. Notice places you feel drawn to visit. Many lives
will have been in other lands and you may ‘recognise’
them at a deep level or be fascinated by these places. Of course
this makes a nonsense of racism- we have all had skins of different
colours.
The best way to discover your past lives is by visiting a past
life therapist. I suggest this for safety’s sake. Although
you can buy tapes to take you into past lives you need to be aware
that the lives that are often accessed first in a past life regression
are those in which trauma was inflicted. These are the lives that
need healing sent to them most urgently, as they are having an effect
on your current life. They often aren’t great places to be
on your own without skilled support.
Of course past lives aren’t all about traumatic events. I
often end a therapeutic session with a visit to a life in which
some skill or lesson was learned that will be useful to the client
in their current lives; for example knowledge of herb-lore, midwifery,
healing or musical talents will emerge and engage an interest in
the client.
Past lives are a way of re-framing our current life circumstances
and seeing our life lessons in context. We can be much more accepting
of the hand dealt out to us in this life if we approach it from
the angle of ‘What was I meant to learn this time?’
If you'd like a good grounding in the theory behind past life therapy
I can recommend Woolger's classic 'Other Lives, Other Selves'.
©Lauren Lathbury
Lauren is a crystal therapist and Reiki healer. Visit her website
at www.touchstones-therapies.co.uk.
She is also the new age editor for BellaOnline; you can read more
at www.bellaonline.com/site/newage.
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