It was 20 A.D., around the time when Jesus walked, and I was a town midwife, attending births and catching babies.

Then, with the snap of her fingers, the scene was gone.

And just like that, it was over—and I was back in my 2015 body, nestled in a cozy chair, in a modern-day room, staring into the eyes of the woman who had guided me through my very first past life regression.

I had come to her seeking answers. Why was I so disillusioned with my current work? I had recently started attending births as a doula, an emotional support for laboring moms. Birth work was a newish career, new to this lifetime at least, and it was mesmerizing, with each birth more magical than the next. Yet I was tired of it after only a few months in, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“Maybe it’s past life hang over…your soul doesn’t want to do this work again in this lifetime because you already lived it.”

Huh. The healer’s words echoed in my head for weeks. Could incorporating an even broader sense of history help me take a leap of faith in my present moment decision-making?

Past life regression therapy offers a glimpse through the veil of space and time to better understand our current circumstances. Whether it’s stagnation in a job or a recurring relationship pattern, past life regression offers illumination and a different way of thinking about the situation. Releasing the fears, anxieties, and pains of the past frees up space to move joyfully into the future.

Whether or not reincarnation is a part of someone’s belief system, we have tons of ways that we informally integrate it into conversations, talking about past “lives” within this lifetime through metaphor. We talk about the person who we were in college compared to who we became after having kids. Or how we acted with previous lovers compared to a current relationship. And we’re all familiar with the romantic cliché of meeting a “soul mate” and it feels like you’ve known him or her for lifetimes, even though you just met.

But for those who do believe in reincarnation, there is even more to it—an opportunity to learn from the past, and to grow across lifetimes.

There is a historical basis for talking about past lives in the field of psychology in the United States. In the 1960s, Dr. Ian Stevenson, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry for University of Virginia School of Medicine, documented the stories of over 2,000 children between the ages of two and seven who had past life memories. Some of the children in his research had birthmarks indicative of where they had been killed in the previous lifetime.

More recently, Dr. Brian Weiss, a prominent Columbia trained psychologist, has continued the work of Dr. Stevenson in his practice after accidentally stumbling upon the past lives of a client. He writes on his experiences in his book Many Lives, Many Masters, detailing his use of hypnosis to help a client, whom he calls Catherine, to heal from agoraphobia.

Miraculously, the memories she uncovered were from other lifetimes, and the more she experienced, the more her pain and struggles in this lifetime subsided. She also experienced the “in-between” lifetimes and saw the immense beauty of the afterlife, during which she channeled in messages about Dr. Weiss and his family, including his deceased son. After receiving the message from his son, Dr. Weiss became an advocate within the psychiatry community for the use of past life regression therapy with clients.

After training in past life regression therapy under Dr. Weiss in 2015, I began to work with clients in my own practice, guiding them through their past lives. I was amazed and humbled by the work. In just one session, past life regression was able to help clients who had previously worked with other therapists, trying to approach their phobias and worries through years of a more conventional approach.

Some of the issues my clients had been unsuccessfully trying to heal weren’t necessarily connected to this lifetime. Often, a fear of the past limits us from experiencing our true personal power in this lifetime.

One of my clients, for example, simply couldn’t move past a block to offering her gifts professionally. She had tons of training as a healer but couldn’t bring herself to set up a practice. After experiencing a past life of being burned at the stake as a witch, she was then able to understand that her past life story didn’t have to be the story for this lifetime. She realized it was safe to practice her gifts and to share them without the fear of persecution. Think how many oracles, seers, healers, and prophets of the past were burned, beaten, and prosecuted, just for thinking outside the box.

For other clients, the past life bleed-through has been much more somatic, creating physical blocks in this lifetime. One of my clients had an extreme aversion to vomiting, unable to even comfort her children when they had stomach issues. A regression uncovered a lifetime of dying from a plague. Considering all of the plagues and epidemics before modern medicine, ordinary symptoms today would have been a death sentence then—an example of past life fear bleeding into present moment, creating a block.

The past holds the key to the future, unlocking the possibility to reclaim peace in your present life. It can liberate you from the judgment that mars our society, opening to a pathway of discernment in our own lives.

Witnessing my past life as a midwife empowered me to continue to use those birth-work gifts, just in a different way. Now in this lifetime, I serve as somewhat of a soul midwife, guiding my clients through the labor and delivery, as they birth the next version of themselves in this lifetime.

Past life regression can be an illuminating and healing experience. It helps to remove the filmy veil of grief, pain, and judgment from a situation and empowers you to create space for healing and truth. The pain of the past does not have to continue to bleed into the present. It can simply offer a gentle message of discernment, giving direction in your current lifetime, and opening the door for deeper compassion for the experiences of others.

George Santayana, a great philosopher, once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We have to understand where we have been to know where we are going. Time is not linear. It is all happening right in this very moment. If you find yourself stuck in cyclical patterns or derailed by a fear, it might be time to dive into previous lifetimes for an answer. Meditate, dream, listen, and find a past life regression therapist.

Let the past rest, unlocking the freedom to experience the peace of the present moment.

~

Relephant:

I don’t believe in Reincarnation. Am I still a Buddhist?

I’ve Discovered Proof of Reincarnation.

~

Author: Cait Klein
Image: Author’s Own
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Copy & Social Editor: Nicole Cameron