From the dawn of civilization, mankind has wondered about his place in the world, the meaning of life and what his purpose is. We might think that these questions can only be pondered by the greatest philosophical or spiritual minds as we become absorbed with the myriad trivialities of our daily routines. These questions, however, are pertinent to everyone because we can develop and appreciate the world more fully when we are purposefully engaged with the deeper aspects of our psyche.
By exploring past life regression through hypnosis, people are given the opportunity to get in touch with the hidden parts of themselves in a safe and carefully monitored way, which doesn't necessarily involve being deeply spiritually aware. Past life regression is suitable for most people, even those who aren't sure whether it's real or not.
Past Life Regression with Hypnosis
Some clients may be interested in past life regression merely from a curiosity point of view and that, in itself, can be extremely enlightening. Several previous clients report that the past life experience has added a new dimension to their lives as they become more aware of their general attitudes and how these may have been formed many hundreds of years ago.
When we achieve clarity from the past we might notice common themes running through different lifetimes. We can become aware of wrong decisions or choices made in the past and how these may be coming around again in this lifetime. Discovering how our actions have affected us previously allows us to be forearmed and gives us the chance to do something different this time. This helps to prevent the karmic wheel from becoming stuck on the same issues lifetime after lifetime.
When we do feel stuck, or have a dilemma that seems impossible to solve, we can often be helped in this way. We have the opportunity to intimately observe what we did previously and what outcomes arose from these decisions. The hypnotherapist can guide us to events or situations that can more accurately bring clarification so that we can experience greater understanding and attain otherwise buried knowledge which may help us make future choices.
Déjà-vu, Soul Groups and Relationships
Déjà-vu is also a common experience, where we feel that we are re-living a moment or have a familiarity with a place or situation that is unfolding in the here and now. These feelings can sometimes be fleeting but always leave us with a strange sense that there is something happening beneath the surface that we just can't seem to reach. It can be argued that these moments come from our past life memories, triggered spontaneously in certain situations.
It can also explain why we may take a strong dislike or feel a strong attraction to someone we have only recently met. We may not know anything about them and yet can't seem to stop those pre-judged feelings from surfacing.
We can explore the theory that we are all connected to a particular soul group that frequently re-incarnates together at the same time. In this way we form relationships over many incarnations. These relationships are not limited — we can be male or female, swapping between these two aspects frequently. Family and friendship roles can also reverse and change. A father in one lifetime, for example, may just as easily be a daughter or a neighbor in another lifetime.
Relationships change in this way to give us a chance to explore and learn from all aspects of our interactions. Perhaps we can also find more forgiveness and acceptance of other people when we consider we may have agreed on certain conditions of our relationships at a time before birth. Hypnosis can help us to explore and understand these relationships in greater detail.
Unexplained Pain and Phobias
Chronic unexplained pain or phobias may also be explained by our previous experiences. Perhaps that recurrent pain between the shoulder blades was a mortal blow from a club or a stab wound? Maybe the deep fear of water in this life began due to drowning at sea hundreds of years ago? Our histories may be fascinating and engaging.
What to Expect During a Session
The actual process of past life regression involves the hypnotherapist creating a trance state in the client. Interestingly, this level of trance is not required to be extremely deep because the client is required to be aware enough to actively report back their experiences for later discussion and analysis.
It's usual for the hypnotherapist to initially regress a client through some stages of their current life, going back in time and accessing more recent memories before engaging in a previous life experience. This gently engages the mind in the process and activates the subconscious for deeper exploration.
There may be particular areas that a client wishes to explore and if this is the case, this will be discussed fully prior to the hypnosis taking place. Otherwise, the first past life encountered usually arises because the client can learn from that incarnation.
Unfortunately, most past lives are likely to have been quite ordinary. We may secretly wish we were Joan of Arc, Cleopatra or even Elvis but this is very rarely the case.
Society and life has changed considerably since the first humans inhabited the earth. Clients need to consider and be prepared for anything — life may have been brutal, we may have met a grisly end or, indeed, been the perpetrator of many crimes. We need to work with all aspects of ourselves in a way that protects us, with the understanding that we are not the same character now as then.
Some clients will experience the regression in a disassociated way, similar to being absorbed in a good book — the characters come to life and we can follow the storylines as they unfold, while still being aware of the present moment. From this distance we can talk about and identify the characters and what role they played in our life at that time.
Other clients may become associated, where they feel physically present in a totally immersed way, seeing out of the eyes of that past life and experiencing everything quite acutely.
There is no right or wrong way and further discussion about this will be given during a session. One of the most important aspects is just to be able to let go and allow the mind to journey, even if it feels a little unreal to start with. Once we accept that we are opening to an extra-special experience then details and emotions can flow with ever-increasing ease.