posted September 07, 2012 06:25 PM            

"I also think about dying, the possibility of screwing up the process of going through with it (and being stuck with the fall-out - that goes for family, too). And I think about how good my life is when it's going well, that I have a roof over my head, my parents are still alive, I'm still sort of young, and I worry that going through with it will put me into a worse life experience the next time, rather than a better one.

I've been obsessed with past-life stuff over the past few years, but have barely had anything from a regression - other than the impressions I got from one via CD, seven years ago, but that feels almost like a dream. I had the impression that I was a young, blonde dancer, living in a one-room flat. My blonde hair curled a bit, and those curls fell a bit above the shoulder - and I was drowned by a man I was having an affair with, I think because I'd told the wife (or done something that displeased him). The bath tub was in the same room. that was the image I saw, and I find it fascinating that I am really against cheating, as I am now, I'm disgusted by it. It could be nothing, but it felt like something, and it's the most I've had from any regression - so would I go into my next life with these same thoughts and feelings, but maybe with less loving parents? in order to give me new choices. We assume that if there is a next life, it has to be better than this one (when we're stressed to the extreme), but from everything I've read, we keep getting thrown into it until we get it right.

I just wish I could scrub my brain clean. Fear and a lack of acceptance over certain things, are my biggest issues now, aside from one family member trying to tear me down."

Continual loss has also had me down - leaving me with a "What's the point?' feeling. I get it now. I want a do-over.

posted September 08, 2012 07:54 AM            

quote:

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We assume that if there is a next life, it has to be better than this one (when we're stressed to the extreme), but from everything I've read, we keep getting thrown into it until we get it right.

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From my own experience I feel this is partly true, while the same patterns of life can persist... the novelty of the situation often changes and becomes easier to deal with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect

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The novelty effect, in context of psychology, is the tendency for an individual to have the strongest stress response the first time that individual is faced with a potentially threatening experience. Over time, as the novelty wears off, the stress response decreases.

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Basically, the more you confront such situations in your life(s) the easier those things are to deal with. However I dont agree that killing oneself and looking for a fresh start works. The level of novelty will not really change in that regard... (Ive done such myself in other lives lol)

Its not a case of the universe simply handing out/punishment karma like candy, It is in my experience almost the complete opposite. It appears to be a self correcting system, that favors nurture over an irrational need to inflict harm upon itself. Ofc as a soul with free will, a person can choose to be as irrational as they desire.

As regards your past-life regression, it sounds like a plausible experience, and how you relate it to your disgust over cheating in this life, is a common sort of viewpoint-180 that can often occur from one life to the next.

I have a few questions about the regression if you dont mind:

Did you see the blond woman's face, and if so how? What perspective?

Do any of the people from the regression experience, look like in appearance, and or feel similar to people in your current life?

posted September 08, 2012 02:44 PM            

I haven't had the experience of recognizing someone in a regression - I rarely receive anything, but this flurry of images was just 'there', you know? I would love to have something more in-depth happen, but I tried with two different hypnotherapists, and still barely got anywhere. I don't know if I'm trying too hard (because I want answers), or if I am not allowed to see anything else. When I had a few stronger experiences - like one of my first test runs with the CD, in 2004, when asked where I was, I had Babylonia pop into my head - I was so surprised that I was almost jolted out of the relaxation, and didn't get anything more.

When I had a regression two years ago, I was hoping to find out why someone had been in my life, and what the point was, everything that had just happened - if it was planned, or if it was the result of poor choices, where more than one thing could have happened (and the painful route was taken).

posted September 08, 2012 03:57 PM            

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A supposed-psychic/angel healer, told my mother that I had been gassed in Germany, in another life. It could be true - I know my mother has a strong attraction to something related to the Jewish people, so we could have been together - I would love to know.

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Be careful what you wish for, I cant imagine the memory of the horror of being in a nazi death camp to be pleasant...

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I keep reading about these people having wonderful regressions, that heal them and improve their lives substantially, but I wonder how many people barely get anything from it.

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I haven't had one myself, a contrived past-life regression that is. Im in two minds about there usefulness. On the one hand they are in a sort of bastardized way, taking the place/fulfilling the role of traditional shamanic practices, and ministerial practices like such in Tibet and else where...

Such are usually life long practices with varying levels of initiation and mind preparation, I just don't see that being the case in most new-agey examples of past-life regression therapy... at least on the part of the person going for such works

Its just abit too cookie-cutter for my tastes... I'm not saying it doesnt work as a means to remember past-lives etc, I guess it works for some people. Perhaps if its not working for you, that in of itself may be a sign to leave well enough alone -Shrugs-

If you want to learn more by yourself in your own way, a good place to start is as you seem to have been doing, is just physically researching the phenomena, in both a literary sense, and talking to others who have had such experience.

The more you open yourself up the possibility of past-lives being a reality, the more that reality will insert itself into your own life, and thus draw such experiences to you.

Also a really useful tool is practicing OBE techniques, as this further reinforces the idea that the mind can be separated from the body, and that such allows consciousness to exists after death. A personal revelation like that when you experience it, can have a profound effect on your ability to further draw past-life experiences into your life...

If you really want to remember, its a process not an overnight affair, it can take several years if not decades... One piece of advice is that once you unlock the gate and look at your first life available to you, the rest often come thick and fast and almost always trigger the patterns associated with them in your own current life...

Its a blessing and a curse to put it mildly

posted September 09, 2012 07:00 PM            

Your story about the sense of having been drowned sounds as valid as any...especially if you can so easily connect it to a current-day belief you have that is not explainable, that was not "taught" to you in this life through any particular experience. That is really how I prodded a lot of mine out of my own subconscious--by wondering why I was having such a strong reaction (to a particular person, or a particular value, etc.), that seemed to have no basis in this lifetime.

I'm assuming you are referencing suicide, there. Certainly, many of us seeking answers in life feel such "suicide pangs," as I call them...as we ask "why? why? why?" about our lives, and why we are the way we are. I was quite depressed, in my college years, and through my 20's. I wouldn't go back to that time in my life if you paid me to (unless I had the self-knowledge I do now!) ...I felt I could not kill myself, though, as I had a sense that I had done that in the past in some way. The feeling I had was that I would hurt a lot of people who cared about me, as you said. I also felt I was in a mental asylum for a good chunk of a recent lifetime. ...The average person won't understand your depression, nevermind understand looking into past lives.

Teasel, I know it is hard. It took several years for me to fully emerge from the darkness of that time. A lot of work on myself. Realizing that we carry so much unconscious baggage due to past lives is so incredibly helpful. There are always answers to why you are the way you are, or why your life is how it is--and so many of them are founded in the past! You will know the truth of this when you get capable at tapping into your own. Every new insight I have after sensing a past life is so satisfying, as it instantaneously clarifies a certain obstacle in my current life and explains why I can't seem to get where I want to go. You'll be amazed at the themes you can uncover, ways of behaving and reacting that you've had, over and over across lifetimes.

I agree with Lei Kuei, just from my own experience, that it has taken years of work...and one's inner work of course is never done. I started with ordinary "self-help" books, and discovered astrology and my natal chart. I just kept seeking answers, and was led from one thing to another...books, seminars...finding bits of the answers and self-growth I needed at the time. I tried basic meditations to calm my mind, moving on to a more formal system. I started tapping into apparent past lives in my late twenties...and I'm 40 now. I also tried to get "professional" past-life help, a few times over the years, in my impatience for answers...but it just wasn't time. ...I continued to get answers on my own, just as you are. ...But it takes some time to gather--and process--all the puzzle pieces of your soul's journey! Layer after layer after layer. You think you've finally got yourself all figured out---and then there's more!

This inner work you are doing is valid, is valuable, even if society doesn't yet understand it...even if your parents wouldn't understand that this is how you spend a good portion of your time. This kind of healing at an energetic level is apparently what you need right now. I agree with Lei Kuei...Soon, judging at how committed you are to finding answers, something will kick in and you will start to tap into the answers you seek...and along the way we find answers to questions we didn't know we had.

There is an ebb and flow. Some lifetimes are spent in great outer manifestation, and some more introspectively. As well, within each lifetime, some periods are more about outer achievements, and some are more reflective and internal, filled with circuitous routes toward answers, flowing in ways we can't really understand until we are past them, and can look back and understand why it went that way.

And your concern that you might have missed opportunities to do certain things the "right" way... You just can't know at the time why some things happen the way they do. Have faith that there is a reason, and you will understand in time, as you come to see a larger picture of your soul and its lessons. Gosh--I don't know how old you are, but I do recall in my twenties feeling so anxious that time was slipping by, because I did not know at the time how to value the experiences I was having. I was judging against what I thought one was supposed to be "achieving" at that age. But you have to realize that you are not the "typical" person--if there even is one. Your journey truly is your own. More and more, you will be confident in your own unique search for your answers, wherever, however, that leads you.

All I can say is to keep going...keep inquiring. We keep wanting to "find our footing," as you say, but there are periods when you are forced off balance by your soul... You are forced to make yourself open to answers from the universe, because your old ways of dealing with the world are not meant to work for you anymore, and we are due for big changes in how we see and understand ourselves.

You will slowly find more and more inner peace, as you find answers about yourself. A larger and larger picture of your soul will emerge for you. Inquiring into past lives leads you to a perspective of yourself you couldn't possibly now imagine. You face aspects of your Self you couldn't consciously now imagine. Gut-wrenching emotions after emotions are purged. So much of it, I think, is about forgiving oneself for being human.

Your anxiety will gradually diminish as you find inner answers. In a few years, you will look back on these current concerns with a fresh perspective and deeper understanding of why things transpired in your life the way they did. I know that sounds so trite, and hard to hear when you are in the midst of such apparent turmoil...but it is simply true!

posted September 10, 2012 09:00 AM            

quote:

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I started tapping into apparent past lives in my late twenties...and I'm 40 now. I also tried to get "professional" past-life help, a few times over the years, in my impatience for answers...but it just wasn't time. ...I continued to get answers on my own, just as you are. ...But it takes some time to gather--and process--all the puzzle pieces of your soul's journey! Layer after layer after layer. You think you've finally got yourself all figured out---and then there's more!

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posted September 11, 2012 12:39 PM            

I think I understand what you are saying. You don't trust that the apparent past life you accessed years ago was valid, since you are still feeling so crappy and it didn't seem to really resolve anything. You don't trust that the times when you are feeling good about your life are valid, as you can just as easily slip into feeling depressed about your life, a week later. And it feels like there is just too much to overcome.

There is just no getting around the inner work you have to do, ongoingly, to find the real answers to your suffering and move toward a peace you can trust is real and not just a temporary good mood. This is a long-term project, for sure.

I certainly do understand that progress is in fits and starts, and you can seriously doubt that you are getting anywhere when depression keeps overtaking you. It can be so hard. That sense of feeling hopeless and wanting to just be done with it all is so potent!

....What kept..and what continues to keep... me going on my quest was an inner knowing that we deserve to feel good about ourselves. We deserve to be happy. We deserve to feel inner peace and contentment.

When you are in that depressed space, it is uncomfortable to sit on the edge of that fence for long. You eventually have to move in one direction or the other. In your quest for relief, you can either make plans to jump off a bridge...or just keep the faith and continue taking step after step, insisting that the universe continue to show you a path out of it.

Yes, life is like the movie, Groundhog Day, until we determine to do the inner work necessary to see the ways in which we are just unconsciously and painfully reliving the past and are stuck in unconscious ways of perceiving that are not working for us anymore. Walking through life in such a stupor--though many of us sadly exist like this and it is considered "normal,"--is not living. "The walking dead," indeed. ...Like Bill Murray's character, killing oneself just results in more of the same, if we don't look deeply at ourselves and insist that we deserve answers to our misery. You have to continually remember that your current ways of perceiving things are not working anymore, and to stay open to receive new insight and wisdom. Otherwise, you are indeed fulfilling the definition of insanity, by doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting a different result.

Upon sensing the truth of some new insight you receive, you need to trust yourself. You then have to allow yourself to be changed by that new knowledge. You have to be willing to let some aspects of the "you" that you currently perceive as yourself to fade away, trusting that there is something better at your core--a diamond under pressure, slowly forming from the coal. THIS is where the most work on one's Self gets accomplished--right here in this physical existence. ...You yourself are a piece of creation, a piece of "god," that can never be truly destroyed. Again--another trite expression, but it is simply true. You know this already.

You know...I had a brief recollection once, that immediately after a lifetime that I feel I "did away with myself," I sensed a scenario of "falling" from this realm into the arms of some caring being, who I perceived in a human form. He kind of "caught" me in his arms as I entered after my death. There was no rest for me, as he immediately, gently, directed that I had to return to a human life again...that I couldn't get out of things that easily. I sensed him "tossing" me right back into earth life. I was touched, knowing that such caring energy is out there, but I was regretting that I had to go right back to earth and couldn't stay in that peaceful realm at all.

posted September 12, 2012 04:12 AM            

...You mentioned feeling "dark and repulsive" to others. Would you say the quality of how you are feeling now is the same?

posted September 13, 2012 12:17 PM            

However, not to take away from Iq's suggestions, but if you feel anything like I felt when I was depressed, you probably hate to hear that kind of "you just need to get out and exercise" kind of advise. Depression is no easy matter. It is a particular dark cloud that you just can't "snap out of."

If you really want to change, you really need to begin the work of jarring yourself out of your current distorted ways of thinking and perceiving the world. You have to be willing to realize your perceptions are not objectively true; and be willing to--and interested in--replacing them.

By way of books, one classic in the area of self-help for depression is Feeling Good, by David Burns. A friend of mine remembers that as being one that helped her. The Feeling Good Handbook of his is the one that I recall helped to start jarring me out of my own dark interpretations of myself, those many years ago. His is a form of cognitive therapy, i.e., changing how you think and perceive the world.

http://www.amazon.com/Feel ing-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347550933&sr=1-1&keywords=feeling+good+david+burns

http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Handbook-David-Burns/dp/0452281326/ref=pd_sim_b_1

posted September 13, 2012 04:25 PM            

I was feeling mostly okay when I posted the above, but my anxiety has been way up again for the past few days, so I do appreciate your responses. It's weird how I used to be pretty laid-back, even with an anxiety disorder: I was always so confident that I would be okay, and yet the past few years, I haven't been: I've just felt slammed. It's reflected in transits (like Saturn in the12th, Pluto in the 3rd, squaring things, etc). I just felt drawn back to the past-life things; one book made me feel a bit better, so my dad bought it for me, October 2009, and I've been collecting them ever since, sometimes re-reading them if I can get them from the library, too (I didn't buy them all). It seems like every couple of weeks, I feel like I'm cracking up, and I hate it. I thought if I at least had a reason for certain things happening, that I might feel a bit better - that things might stop affecting me so much.

posted September 13, 2012 07:25 PM            

Don't beat yourself up. ...I certainly am familiar with that routine. You don't "have" to go look at any thread!

Well--so exercise does help you.

...Since you are clarifying your situation a bit, that you get anxiety, I'll also mention a book that someone brought up in a review of the David Burns books I mentioned.

This one is more geared toward anxiety/ panic sufferers. For some reason, I looked it up. Perhaps that is more your need.

Hope and Help for your Nerves, by Claire Weekes. Sounds like a simple title, but it has a high number of good ratings by those suffering from anxiety and panic.
http://www.amazon.com/ Hope-Help-Your-Nerves-Signet/dp/0451167228/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347577882&sr=1-1&keywords=hope+and+help+for+your+nerves

Again--just an idea. I feel for you. That sounds pretty lousy. I know it is frustrating, but have some patience and self-love. Healing from where you are now will certainly take time. There's no getting around it.

posted September 14, 2012 12:56 AM            

http://esoterism.ro/english/sai-baba-shirdi.php

posted September 20, 2012 02:56 PM            

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Originally posted by iQ:
Good anecdote Jovian.
We can use the 7 Hermetic Laws and inspired action to stagger the past life debts over a manageable course of time and minimize the past life suffering.

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I can only speak to my own sense of having gone through various strange ailments, physical and otherwise, over the years...and eventually choosing to accept them as something I had to just ride out, that they must be shadows of something from the past, as nothing comes from nothing.

Sometimes I can eventually sense what theme from the past the problem relates to, and sometimes not. ...That's when the idea of "faith" has to kick in--choosing to believe things happen for a reason...that there is indeed ultimately meaning to the suffering, whether we can understand it at the time or not.

...And then, there is of course the adage, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle." Another overused quote...but so true, indeed. There is always a way out.