Finding the learning and releasing today’s baggage in long-ago lifetimes.

Skeptical? I was too, back when I knew everything. These days, my horizons are expanding far faster than I can take in what’s there to see.

I invite you to suspend your disbelief long enough to take in these stories. At some point you may find that though you still don’t believe in reincarnation (that’s your left brain, wanting to fit this into what you understand, to be in control), you know that it’s true (that’s a deeper response, from your right brain or somewhere even wiser).

And if you haven’t taken on the conditioning against reincarnation, welcome! Read on and enjoy.

For much of my adulthood I’d been looking for explanations for the negative circumstances and events of my life, particularly the times when what happened seemed unfair, and definitely did not contribute to my sense of personal autonomy, happiness, or even material satisfaction.

I wanted answers. Why me, why here, why now, why them, why this? I found clues from other people’s experiences in a compelling book by Dr. Michael Newton, Journey of Souls. I decided to revisit a past life, then make the journey to the realm between incarnations. Fortune smiled: there was a hypnotherapist who had been trained in Newton’s methodology only an hour away. I arranged a visit.

An important aspect of the first journey was her instruction to find myself in “a significant past life.” After inducing and deepening a trance, she guided me through a passageway while she counted from ten to one, ending with the instruction to emerge into that significant past life at the snap of her fingers, and then “Look down at your feet.”

They’re hairy, bare, stocky, deeply tanned, and dusty. She guides my attention up my body. I see an animal skin tunic, with nothing underneath. No ornamentation of any kind - no jewels, wristbands, tattoos, or scarring. No head covering, not even a headband. In my hands, a stout stick sharpened to a point. This is a male body, in the prime of life. I feel a physical strength much greater than what Wes experiences.

Nearby are another man and a boy - my brother and his son. Farther away I know there are three more men, just out of sight. We are hunting. This is open country, a rolling plain with clumps of bush and outcroppings of rock. I see hills but not mountains.
We hear a shout and run to join the others. They have killed a reddish hippopotamus the size of a large pig. Seeing the animal’s body, I feel remorse for the killing, mixed with pride that we will be bringing meat back to our people.

The scene shifts to nighttime. Around a fire is a group of about 20. All of my band is there. An elder man is speaking to the group as the meat is being cooked. When it is brought in large chunks to the group for distribution and eating, I see the head again. There is no question that it is a hippopotamus. As one of the participants in the hunt, I stand up to be honored for the successful hunt. I look down to my right, into the eyes of the woman sitting there, and for a moment I am lost in her eyes, feeling a jolt of connection and love stronger that anything I have experienced in my current life. I know her deeply. She is both my soul mate and my physical mate.

That scene fades. Over the next while I am guided by the hypnotherapist to move ahead to various times in that life, through the loss of my wife and my brother, eventually to its end. Dying easily, I rise out of my body. As I move away I look back toward my body and my people, who have assembled to be with me in my last moments. They know I am leaving. Some of them look up toward me, and I realize with some surprise that they can see me as I depart.

The session comes to an end and I am guided back to ordinary consciousness.
– –

A few days later I listened to the recording of the journey, to remember and analyze some of what I perceived but hadn’t verbalized at the time. I was Neanderthal, living in what is now known as Spain, inland from the ocean. I was about five feet tall - I discovered that by crouching until the floor was the same distance away as the ground had been for him. We communicated with rudimentary spoken language, body language, and telepathy. Our band had some leisure time, but no significant interest in creating art. There were some among us who had a degree of spiritual consciousness, but that was of little interest to me; it was just something I took for granted as part of our existence.

There was no stone point on my spear - this is before my people discovered how to create edges on stones. This suggested a time between 150,000 and 170,000 years in the past.

What about the hippopotamus? I had seen it twice clearly during the regression - there was no doubt what it was. When I researched that question, I discovered that a species of small hippopotamus was present in Europe until about 60,000 years before the current era.

Reflecting on how that particular lifetime was “significant,” I felt affirmed in some aspects of my current life that had always puzzled me because they seemed to have little relevance to the context of my early years. In this Wes lifetime, I have always been interested in nature, comfortable in wild settings and circumstances that would be frightening for most. My Neanderthal self was fully at home in that environment - it was all he knew. When I was young I was fascinated by telepathy, devoured everything I could find to read, and conducted some small experiments (successfully) with people I knew. He communicated telepathically, with only limited vocal language. Later in life, I was drawn to both the physical and spiritual aspects of ancient skills, and have followed a path of nature-based shamanism for more than 30 years. He was not a shaman, but he was a spiritually oriented man who had empathy for the animals his people needed to kill. In this life, I have felt that same combination of remorse and pride after making the kill of a successful hunt. Death was for him, as it is for me, a spiritual transition, not a loss.

The seeds of who I am today were growing at least 150,000 years ago.

After that journey, and a subsequent journey into the realm of Life Between Lives guided by the same hypnotherapist, I observed that the process I’d learned on the shamanic path for entering a deep meditation was very similar to her techniques. Over the next few months I used a combination of the two approaches to visit several other past lives of my own and make several journeys to the realms beyond death. I will share some of those in future posts.

Eight years ago I began to guide others on the journeys of Past Life Regression and Life Between Lives. These experiences have been rewarding and fascinating. Often I find myself seeing through the eyes of the client in a past life, feeling what he or she is feeling, and knowing what guidance will be most beneficial in discovering the lessons of that life.

Most of the time, as we discuss the experience following the journey, the relevance of a “significant past life” is evident to my client, even when it may not be to me. Sometimes the experience is immediately life changing, and sometimes clients will contact me later to tell stories of amazing transformations that followed the session. The effect for them is often a wondrous sense of freedom and an expanded understanding of what life truly is.

There can be healing work needed, or learning available in a past life, when some aspect of the client’s present life is inexplicably blocked, painful, or frightening for reasons that can’t be found in this life. Healing the past life incident or circumstances reverberates, often through many lifetimes, into today. An all-too-common example: someone who was a healer, spiritual teacher, or simply a bright light was persecuted, tortured, even killed in one (or more!) past lives because what they did was threatening to the authorities of the day - a pattern that has repeated many times through human history. The echo of these experiences in the current lifetime is a confusing and sometimes paralyzing resistance to bringing forward their gifts of healing, teaching, or spiritual leadership. “I have this fear of showing up, but I don’t know why. It feels like something bad will happen if I do.” When the origins are found - that’s the gift of the significant past life - we address the source experiences of the fear and do the healing or unpack the learning. The client can then see both that what they have to offer is very much needed in the world today and also that it will be welcome now.

At other times there is sweet affirmation. “Now I know why it’s so satisfying to be of service!”

“I get it - I’ve been a leader many times before. No wonder it feels effortless.”

“I always wondered why I felt called to visit Egypt and felt so comfortable there. It’s clear now - I lived there!”

Are you wondering who you were? Would you like to learn about yourself today by exploring the richness of your past lives? Visit this page in my website for information. Let’s have a conversation to see if we’re a match and how we can work together.

Do you know someone who is curious about reincarnation or wonders about their own past lives? Send them my way!

July 9, 2024