Abstract
Using recalled details of a past life regression, Waldron’s client finds proof of a previous lifetime in the 1800’s. In this article the reader is presented with the details and insights of this unique case from the perspectives of both the client and the therapist.
Introduction
In June of 2010 Kathy Talada came to see Virginia Waldron, a certified past life regressionist in Fayetteville, NY. Her goals were to figure out a few things about herself – about her purpose and some issues that she was struggling with in her personal life. She had been raised Catholic, but she needed to find a closer connection to her own spirituality and felt past life work would help her with that goal.
Together she and Virginia embarked on a deep and transformative journey and Kathy proved to be an excellent subject for this level of deep inner work. It wasn’t difficult for her to focus on the kind of details in her past life journey that gave the whole experience depth and such a richness in texture and color that she was still replaying the memories when she left Virginia’s office a few hours later.
Since that session Kathy feels she has taken better control over her life and is more open to her own spiritual journeying. But she didn’t stop there. She wanted to know more about the lives that she had touched, so she headed for her computer and Google. She was able, with the few pieces of detailed information that she had drawn out of her memory, to find the building where the people lived, the town, the names and even a photograph of the husband, which did match her memory. He had survived her (his wife then), and the shop. What validation – it adds a new level to this kind of work; the aim is not to prove anything is real or not, but to find that the details we carry are not just in our imagination, they are in our energy and our beings.
Kathy
My journey toward past life regression began a few months before I ever met Virginia, possibly even before that. I was raised in the Catholic Church with Catholic beliefs. I hadn’t read much about reincarnation until October of 2009 when we lost my uncle, my mom’s youngest brother, very unexpectedly. We all began seeking answers. To lose him made no sense. It made us all question what happens when one dies and leaves the Earth. Was Uncle Marv watching over us? What had happened after he passed away? My family sought comfort in this trying time.
My Uncle Buck began reading about the afterlife and came across Dr. Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls. After reading the book he passed it on to my mom and when she was finished with it, she lent it to me. She knew I’d always been interested in the spirit world and the connection of those who had crossed over to those still here on Earth.
Growing up in the Catholic faith, I always enjoyed what I learned in school and at church, but my mind was always open to possibilities that didn’t seem to fit with the things that the church taught me. As I read on, it began to make sense and it filled in the gaps that traditional religion left for me. Around this time, my daughter passed on a work of fiction on reincarnation that fit right into what I had learned from Dr. Newton’s book. After reading that book I picked up Dr. Brian Weiss’ Only Love Is Real.
I decided to scout the internet for a therapist that did hypnosis for past-life regression. My curiosity got the best of me, I guess. What would I find out about myself if I underwent hypnosis? I found The RoseHeart Center’s website and it was just shy of a two hour drive for me.
There were several goals I had in mind before I scheduled my appointment. First, I wanted to find out why I had this nagging sense of self doubt. All my life, I felt that I didn’t fit in and thought originally that it stemmed from being adopted. After finding my birth family when I was thirty, the feelings remained. I had a sense that something was missing. I was to learn that I needed to find the answer in myself in this life. I was curious to know the cast of souls that I traveled with and who from this life had popped up in other lifetimes. Lastly, I wanted to know if I was serving my purpose here on Earth.
When I arrived, I was nervous as I met with Virginia. I went through everything that I felt she should know about me. I started out from the beginning; my adoption and happy childhood, my adolescent friendships, and meeting at a very young age, a young man whom I never forgot – or let go of even after his early death at nineteen. I told her about having my first child out of wedlock in my late teens, my divorce, and meeting my husband now and having four more children.
Due to the fact that we spent a lot of time talking about how various events in my life had made me feel, and how I seemed to have a low sense of self, I was almost sure we’d have to put off the hypnosis part of the session until a later date. I had never tried meditating nor had I ever been hypnotized. I wasn’t sure if I could relax enough to go into a trance-like state, but I was determined to try. I wanted answers. And I got them.
Virginia walked me through relaxation techniques until I felt like I was a solid heavy being, sinking into the recliner. I was in my garden – the one I designed in my mind just for me. She took me to the bridge where I met the gatekeeper and that gatekeeper was actually my guide who walked me across the bridge and into another life.
When I stepped off the bridge, Virginia asked me where I was. At that point I wasn’t sure. There was this blinding light and the top of my head felt cold, as if my brain cells were stretching out, reaching for something or into something that they hadn’t tapped into fully before. When the light cleared I was small. I could see tall trees on each side of me and I was barefoot. I was a little girl with short dark hair and dressed in a brown cloth dress with short sleeves and a white collar. It was early summer and I was standing on a dirt road. I could feel the sun shining down on my face. It was warm and I felt safe. I was about eight years old.
We went back to when the day started and I found myself in the kitchen with my mother. Things looked different than they do in this day and age. The stove was small and black. My mother had cooked eggs for my breakfast – scrambled, my favorite. When she turned around from the stove, she called me “Sophie.” Sophia was my name. We learned that I had no siblings at that time and my father worked in some sort of mill in town.
Going on, I went to the next significant part of my life as Sophie, to where my brother was born. The pregnancy had been tough for my mother and when Aiden was born she became depressed and tired. I remembered doing a lot with my brother and we became very close. When I turned fourteen and Aiden turned four, my mother left us and did not come back. My father continued to work at the mill, but became withdrawn and understandably closed off from the outside world. No matter what I did for him nothing helped. I got through with the help of my life-long friend, Louise, and the knowledge that I had to be there to see Aiden into adulthood.
It’s hard to describe. Sometimes I felt like I was viewing the lifetime from behind a see-through curtain. Other times I could see people and surroundings very clear. When we advanced through Sophie’s life to where she met the man she married, it took a moment for his name to come to me. It was Theodore. I kept hearing his name repeated from somewhere inside my head. I saw myself standing there holding his hands, looking at his face, and I froze the moment in my mind until his name came to me. I kept hearing the name, Ted, but I also kept thinking that was the more modern version of the name. Sophia called him Theo, short for Theodore.
Sophia and Theodore were married and I got the feeling that he was on the road to success, that he was a proud man, and that he wanted to take care of Sophia and those she cared about.
When we advanced forward to the day of Sophia’s death I found myself in a town that wasn’t where I grew up. We’d moved and we owned some kind of store in a city that was growing and changing. I’d been sick for weeks and all I kept thinking was I’d been coughing a lot. At my side I saw three children that were brought in to speak to me and to say good-bye. I removed myself and watched the scene from above them. I remembered their names and was able to recall Theo holding my hand as I slipped away.
In the spirit world I was able to meet with my mother who had abandoned us. I recognized her as someone in my current life, but I’d never gotten to meet her. She was my birth Grandmother in this life. Although we’d had a simple but good life up until she, as Sophie’s mother, became ill after the birth of Aiden, she hadn’t had it easy. I learned that she had left because she’d gone through post partum depression and eventually committed suicide shortly after leaving us. I was able to forgive her and put Sophie’s questions to rest. I had the feeling that although Sophie questioned what had happened and had never been told, she suspected all along what had taken place.
The moment I looked at Sophie’s father through her life, I recognized my husband Chuck. Virginia asked what we had to learn from each other in this life now as Kathy and Chuck. I knew the answer immediately. It was to talk to each other. As father and daughter, he kept a lot from me; his feelings, things that had happened. I see in this life we are more open with each other and our feelings and I’m not afraid to tell him how I feel either. It’s strange because from the very beginning if he and I were to argue, he would always say, “Kathy, why do you act like I’m your father? I’m not your dad.”
Theodore I recognized as Tony, my first love. Early on in my life I felt drawn to him and though our relationship was more of a friendship, I knew the connection meant something. It’s always meant something. I thought I was crazy when I had a dream a few months before his passing where he visited me at my parent’s house and told me he had to go. When we walked downstairs the living room was awash in white light that looked different and more beautiful than any light I had ever seen. I felt love in that light and he told me he had to go but he’d see me again.
He left behind a daughter, Kara, who was only a year old when he passed away from a brain aneurysm. I thought about her often as she grew up. I also believe that I was given signs or foresights that I was to meet her; weeks before I actually did. She got a job where I work as assistant manager for a publishing company. For years I had wanted to share my thoughts about him with her. Finally I was given that chance and I now feel blessed to have Kara in my life as a friend.
There were others from Sophia’s life that I recognized from my own. Her brother Aiden is my son, Jack. Her daughter, Clara, is now my oldest daughter, Samantha, and her best friend, Louise, is now my best friend, Amy. We are together again, united in our life now, to learn from each other.
I found my purpose in life is to help people; more so to help them grow as people and to be strong and feel confident. My purpose is to use the empathy that I have so strongly within me to put myself in other’s shoes and figure out how to help them find the answers they are looking for within themselves. I feel that I am on the right track.
When I left The RoseHeart Center, it felt just as Virginia had said it would, like a story I had told. I wondered if it could all be real. Being the curious being that I am, I decided to do a little research. We pinpointed the time period as late 1800’s, due to many of the things I had said. I also felt like I was in the middle of the United States. I saw it being Iowa, Ohio, or Indiana. I used the search engines; Google and Bing. I began by using the names Sophia and Theodore, the word marriage, the year being in the 1800’s, and then I went by state. There were several couples with matching first names, but none of the background information fit until I came to a man named Theodore Poehler.
I had mentioned that he wasn’t from my town at all. Theodore Poehler came from Germany and made his way up from
Louisiana to Burlington, Iowa, where he met Sophia Kuoner. They lived in Burlington for a time and he tried his hand at farming, but eventually ran his own business, a mercantile, which I mentioned when they moved to Lawrence, Kansas. It turns out they had six children, but I only saw three at Sophia’s death bed. I was able to name the three and their names matched.
After Sophia’s death, I learned that Theodore’s mercantile became even more successful and he also was elected Lawrence county treasurer the year she passed away. The building that he built and used to run the wholesale grocery business still stands in Lawrence, Kansas today.
Finally I was able to find a picture of Theodore through an image search on Bing. The picture was taken fourteen years after
Sophia’s death, but he was recognizable to me nonetheless.
It was an exciting experience and the fact that I was able to validate it to myself by finding what I found online adds to it. When I share my experience with believers and non-believers alike they all have this look of amazement come over them. I’ve been able to use the experience to push a lot of the self doubt and negativity from my life and I feel stronger because of what I learned. And because I feel stronger now, I feel I am more able to do what I am here to do.
Virginia
On the intake form, under personal information, Kathy wrote that the goals or purpose was “To figure out a few things about myself – am I serving my purpose here, feelings of not fitting in, to feel more empowered and less inferior in situations.”
Kathy and I spent the first hour of our two hour session talking, but since I did not have anyone scheduled after her, I knew we could take a little extra time. Kathy has had an interesting and eventful life. She was adopted as a 6 week old infant. Kathy has always felt she didn’t belong, perhaps because she was adopted. She feels her adopted family were good people. She was told early, at the age of about 3 or 4 years old, that she was adopted. She had two younger sisters, also adopted. She always wanted a family of her own, where she belonged. By the time she was 18 she was pregnant with her first child, Samantha. She married the father, Eddie (husband #1), and at the time felt she just wanted to be with him and have her own family, someone who was related to her. However, this marriage did not work out well and, after 2 more children, she divorced Eddie and, soon after, to marry Chuck (husband #2).
Later, when she did locate her birth father and got to know him and his family, she did feel she fit in more with them. However, the long years of living without him kept a certain distance to their relationship.
As I listened I saw a pattern in Kathy of self-criticism and putting herself down. She could not let go of some of the perceived mistakes she had made in her life. Her language and demeanor was definitely “I’m never going to be good enough.” Her first husband was verbally abusive and emotionally distant and unavailable.
Later in her life she found her birth family. When she met her birth father she felt like she fit in better with his family, but the missing years are still in the way of a solid relationship with him.
Today Kathy has a new job and wants to make her family life work more smoothly. She also wants to become a stronger person (she feels she has been a bit of a doormat in the past) for her own sake. It felt like she needed to build her sense of self-worth and increase her confidence. We hoped that working through past-life regression she would be able to see herself in a new way; understand her strengths and weaknesses from a higher perspective. Kathy needs to recognize that she is the lady in control of her life. All the struggles and, what she calls mistakes, are there to learn about being empowered in relationships from many different angles. Kathy hoped past-life work would help her see herself in a better light. She wanted a healthier perspective on why she had such a hard time letting go of some of the men in her life.
It was not difficult to guide Kathy into a solid trance state. I used a bridge over a river as the device to cross to the other side. As Kathy stepped off the bridge she seemed to be very solidly in the past memory, but it took awhile to respond to my question “what is going on around you?”
She said she felt a cold prickly feeling on her head at first. Then she looked at her feet and saw the bare feet of a small child. As she moved up her legs she said they were skinny – she was wearing a skirt that went past her knees and was made of a cotton-like material. She was speaking in the first person present, so I knew she was engaged in the past-life experience.
She described her dress carefully, looking at all the details with interest; a long dress, gathered at the waist with a wide white collar like flower petals and puffy sleeves that were gathered in the middle of her upper arm. Her hair was smooth, short, and brown, tied back with a hair band. She was about 7 or 8 years old. At that point she did not seem to know her name.
I asked about her surroundings and she said it was hard to tell – outside, on a dirt road. There were trees on either side of the road and tall grass. It was early summer. She walked there along the road. She described seeing the sky and clouds and feeling the sunshine on her skin.
I suggested she go to the morning, when this day began. She woke up in a small cabin or cottage – a small house in the woods (her words). Her mom was making breakfast. She was wearing an old-fashioned long skirt.
I will now write from her words as I wrote them in my notes (with some paraphrasing to save time and space). VW indicates my queries and KT is her replies and comments:
KT: “I woke up and came out to see her…she smiles at me. I sit down and eat breakfast. It’s eggs. Mom cooked them in a cast iron pan on an old looking stove, black and small.”
VW: Who lives in this house?
KT: “Me and mom and dad. Dad already ate and went to work.”
VW: What name does your mother use for you?
KT: “Sophia.”
VW: What happens next, Sophia?
KT: “I play outside. I’m daring and brave and happy.”
I gave her the suggestion to keep this feeling in her heart and to go on to the next major event in her life.
KT: “I’m 10 and mom is having a baby. She’s having a hard time. She’s very tired. Daddy works so hard, he works at a mill in town. I like to watch the water in the wheel – it’s a lumber yard.”
“I’m trying to help mom. I feel bad for her. I do laundry and the dishes and chores.”
“A little brother – he’s fat and giggles. She is having a rough time. She is proud of me for helping. She is still tired so I help with him a lot…Aiden. So cute, he has the biggest puffy cheeks. But he cries a lot. Mom is feeling more tired now…I help so much. Dad wants to be there but has to work so hard.”
VW: Go to the next major event.
KT: “I am 15. My brother is 5. I don’t sense Mom here. Dad is sad. I don’t know where she went. I feel confused – where is she?”
VW: Let’s go to the last time you were with your mother.
KT: “I was 13. She went to town and left me with my brother. Where did she go? She didn’t come back. She’d been acting funny…distant and odd. I watched my brother and she didn’t come home. Dad came home…asked where is she? Then he went looking for her. He came home without her and he’s so sad.”
I asked if her father told her what happened to her mother when he came back and she said he was so sad, she didn’t dare ask him. He would not talk about it.
VW: Now you are 15?
KT: “Yes. Now I am 15. I’m taking him, my brother, to school for the first time. I made sure he knows his ABCs and what he needs to know. It’s his first day of school.”
“I have a friend, my best friend. She’s blond. She’s 15 and her name is Louise. She’s very pretty. We are walking home together.”
“It’s a little house where I live. Whitewashed boards and a tin roof. I make dinner…it’s quiet and peaceful here. I’m still thinking about my mom…I am confused…where is she…but I can’t talk to my dad…he’s so sad.”
She wanted to stay in this memory but I was not sure why – she was happy and unhappy. Why is this day so important?
KT: “Louise goes home and dad comes home. He is worn out and grumpy. I don’t know if what I am doing is enough…he’s upset that she is gone. I don’t know what else to do…I am feeling frustrated. I go into my room and lay down. I look out at the stars in the sky…I wish it was like when I was little and it was better.”
Perhaps this is the root of Kathy’s struggles today – this sense of not knowing if what she was doing was ever going to be enough, the emptiness and loss of her mother leaving and never coming home again, and not knowing why her mother left or where she went.
When Sophia was 19 she met Ted. (Kathy tells me afterwards that she really wanted to call him Theo, but her conscious mind told her his name was Ted.)
Ted takes Sophia to a local church social; there are carriages with big wheels and horses. Louise is there with her new husband. Ted is new in town and has a job working at the mill where her father had worked. Sophia’s father no longer works, he was injured and she is taking care of him as well as Aiden.
At 21 she and Ted marry (Ted is 3 years older). Sophia cares about Ted. He helps her take care of her father and brother and that is very important to her. She finds out her friend Louise is pregnant and she is reminded of her mother’s sad ending. She still does not know what happened to her mother.
Kathy was getting tired, so we skipped forward to the last day.
KT: “I’m sleeping…in a building, a city, an old type of city. I’m in the corner room above the stores. I’m in my late 40’s or early 50’s. I’ve been sick and I’m sleeping. I’ve been coughing a lot. It’s an apartment…we live above our store, Ted and me.”
“I see 3 children with me…their ages are 5, 10, & 15. I’ve been sick for 2 months. I don’t want to leave…I don’t want to leave them but I have to go. Ted is sad, he’s holding my hand…it’s ok. I know he’ll take care of the children, it will be ok.”
VW: You take your last breath – what happens next?
KT: “I go…it’s a release. I’ve been feeling so yucky for so long…I didn’t really suffer. Ted is so sad…we had a good life and good kids.”
Circle of Friends – we invite the significant people in the past life to come forward and speak. We also ask if they are in the current life and if so who are they.
KT: “Mother is here. She comes first. She has some explaining to do. I forgive her. I understand. We made it, but she missed out. She was so depressed after the birth of Aden that she left us and committed suicide soon after she left. Dad went to town and found her. That was why he was so sad. He could not tell us, he was so sad and so ashamed. He could never talk about it.”
VW: Is she anyone in your current life?
KT: “I think, yes, she’s my grandmother…I never met her…my birth mother’s mother.”
Others from Sophia’s life.
KT: “My dad…Thomas…is husband Chuck (husband #2).”
As husband and wife in this current life, they are working on learning how to be more open, to talk more.
KT: “Aiden…he’s my son Jack now.”
“Louise…best friend from High School, Amy.”
“My oldest daughter is Sam today…we are getting it right this time.”
“Ted is Tony[1]…he misses me. Sorry we couldn’t do it this time around. It’s ok. We will be together again, later. We had that brief connection for him to know I cared.”
VW: What did you learn as Sophia?
KT: “To connect with my feelings in my heart…I do belong, I’m a good person…I don’t have to prove anything to anybody, I’m strong.”
When I asked her to identify where this life took place she could only say the middle of the USA, Iowa, Ohio, or Indiana. When? She could not get a date of death; she could only get a sense of the late 19th century, judging by clothing and the types of buildings, etc.
Since our session Kathy believes she is taking control of things in her life much better. Her job as manager provides plenty of opportunity to practice being more directive with people. She is still cautious but she has a better understanding of when to give her opinion and when to hold back. She says she feels more confident than she has in a very long time.
After this session Kathy was so intrigued by the idea of this woman and her life that she looked up what information she had and apparently found the family, where they lived, and where she died. I wonder if she will go out there – the building is still standing. She also found a photograph of the husband, taken a few years after Sophia died, and it looks like her memory of him.
I have had two other clients who looked up their past-life personality on the internet and found pertinent information regarding the details. One was about a man who served Joan of Arc. Another one was about a woman who lived on the east coast of Canada in the early 1700’s. My knowledge of Canadian history is fuzzy, so I was not sure about the details she came up with, but they didn’t seem to fit what I felt I did know. However, she looked it up and found the memories were real.
Many clients ask, after a session, “Was that real; did that really happen?” Most often I say it isn’t necessary for that lifetime to be real for the healing and releasing to be effective. But, the human mind still wants to know, did I make that up or did that really happen? Kathy found out, through some clever manipulation of modern technology, that it very likely did happen. What confirms it in my mind is she had the names of the children and husband before she looked the family up; and the facts that he was an outsider, a stranger to her town, and they lived over his store.
Most skeptics of this kind of information will say these memories come from some earlier way of knowing; as in the “debunking” of the Bridey Murphy story. But Kathy had no prior experience or awareness of this person’s circumstances in Iowa, yet she had some very real details. The next time someone asks “Was that real?” or “How do I know if that was real?” I will say, look it up on the internet, see if you can find out for yourself!
[1] Tony was her first love who died several years ago, leaving behind an infant daughter. Kathy has become good friends with this young woman, who is named Kara, which is Greek for Katherine.