In a demonstration to an APRT training group in March 1986, Dr. Ronald Jue regressed me into a past life which dealt with a current life problem concerning inappropriate grief. After the breakup of my first marriage I had adjusted and begun to enjoy my freedom as a single person, believing that I would probably never marry again. I had just become comfortable in this set when at a California dinner party arranged by friends, I met Warren, the man who is my current husband.
Warren was then on an around-the world business trip from his home and office in London. As he entered the doors and we were introduced, we each experienced a powerful reaction, an immediate recognition of each other. My thoughts were, “Oh, I know you. I already know you! What a surprise!” My mind became flooded with images of kin and long time family roots. Our rapport was both delightful and immediate.
Warren kept writing and encouraging me to see him again on a subsequent trip from England, but I felt strong ambivalence. I knew that if I were to see him, my whole life would change, and I didn’t feel ready for that! On the other hand, I became aware of a draw that intensified when we did meet. An inner voice said, “I really love this man. I actually love him.”
After this, our relationship developed rapidly, with visits in California and reunions in other parts of the world. Within a year we married, although we both knew that in order to continue his work, Warren would have to be in Europe a good deal of the time while he slowly developed new work in California. I expected to be comfortable with our absences from each other because I valued my opportunities to visit friends and concentrate on my professional work.
However, during each of our two-week partings, I began to experience an intense grief that became far deeper and more distressing than I had anticipated. I was amazed at the strength of my feelings of anger, loneliness, grayness, and desolation. I felt that the source of our connectedness was being stretched and pulled wider and wider, and I feared that it would suddenly snap and disappear. This image and these feelings did not mirror the actual contact and emotional support that I received from Warren through our almost daily expressive letters and our nightly telephone calls between California and London. During our two-week periods together the long-term connectedness remained as strong as ever.
I worked therapeutically for some time but my feelings of desolation and despair remained. I had not experienced such reaction in earlier love relationships involving absences, and I wanted to heal this problem so that I could stop suffering and move on more productively with my independent life during our times apart.
Ronald Jue sensitively guided me into fully experiencing the desolation and empty grayness that had continued to stretch into fear that the connectedness would suddenly snap and the relationship would be over. Using these feelings as a bridge, he guided me into the time and place where I had first felt them.
I experienced being in a small isolated village many centuries ago as a very young mother of two children and wife of an adventurous young man, whom I recognized as my current husband. He was the delightful clown-rascal of our community and added joy, imagination, humor, and delight to each of our lives. He and I were much in love and enjoyed an emotionally rich experience raising our two infants in our little stone hut and being part of our village community life. He and the other men of the village frequently went sway on short trips for hunting, and they faithfully returned each evening. We felt connected, appreciative of being together.
These feelings suddenly stopped and the connectedness ended when the men of the village came back one day without him and told me he had been killed. In his usual exuberant fashion he had jumped from one running horse to another to entertain the group and had slipped, fallen, and broken his neck. I experienced grief, loss, a sense of unfairness and anger toward my husband for taking such an unnecessary risk and robbing us of our precious life together.
I thought I would never recover from such a loss, but I did survive to live a long, peaceful life. I saw my children grow up and watched my son become the leader of our small community. When I was quite old my son felt he must guide the villagers by foot and horseback to a new location a long way off. We decided mutually that because of my age and lack of productivity, I was to stay behind, live by myself and die alone at whatever time and in whatever way death would naturally occur. This seemed standard procedure for those times.
After the group left I realized that I was alone for the rest of my life without any prospect of ever seeing my people—I had lost everyone. Again I felt intense feelings of grayness, despair, desolation, and grief, in addition to the pervading sense of loss. But once again I survived those feelings and experienced three to four years of solitary life, very simple eating, walking through tall grasses, watching the changes in nature, and being in an expanded meditative state. I became aware of a pervading, protective presence, and although I felt lonely, I enjoyed reminiscing about my loved ones and managed well.
During my dying I felt the old longing for my husband and anger at his doing the stupid tricks that robbed us of our life together. I decided, “It doesn’t pay to marry someone who takes unnecessary risks, who goes away and doesn’t come back.” I felt anger and longing. If only sometime, someplace, somehow, we could be together again and actually live out our lives together!
In the aftermath reflection I connected the pattern of my husband of that lifetime—leaving and not coming back—with the pattern of life now, existing between this same man and myself. No wonder I have felt so much fear about our connectedness suddenly ending! No wonder I have felt such deep grief, seemingly unwarranted in this life! These old soul memories became re-stimulated once I married him again in this lifetime. During the regression, having relived this source experience and having moved through catharsis, I became freed from the pall of these feelings.
Later I saw a glimpse of a string of independent lifetimes following that one, with the same themes and people woven throughout them. The theme of our premature separation from each other appeared to be a thread that ran through all of them. We had chosen to be together again in this lifetime in order to have a chance to heal the old wound in our marriage relationship. From this perspective I can appreciate the gift of being with Warren again for at least half our lives. Instead of focusing on the pain of the absences, I have begun delighting in being with him.
Another theme that Ron Jue brought forth in the reflection on the regression was that of personal power. He helped me to see how I had been giving away my power to this current husband by projecting onto him qualities that I was unable to recognize and own in myself. This left me feeling depleted and robbed of these positive energies during his absences. Ron guided me into imaging a small Warren in my right hand, exuding the delightful qualities of his razzle-dazzle, fun, exuberance, and creativity. He suggested that these qualities which I treasure are always in me, even when Warren is away. I began to feel my self-empowerment and realize that living with my own power is a challenge in this life and an important reason for experiencing these absences. It was a lesson of that former life as well, and as an old woman I did in my own way find a kind of self-empowerment.
After the regression I felt relieved, enlightened, cheerful. I knew I had turned a significant corner. At that time, although I still had another week of his absence, I accepted it lightheartedly. I even forgot to be home for the telephone call that evening—a great departure from my earlier addictive rearranging of everything to be there at the appointed telephone time! I have lost my feelings of despair and desolation, and I now enjoy the absences, using them for self-empowering and for accomplishing things I would not be doing if he were here. I am freer, both to enjoy him when he is here, and when he is away to enjoy my time without fear and suffering. The resulting effects on our relationship have been healthy. Warren no longer feels guilty about leaving. I am freer to love him without the anger and fear, and to feel good about myself and my independence.