by George Schwimmer, Ph.D.
Recollections of events, which shocked or traumatized an individual in a past life, very often re-traumatize the present personality during regression, this author finds. He advocates visualization healing and other techniques to relieve a client of such traumas, which are usually symbols of the client’s core issue.
The principal dictum—both spoken and unspoken—of many past-life therapists is, “To relive is to relieve.” In my own experience as a therapist in this field, reliving is just one part of the PLT process, and in some instances merely reliving a past life can be deleterious—it usually shocks the present personality’s emotional body, the nervous system, the glandular systems, and the electromagnetic systems, replaying the entire inner tape of the past-life trauma.
The client’s emotions and energy body are consequently left in a very vulnerable condition—one that must be dealt with.
If it does seem necessary to have a client relive a previous lifetime, then I strongly feel it is the therapist’s duty to help the client heal all the wounds of that lifetime, which the therapist has been instrumental in accessing. Since there are methods of inner healing which can easily be employed by any PLT practitioner, they should be used in most regressions—with the consent of the client, of course.
To begin with, I believe that all symptoms are signals or messages from the individual’s higher self; reminding the present personality of the past-life origins of his (or her) problems. I also feel that the symptoms are a symbolic manifestation of the underlying issue or lesson which the higher self is asking the present personality to resolve or learn for all of the higher self’s personalities throughout time—that is, if one believes, as I do, that all time is simultaneous.
What I am saying here is that there are no problems except to the earthbound ego, which sees certain things as problems simply because it is too close to the situation and can observe only a tiny portion of the picture. However, before the ego’s vision can truly be enlarged, and before any past-life personality can be fully integrated and reowned by the present personality, the past-life individual must be healed—and I use the word “healed” in all of its ramifications. In other words, the past-life personality is as much the therapist’s client as the present-life personality.
I utilize a variety of healing methods, right from the induction to the last few seconds of any regression session. While conducting a regression, I take notes of the significant events and checkmark those that will need to be dealt with later in the session. Below are a number of techniques which I employ, illustrated by a single session that I had with one client.
Healing and Balancing During the Induction
Sheril, as I will call her, was a black woman in her forties, born in a Caribbean country. She came to me with the following complaint: “I’m blocking something, but don’t know what. There is something that wants to come forward.”
I began my induction, as I normally do in a first session, by employing progressive relaxation, while simultaneously telling Sheril that all of her systems—both physical and nonphysical—were opening up and balancing out. I then asked her to fill her entire body with the golden-white light of her higher self.
To deepen her state, I had her visualize herself in a crystal elevator going down a crystal shaft (a crystal being a symbol of the soul and also a healing symbol). As she descended, she was led through the colors of the rainbow (i.e., the colors of the chakras), to energize and balance the chakras—those energy vortices that interpenetrate the physical body at certain points.
Sheril was next taken back to the past on a high-speed train and was told that she had the option of either feeling or not feeling emotions during the past-life recall. She was also told that she would feel no pain at any time—an instruction often ignored by the inner consciousness.
At this point in her regression, I noticed that Sheril’s hands were folded on her chest, right above her heart center (the fourth chakra), with the index finger of the left hand pointing directly to the throat (the fifth chakra—the chakra through which one expresses oneself). I had previously noticed, in a number of cases, that when a chakra is blocked, the client will unconsciously place one or both hands right on top of it.
Sheril was in deep trance now, and her voice was soft, hesitant, far away, groping, her words slightly blurred at times. She found herself outdoors in Atlantis, a woman of 19 named Tara, wearing a white dress. She next perceived herself in a white marble structure with big pillars and a balcony. She was in a spacious room with white and gold furniture, having a meal with her parents, who were in their 40s. The three of them were sitting on cushions on the floor beside a long table laden with assorted fruits. Tara’s father was a scientist, and she was an only child, she said, adding that she liked to be alone “to listen to the quiet.”
Healing Through the Emotions
Instructed to go back to the first significant event in her lifetime, Tara saw herself as a baby, being held by her mother. Here was the first need for specific healing: to release trapped—particularly unexpressed—emotions, while giving Sheril positive support:
G: What’s happening?
S: The man (Tara’s father) wanted a boy, not a girl.
G: And you can feel his disappointment.
S: Yes.
G: How does that make you feel?
S: Sad. (Tara starts to cry and whimpers like a child).
G: Okay, go ahead and feel the sadness. It’s all right. (Tara continues to cry and whimper). It’s sad not to be wanted. Feel that sadness—and then release it.
Feel it and then just let it run through you. (She stops crying and gives a sigh of relief). Let it run through you. (She whimpers again). Now let your mother’s love flow through you instead. (There is an audible intake and expulsion of air). That’s right—just release it. Go into the experience, but then let it flow through you. (Tara is sobbing softly again). It’s all right to feel the sadness, but also feel your mother’s arms around you (pause).
I never let a client stay with an emotion too long; I wait for it to peak, allow it to begin a descent, and then go on. I don’t want the client to become exhausted. So at this point I decided to move on.
Healing Through Recall and Anchoring of Positive Experiences
Immediately following this negative event, Sheril’s higher self chose to do some healing on its own by providing Tara/Sheril with three positive experiences.
G: Is anything happening or how are you feeling?
S: I’m just thinking about life.
G: Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about life, Tara?
S: God.
G: Do you think God exists?
S: Yes.
G: Have you had any experiences where you felt God’s presence?
S: Yes.
I decided to use Tara’s experiences with God as positive healing:
G: Feel that again. Go back to one of those experiences. Just feel what it feels like. Feel the presence of God, around you and in you, moving through your mind—just feel that presence of love (pause). Then you’ll be able to bring that back with you into your lifetime as Sheril. (I gave Tara time to complete this inner process).
Moved to the next significant event in that life, Tara found herself in a school, learning “scientific things” about the mind, including the use of the third eye (the sixth chakra). Like others in the school, she was wearing a white headband with a “light-bluish” crystal attached to it. “The jewel is in the center of my forehead,” she informed me. “My hair is gold.”
Bringing back past talents, knowledge, and abilities is another subtle form of healing. To anchor Sheril’s experience, I said; “Go ahead and experience what it feels like to wear that crystal, how it helps to open your third eye. Just allow those impressions to come into your mind, through your third eye, with that crystal, that jewel, on your head.”
Asked if she had any friends in schools Tara said that there was a boy named Jaad, who loved her, but that she did not want to be attached. This was the first indication of what turned out to be Sheril’s core issue. Tara then found herself outdoors:
S: I feel tall grass. There are lions around. Golden lions. But I’m not afraid of then.
G: Why not?
S: They won’t harm me…I’m in tune with them…It’s something natural. They’re beautiful and golden. They’re just sitting there…I’m just running through the tall grass. Looks like wheat…The sun is shining. I just feel atonement.
Once again Tara was having a healing experience, which I felt should be anchored to show her that she had resources to draw on:
G: Good. Tune in to that feeling, so you can bring it back with you. Feel yourself at one with nature.
S: There is one lion coming towards me. I can feel him—I can touch him. He just bowed to me. I play with his hair, his mane…I’m going somewhere…It’s just golden. The sun is beautiful. It’s just like its gold everywhere…
Tara/Sheril was thus given three positive, healing experiences by her higher self, which I helped to anchor. If such reinforcing experiences do not come up spontaneously in a past-life regression, I often find it worthwhile to go looking for them at the end of a life, in retrospect, so that the individual has positive images to bring back along with any traumatic experiences.
Using the Higher Self
Having prepared Tara/Sheril with such positive scenes, Sheril’s higher self now moved Tara to a traumatic scene. This point marked the beginning of very intense therapy that lasted through the session. Tara described a scene where her city was being invaded:
S: Everybody is running everywhere. The enemy is all around. I’m tied up…My people do not fight. They are peace loving…They’re killing all of us.
G: They haven’t killed you, though. They’ve just tied you up?
S: They will kill me.
G: Just go forward in time and see what happens. You won’t feel any pain if they do kill you. What’s happening?
S: There’s a spear in my stomach. (Sheril’s stomach twitches several times)…I’m just left there to die.
G: Allow yourself to go through the death process, then.
S: I don’t want to.
G: You don’t want to die?
S: I don’t want to go through it again.
G: Okay, it won’t hurt you. Just leave your body and float away)…
S: It’s paining. Paining.
Note that Sheril has disregarded the instruction to feel no pain. This is a phenomenon I occasionally encounter, where the death is quite traumatic and the client for some reason gets stuck in that moment of pain and resists being moved forward. There was a specific reason for this in Sheril’s case, as will be seen. I quickly moved Tara through the death scene:
G: Let go of the pain. You shouldn’t be feeling any pain. Move out of the body. Move past the pain. (Sheril gives a deep sigh). Move into the next sphere. Move out of your body; out of your body.
I questioned Tara about her last thoughts and any decisions she might have made as a result of them, then asked her consciousness to move up and merge with her higher self. I have found that talking to the client’s higher self is my most important technique. In the space of a few minutes, the higher self can give me and my client an overview, along with insights, advice, directions, and sometimes specific ways to deal with the issues.
I do not pretend to know what the higher self is, particularly as it sometimes refers to itself as “we” and identifies itself as a group consciousness. However, it usually brings a marked shift in my client’s energy, vocal qualities, syntax, attitudes, and perceptions, as compared with the waking state. I have often experienced this myself while regressed. Sheril’s higher self got to the crux of her issue immediately:
G: Why did Tara choose that lifetime?
S: Spiritual evolution.
G: Were you able to achieve that?
Note that I inadvertently switched from the third to the second person, so that in the following interchange Tara was speaking for her higher self, which no longer was talking directly to me.
S: I did achieve much (pause). I did not overcome my father…I was angry with him—real angry.
G: Because he had rejected you when you were born?
S: Yes. Rejected me all through life…I’m still angry with him.
G: Is there anything else you need to look at?
S: Giving my love; giving my love to another male (besides my father).
G: You didn’t do that?
S: For fear of rejection. I don’t want to be rejected anymore. That’s why I could not love Jaad. I wanted to, but I couldn’t…I still feel that pain…(Sheril’s hands are on her abdomen, above the solar plexus).
G: OK. Let’s deal with that pain right now.
S: It’s right through my back.
Healing the Past-Life Body, Using the Chakras
Sheril was obviously telling me about a second wound here, but I mistakenly thought we were still dealing with the original one. In any case, I continued by utilizing a method of healing which, I was told, comes in part from the Sufi tradition.
The healing process I use is based on the known concept that every living creature has an energy body of some sort, which serves as a template around which the physical body patterns itself. From my work with clients, I deduced that when the physical body is damaged, the energy body is damaged as well. I later found support for this theory in a passage from Tansley (1972, p. 28):
Chakras can be damaged by traumatic accidents, and especially by sudden, dramatic, emotional shocks. Nagging fear or anxiety can, through constant wearing activity, disturb the functional balance. Chakras are frequently found to be blocked, either at the point where energy enters, or at the point where it exits.
Clients often come to my office with what appear to be psychosomatic pains, and then find that these pains originated from a past life. This would seem to indicate that either the past-life damage or the memory of that damage—very emotionally charged—was brought intact into the present-life energy body, which then affected the present-life physical body. In either case, the individual was experiencing only the physical complaints.
The second element of my technique is chakra healing. The theory behind this is that very powerful transformational and healing energies can be projected outward or inward from the chakras, simply by sending a conscious direction to the inner mind. Apparently no training of any sort—at least not in the current life—is needed for this.
Further, Sufi tradition has it that healing energies can be sent from the eyes.
And Soviet scientists have found that human eyes do emit energies. As Joy (1979, p. 52) reports:
Some Soviet experiments seem to indicate that the eyes of the observed emit a force field that can influence what the eyes are looking at…More important, it is reported that the energy from the eyes is measurable.
While instructing Sheril in this healing technique, I held my right hand, palm down, six inches above her abdominal area—where she had indicated the first wound was located. At the same time, I instructed myself to send healing energies from my hand chakra to Sheril’s affected (third) chakra.[1]
G: Now, I want you to go back into that life, as Sheril. I want you to see Tara in front of you. See Tara with the spear through her, and now, very gently, remove the spear from her body. Very gently remove the spear. And then—after you have removed the spear—you’re going to heal her (pause). Have you removed the spear?
S: Yes.
G: Look at Tara, and look where her wound is. Now send a beam of healing light from your forehead—from the “third eye”—and also from your two eyes, and another beam from your heart center. See these four beams of light converge, aim them right at her wound, and then start healing up the wound. It will heal from the inside out, and you will see this. Feel the wound healing. Feel the flesh healing up again. When the wound is completely closed, please tall me (pause).
S: It’s finished.
It should be noted that Sheril healed her own past self. When I first began using this technique with clients, I would do the healing with my own chakras. But then it occurred to me that a much more constructive method would be to have the client do it. I now ask clients if they want to heal their past selves. On occasion, a client will say No, and this is an issue that must be addressed before the healing visualization is attempted.
Using the Pre-birth Planning Session
I now asked Sheril to go back to her pre-birth planning session to see why she had come into this life. I do not regularly do this, as clients often are unable to tune in to that scene. However, Sheril was an excellent subject and had no difficulty following my instruction.
G: Why did you choose a lifetime in which you had a father who rejected you? What was your reason for wanting to be rejected? What were you trying to teach yourself?
S: I rejected his love in a past lifetime.
G: So you had to experience what it felt like to have love rejected?
S: Yes.
Rescripting in a Past Life
At this point I decided to rescript Tara’s relationship with her father. Before doing such a procedure, however, the past-life self needs to be asked not only if it wishes to change any element of that life, but also how it wishes it changed. If the past self is unsure how, then it is the responsibility of the therapist to guide that self to a constructive new scenario. Tara/Sheril agreed to rescripting.
S: I’m still feeling that pain.
G: Where? In what part of your body?
S: In my back, on the left side. (Sheril’s right hand moves over her left shoulder several times, as if trying to reach something stuck in the upper left side of her back).
I now asked Sheril’s higher self if this pain came from another past life and was told that such was the case. I normally do not mix two past lives together in one session, but at this moment it seemed necessary; so I regressed Sheril immediately to that other lifetime.
What we retrieved was just a sketch of that life. Sheril was a man in an American mining town near the Canadian border. He was named Jake, 32 years old and very tall. He was helping to build a railroad in the early part of the 19th century. Jake liked to drink and fight, and, because of his bad temper, he had almost no friends. He reported that at the moment he was in a bar.
S: There’s a woman there. She’s a pest.
G: Uh-huh.
S: Don’t get attached…(Here was the core issue again).
G: What happened?
S: She’s bothering me, and I don’t want her to bother me. She’s not bad-looking, but I just don’t want to be bothered…I’m leaving (the bar).
G: And then what happens?
S: She looks like she hates my guts.
G: Because you rejected her?
S: Yeah. (Sheril’s body twitches). (Her body went rigid both when she was speared in the abdomen and when she was stabbed in the back).
G: You twitched just now. What happened?
S: She stabbed me in my back (Sheril tries to reach the knife that is stuck there).
Jake said he had died from that knife wound, and I instructed Sheril to heal Jake just as she had healed Tara, first removing the knife from his back and then healing the wound.
This done, I returned Sheril’s consciousness to her higher self and asked about what we had just experienced: one life in which Sheril had been rejected and another in which she had done the rejecting—a polarity often found in past-life patterns. The higher self responded, “Got to trust more. Trust more.” I asked if Sheril’s heart chakra was sufficiently open, and was told it was not:
S: It needs to open more.
G: Is Sheril afraid to love?
S: Yes.
I now returned to rescripting the Atlantean life:
G: I want to go back to your father in Atlantis, as Tara. I want you to see yourself when you’re about 6 years old, still feeling rejected. Now just go up to your father and tell him, “I don’t care if you wanted a boy, and I don’t care if you reject me, I still love you.” And give him a hug and a kiss. Just love him. It doesn’t matter if he loves you or not—you are the one who has to learn to love. What he does is his karma. You live your life the way you want to live it. So you must open your heart to him and give him your love—just send that love to him throughout all of time. Just say to him, “I accept you and I love you, just the way you are.” (Sheril sighs twice). How does that feel to you?
S: Much better.
G: Good.
S: But I’m still feeling the pain in my back.
This was an important point in the regression. I am convinced that such pain is a signal of unresolved issues, rather than a simple memory of a trauma. The pain in the stomach was now gone, since the issue that had caused it had been confronted and worked through; the pain in back was still there because the issue that Jake was dealing with had not been confronted. However, I wanted to complete the Atlantean life before dealing with Jake. So I told Sheril that the pain would leave soon, and continued with the rescripting:
G: Now, I want you to move forward in that lifetime (in Atlantis) to that boy who you were attracted to—Jaad. I want you to see that boy. I want you to go up to him and tell him, “I’m attracted to you, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ll be rejected. I’m afraid I don’t know how to love.” And then just send him your love—even though you are afraid. Love is much stronger than fear, and you have the power over sending it out. (Sheril sighs). You don’t have any power over receiving love, but you have the power to send it out. So just open your heart center and send your love to this boy (pause).
S: I have.
G: All right. Now go to the end of that lifetime and see your enemies. (Sheril sighs deeply). See your enemies and, as they come into your view (Sheril sighs again). Send your love to them, even as they’re killing you. And release them from any responsibility, because you chose that death. Send them your love—for love transcends time, space, and matter—and forgive your father for having rejected you, because you chose that also. You chose him as your father, to teach yourself the lesson you wanted to learn. So release your father also (Sheril sighs again).
I now returned Sheril to the life of Jake, who resisted opening up his heart center. But after a considerable time, his inner pain became too great, and he finally agreed to try rescripting the end of his life. When asked to talk to the bar girl, he realized that she was pretty and was in love with him, which softened him up quite a bit. As he talked to her, he learned how she had come to be where she was, and he began to open his heart to her. But when I asked him to allow her to love him, he said, “I don’t want her to break my heart.”
Once again we were dealing with the issues of loving and rejection. Eventually, Jake was asked to send love to the girl, but to go no further than seeing her as a friend. With a heavy sigh, he agreed to try this. And since he had now changed his relationship with her, she no longer wanted to kill him. This allowed for a new unscripted scenario for the rest of his life, one in which he was not stabbed in the back.
G: So, you go ahead then, Jake. Find a new way of expressing yourself and also of receiving, not just giving, but receiving.
S: Uh-huh.
G: And Sheril, you can see now what the pattern was, in both of these lives; giving and receiving. And all that means is that you leave yourself open, OK? (deep breathing by Sheril again). Leave yourself open to give, and leave yourself open to receive.
S: OK.
At this point I returned to Sheril’s higher self, which reaffirmed that Sheril’s problem was a closed-down heart chakra that needed to open up. It said that Sheril’s other problems came from the closed heart center, through fear of the pain of rejection: “She’s too strong-willed…Just got to learn to yield a little. When the heart center is open to love, everything will be better.” Clearly we had located what Sheril had spoken about in the initial interview: “I’m blocking something, but don’t know what.” She had been blocking the heart center.
Another Chakra Healing
I thanked the higher self for its help and returned Sheril to her own personality, though I did not yet bring her back to the present. I decided to do another form of chakra healing, which I do only when I feel it is required:
G: Sheril, you’re working with two of your chakras: your third and fourth chakra—the will center, which is your third chakra, right about here in your solar plexus. Loosen that up—you have too much energy in there. It’s all blocked in there. Feel that energy trapped there.
Now move it up. Feel it moving up into your heart center. As you breathe in, breathe some of that energy up from your will center into your heart center and then send it out through your heart center. Just tell yourself, “I’m sending some of that energy from the third chakra up into the fourth chakra.” Send some of that energy in the will center up into the heart center, and then send it out of your body. Just feel that energy moving, so you don’t have it trapped in there. Allow it to move up. Move it up into your heart center. That’s it.
Now when you breathe in, breathe in through your heart center and send it down to your will center. Breathe in love through the heart center and breathe it out through the third center, so that you temper your will with love. OK. So, when you exercise your will, you will do it in a loving way.
And now send some of that will up to the fourth center, your heart center. Will yourself to love. Just allow those energies to flow back and forth between the two centers, so that you don’t keep the energies trapped. You kept all of your will trapped in your third center (where the spear had entered), and you were not willing yourself to love. So now will yourself to love, and send love with your will.
S: (softly). The pain is gone.
Healing on the Way Back to the Present
Sheril was now returned to the present on the train, brought back up on the elevator through all of the colors of the rainbow (in reverse), and then instructed to envision the elevator filled with golden, healing light. I always use golden light here, and now it was especially relevant, as I also told Sheril to bring back with her all the positive elements of the Atlantean life:
G: Remember that gold light you saw back in Atlantis. Remember all that goldenness in Atlantis. Remember all of the good feelings you had in Atlantis when things were going well for you. Remember how beautiful things were. Remember the lion. Remember being at one with nature. Remember your mother’s love. Remember all of the talents that you developed in that lifetime. And feel that golden light helping you to open your heart center and to heal you.
I asked Sheril to step out of the elevator and open her eyes when she was ready. She said she was still “seeing pictures” in her head. When her eyes finally did open, I realized that I had forgotten to ask her if any of the people in those past lives were in her life now. I had her close her eyes again and tune in.
Sheril said that her current father, with whom she had a difficult relationship, had been her father in Atlantis. Although I did not ask, and she did not volunteer the information, it would not surprise me if Sheril’s father had also been the bar girl in Jake’s life. Sheril recalled telling him that she wanted this to be their last life together, that she wished to resolve their relationship once and for all. “I knew (the pain) was a message,” she said, “but I couldn’t tell where it stemmed from…It’s changed. I’m at peace. That pain has been bothering me for years. I don’t feel it now.”
Sheril also recounted dreams of another past life, as well as a relationship with a male acquaintance in her present life, both of which reflected the issues of love and rejection. So the two lives she had just experienced were obviously the most representative and dramatic of an entire pattern of lives and relationships in which she had been working on the issues of acceptance/rejection and love/no-love.
A great many people come to me with energies trapped in the third (will) center, or with a blockage in the meridians connecting the third and fourth chakras, or with blocked heart chakras. I have come to believe that this is a pattern of mankind as a whole: Having worked on the will center for thousands of years, we are now in the process of moving up into the fourth chakra—the fourth dimension, the dimension of unconditional love.
What this unusual session demonstrated to me was that a physical symptom is, indeed, a message about a core issue/lesson. The pain and the past-life wounds (physical, mental, emotional, electromagnetic) must ultimately be healed, of course; but the core issue/lesson must also be found, examined, and dealt with in a positive healing way. This was an atypical session in that so many different methods came to be utilized, without prior planning. And it demonstrated that these methods can greatly reduce the time needed to heal the inner wounds and address the core issues/lessons.
Although there has been no follow-up, the client’s responses during regression indicated that there had been a distinct shift for the better in her psyche and that she had experienced the healing she had come for.
Moreover, the deep understanding attained by Sheril during this therapy was also acquired by Tara and Jake—plus, I have to deduce, all of Sheril’s other personalities, past and future, who are telepathically connected through the higher self. This is what I believe my work is all about.
References
Joy, Brugh. Joy’s Way. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1979.
Tansley, David V. Radionics and the Subtle Anatomy of Man. Saffron Walden, Essex, England: C. W. Daniel Co., 1972.
[1] Although I normally do not experience anything in my hand when I channel energy like this, on one occasion I felt so much energy running through my right hand during a healing that it seemed as if my palm had disintegrated. Conversely, clients report feeling energy entering their aura, and exhibit outward physiological changes while the healing is taking place. It would be helpful for researchers with the proper equipment to monitor such healing sessions as an experiment.