Book Excerpt 4: Opening A Window To The Soul

Daeryl’s past life awakening

As part of the process of coping with a major life transition, I began to work with a therapist who used traditional concepts as well as alternative approaches. Initially addressing the issue of divorce, we shifted to exploration of my back injury (as it had been the catalyst for all the rest).

I had no idea of the phenomenal shift that was about to take place.

I was guided on a journey during a hypnotherapy regression, where I found myself experiencing life in the body of an old man. My room of stone was ringed with shelves holding herbs in glass jars. A long table was crowded with large leather-bound books, pages filled with handwritten symbols and notations describing my herbal healing and astrology research. The scene shifted to me being dragged into the dusty street by an angry mob, sent by the church, in opposition to my spiritual beliefs and practices. When a wooden staff came down on my lower back, I felt a “crack!” at the spot of my current injury, like a button being pressed and sending sympathetic resonance down my legs. I realized in that moment that my back pain was sourced in more than just my current life.

I witnessed my soul leaving that body as a result of paralyzing injuries. I anguished at the loss of life and unjust persecution, but the greatest despair was for the loss of such a huge body of knowledge that had been accumulated during a long and studious life devoted to the healing arts. From the altered perspective of hypnotherapy, I was able to clearly see the past life events that were still affecting me. Comparing this life and my present life was like viewing two movies at the same time, seeing similar sequences of events overlapping and blending. With guidance from the therapist, I was able to understand how my unpopular esoteric beliefs (as the old man) had led to death in that time, and had seeded my current fear that it could happen again. I had been avoiding a spiritual path in present time as though that same danger was still real.

As the therapist helped me to let go of these associations, I felt a pulsing aliveness tingling down my legs, as if nerves were being turned back on. Later, when I stood up, I was without pain or limitation of movement. My physical healing had begun.

Toward the end of the session, the therapist asked me to look deeper asking, “Is it really true that all this information is lost?” I flashed back to the moment of my soul leaving the old man’s body. A presence appeared, like a little fairy “Tinkerbell,” bringing me a gleeful message. “Nothing is lost. We have been holding onto all of your knowledge, just waiting for you to reclaim it!” I didn’t understand until later exactly “who” she was or what that meant, but my sense of loss and despair was gone.

Perhaps most importantly, I gained the awareness that I had lived more times than just now, that what I might not remember from other lives could affect me in this one, and that I had the power to change my life simply by looking at my existence from the soul perspective.

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What kinds of things trigger past life memories?

When a similar scenario presents itself, you may have a sense of familiarity or “déjà vu,” even if the message is no longer relevant or understood consciously. Having a past life memory triggered can feel like reading something in a language you don’t fully understand. Events and environmental situations that bear a resemblance to past life experiences bring prior learning into present time. Perhaps you experience a gut wrenching nausea, and a fear of isolation and treachery, when faced with the prospect of boarding a ship. Your body is reacting to a soul message, a reminder of a time when, perhaps, you were a ruthless pirate, operating from pure greed and lust. You learned then what it was like to avoid cooperation and cause great suffering. Even unconsciously, your current reaction to boarding a ship is designed to bring recall of a previous lesson learned and keep you from repeating mistakes.

Activities such as sports or hobbies can reconnect you to a previous time. Riding a horse (the trigger) may bring back a feeling of power and glory, even though you are not aware of your previous life as a Mongol warrior. Taking a weaving class may awaken dormant sensations from a life as a Navajo woman, with the immediate response of either an affinity or aversion to the activity.

Ordinary objects or animals may activate a past life story. If you had been tarred and feathered in a life for speaking out against the politics of the time, you may experience fear and revulsion at your first sighting of a feather in this life. There may also be a secondary indirect association – you hold your tongue and do not speak your opinions – after that fear is triggered.

When you come into contact with a soul from a past life, the resonance of their soul essence can bring back the story of your previous encounter. Whatever the flavor of the relationship in the other life, pleasant or uncomfortable, will be the frequency that is received by your subconscious, then into your emotional, physical, and energetic bodies. Like an old tune being played back to you, you will have a response similar to the time shared before. If that soul had caused you harm or trauma, you may react to their presence with an instant feeling that you need to get away. If they were loving and supportive in the past connection, you may feel an easy comfort and attraction.

Feelings of harmony or repulsion are triggered by sounds, tastes, and smells that take you back in time. Having lived an enjoyable life as a dairy farmer in the Netherlands, your experience while eating cheese in this life is particularly pleasant and comforting. A person who was tortured as a servant in Asia may have a very strong adverse reaction to hearing Chinese music now.

People are often attracted or adverse to certain styles of dress, home décor, music, hobbies, and cuisine in alignment with their previous associations in either pleasant or difficult lives. With any kind of trigger, the person experiences a blending of vibrations between soul memory and present reality.

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What would be a reason to remember a specific past life?

Remembering who you have been in other times brings meaning to the present life, with insight into why you feel and act the way you do. Not remembering anything that went before the current life, or even that there was a before, is like trying to have a sense of who you are without remembering the first twenty years of your life.

When there is confusion in your life, ask yourself, “Is there another story that could help me to understand what is happening now?” When you are feeling stuck in an old pattern that does not serve you, clarity about the past life experience you are reacting to can help you let go and move on.

An example: Every time you get near a leadership role, you get an overwhelming fear that something terrible will happen. In a past life, you and all of your family were killed because you did not heed a warning as the chief of your tribe. Memory of that life brings insight to your reactions, what lessons to retain, and what associations to let go of. Instead of the false belief that leadership will lead to trauma, remember what you were meant to learn – to lead well by listening to the wisdom of others.

Perhaps there is a person who had killed you in a past life. Without knowing why, when you meet that soul now as a coworker, you are fearful and anticipate conflict, which interferes with your ability to get along in your job. Even though the feeling is strong, there is no real threat this life. The challenge for the present life is to release resentment and fear by realizing “this person is not going to kill me this time.” You can then turn to look at what your current soul agreement may be, perhaps working together and supporting each other’s goals, instead of getting trapped in old responses of retaliation or avoidance.

In close relationships, there is a tendency to step into the familiar role of a past life, rather than address a new interaction. A person can get overly attached or expect a person to act a certain way just because that is how the relationship between the two souls was in a past life. By recognizing and shifting the automatic patterns, you gain the tools to achieve balance on a soul level, and more effective and harmonious actions on a human level.

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