by Denise Linn

In order to heal and empower your present life, it’s helpful to first know who and what you’ve been in previous incarnations. Past life exploration is a highly effective method for traveling deep into the inner recesses of your mind to the place where memories of all your prior existences are stored. It can be a direct path to the soul. As you uncover and heal old wounds from the past—and release self-limiting beliefs—you’ll begin to understand your true purpose and place in the universe.

Is My Past Life Real?

When you embark on a regression, images and memories surface—sometimes in vivid detail. There are numerous documented cases of convincingly accurate details being recalled during past life regressions, which are later validated through historical research. Participants of my seminars have also written to me and explained that they’ve investigated the lives that they saw during group regressions . . . and discovered that their visions were factual. However, most past lives haven’t been recorded making it impossible to find written proof that your experiences before this lifetime were real.

However you don’t actually have to prove that your former lives are authentic—or even believe in reincarnation—to benefit from past life therapy. Even my clients who were skeptical gained immense value from regressions. When a person’s life transforms—as a result of witnessing images that emerge during deep meditation—healing has occurred. It’s not important if those images are “true” past lives or not; the significance lies in the advantages you receive while exploring their meaning. Even if the mental pictures that come to the surface aren’t past life memories but are simply symbols from your subconscious, they deserve to be probed. They’re legitimate expressions from your inner being, which can greatly increase the quality of your life.

Am I Making It Up?

When they discover a previous incarnation, participants in my past life seminars sometimes say, “Am I just making this up?” I tell them to stop worrying about whether the images they see are real or not. The value lies in the results they achieve in their lives based on what they’ve learned from the regression—it’s not about wondering if they’re recalling a fantasy lifetime.

Although many of the memories you experience will be factual, proving their validity is a lot less important than the profound growth that can occur in your life just by viewing them. And on a spiritual level, of course you’re making it up. Where do you think all of life came from? You’re always “making it up,” no matter what you’re experiencing because the circumstances of your life come from the creative force within you. In no small way—in every moment—you’re imagining and manifesting your life. So to remember your past lives, just let go and be willing to “make it up.”

In our culture we’re told to dismiss anything that doesn’t fit within the normal consensus of reality. The reluctance to accept past life memories may have it’s roots in our collective childhood . . . in which imagination was demeaned and relegated to the inconsequential world of make-believe. When children talk about an invisible friend or when someone sees a ghost or an angel, these individuals are told to ignore it, because it’s “just their imagination.” When people say, “Oh, that’s just her imagination,” and reduce its value in such a pejorative way, it’s truly a desecration of one of our most sacred faculties—the ability to tap into our intuitive and visionary capacity.

Our imagination is one of the most powerful spiritual tools that we possess, for it’s an entrance into other worlds and the pathway used by ancient seers to pierce into other dimensions and travel through time and space. Mystics and prophets also rely on it to traverse the subtle inner realm and access universal truths. It’s a sacred ability of all human beings, so I invite you to awaken your creative spark and explore what and how you’ve been. Allow your imagination free rein without constantly questioning the images, and you’ll begin to receive more accurate information regarding your previous lives. Remember that this faculty is a hallowed doorway to your far past.

Using Past Life Exploration To Answer Important Questions About Your Life

Past life journeys can sometimes provide the answers that traditional medicine or therapy can’t. Of course there may be many contributing reasons for our problems—it can be all too easy to blame current difficulties on past life behavior or actions. Nevertheless, exploration into earlier lives has proven to be incredibly powerful in many situations where other methods have failed. By knowing who we’ve been in previous lives, we can better understand our place and mission in the present. Life isn’t a onetime affair, nor is it a series of meaningless experiences strung together. A journey backward in time will assist the process of gradually realizing our full potential as conscious, loving beings.

Your Health And Past Lives

Past life regression can have a positive effect on all aspects of life and is especially beneficial for health problems. My client Karen came to me because she believed that she was sabotaging her own desire for a long-term, loving relationship; she also felt that she had a weight problem. Although there isn’t necessarily a connection between body weight and relationships, Karen sensed that there was one for her. She was a 34-year-old, well-dressed woman and had about 30 pounds she couldn’t lose. She was certain that her size was preventing her from experiencing a committed, satisfying relationship.

In a past life journey, Karen vividly remembered a life as a prostitute in 18th-century England. She recalled the bitter cold of the London streets; the occasional frantic encounters with customers; and the long, hungry days. She was very unhappy in that life, and during her regression she relived her grief in being stuck in such a difficult profession. In addition, she got in touch with a belief that she had formed at the time: “If I’m attractive, men will desire me for my body, and I’ll feel cheap and degraded.”

She came into her current life with that statement embedded in her bio-energy matrix—her personal energy field. (Your energy field is made up of all the aspects of your energetic systems, including your emotional body, astral body, and bio-electrical meridian system.) Beliefs, decisions, and judgments aren’t just lodged in your brain, they also exist in your physical body and in the myriad energy fields that surround and penetrate your being.

In her regression, Karen discovered that even though she consciously wanted to feel attractive and desired, she was subconsciously afraid of being degraded again. This core belief had been controlling her life since she was a child. Anytime a man was attracted to her, she’d sabotage any chance of a relationship without even realizing it.

During our work together, she was able to release her old conviction, and her entire life changed as a result. She embraced a new principle about herself: I can feel and be attractive. People are attracted to me for who I am—and who I am is wonderful.

Almost immediately she started to lose those 30 pounds, but more important, she began to feel good about herself. Karen is now happily married and looking and feeling attractive.

I once worked with a young man named John who came to me for help in treating a physical problem he’d suffered with for many years. He couldn’t perspire because his sweat glands didn’t function properly, and as a result, his skin was dry, which was extremely uncomfortable. He’d tried numerous medications to no avail. He regressed to a time when he’d been a servant at a Russian court and was required to stand at attention for hours during banquets in case a guest beckoned. During one important occasion, he had a very full bladder but wasn’t allowed to leave his post. Eventually he lost control and ran out of the banquet hall to relieve himself. In a subsequent fit of rage, his master killed him.

In the regression, John discovered a subconscious belief that he must hold back his bodily excretions or else die. His body translated this idea in such a way that he stopped perspiring. As soon as he discovered the source of his difficulty and resolved it, immediately (during the session) his sweat glands began to work. They’ve continued to do so ever since.

Your Relationships And Past Lives

Past life regression can also help us understand relationships. A daughter who resents her mother telling her what to do may find that in a past life their roles were reversed—she was the domineering mother in a previous life, and vice versa. The resentful daughter may never have gotten over the feeling that she should be in charge, not the other way around. Remembering and understanding why she feels the way she does about her mother could help her create a healthier relationship in which she isn’t being controlled by her past programming.

My client Sue had worked at the same job for seven years, and almost every day she was angry with her boss. He noticed every detail of her work and although he was kind, she felt that he was suffocating her. In her regression, Sue discovered a past life in which her current boss had been her husband—and he hadn’t been attentive at all. In the 1800s, they’d been early settlers in Montana and lived in a small mountain cabin miles from any other habitation. In that life as a pioneer wife, Sue was very lonely and desired company. For weeks at a time, her husband would leave their cabin to go hunting and exploring. She used to complain that he wasn’t attentive enough; and on one occasion when he was away, Sue was caught in a landslide behind the cabin and suffocated to death.

When she realized that her present boss was trying to make up for being inattentive in their past life together, she forgave him and also released the subconscious need for his attention. She also let him know that it wasn’t his fault that she had suffocated. Even though she never told her boss about her regression, she remarked that from that day forward, he seemed completely changed. Even their colleagues noticed the difference. He was much more at ease with her, and everyone in the office enjoyed the benefits of his more relaxed mood.

Your Abundance And Past Lives

Whenever my client Mark started to get ahead financially, he’d back down from his success and wasn’t quite able to make ends meet for his family. A common expression of Mark’s was: “We’re poor but we’re happy.” In a regression, he saw that he’d been a wealthy landowner in the Middle Ages. However, his family had been kidnapped and held for ransom by marauding bandits, and he never saw his young wife again (who also happened to be his wife in this life).

He recalled that in his past life, night after night he’d been slouched over in the damp quarters of his manor house, blaming himself and his wealth for the loss of his wife. This subconscious guilt had carried forward into his present life: He believed that if he had too much money, his family would be taken from him. This feeling was so strong that if he ever made enough money, he would have likely been separated from his family somehow to support his subconscious belief. After Mark recognized this thought pattern, a remarkable financial change occurred. He was quickly given a promotion since he was no longer sabotaging his advancement, and interestingly enough, he went into real estate. He and his family are now quite prosperous!

Past Life Regressions To Activate Talents And Abilities

An exciting area of past life exploration is the activation of past life talents and abilities for use in one’s present life. Rob came to one of my seminars and regressed to a time when he’d played the violin. The following week he bought a violin and began taking lessons. He reported that his teacher was astounded by how quickly and easily he was able to learn.

Carolyn had always wanted to sing but felt that she didn’t have a good voice—she said that people used to tease her about it. After she regressed to a past life in which she’d been an excellent vocalist, she said that it seemed almost magical how dramatically her voice had improved. Now she sings in a choir in her hometown.

In my seminars, I often do a process specifically aimed at activating talents, abilities, and other beneficial qualities from previous lives. At the end of one of these exercises, a woman approached me and said, “I don’t understand. In my past life, I saw that I was a shepherd. All I did every day was spend time in the hills by myself, occasionally herding sheep. What talent or ability is that?”

After spending a few minutes talking with her, she brought up the fact that she has six kids who keep her very busy. We realized that she tuned in to that particular past life so she could bring some inner peace and solitude into her current hectic life.

I’ve developed a technique in my seminars that seems to help bring a particular ability into the present time. Participants close their eyes as I help them reach a state of deep relaxation. While they experience a past life in which they exhibited special traits or talents, I ask them to move or position their body as if they were participating in their specific talent. For example, when Rob recalled a life as a violinist, I asked him to stand up (while his eyes remained closed) and move his arms and body just as if he were playing the violin. This process causes the body to remember how to perform the activity. Reenacting the motions—while experiencing a past life—actually helps to implant that special quality into your present physical body.

In one seminar when I was leading this talent process, I noticed a young man in the corner of the hall doing what looked like push-ups. I assumed that he must have been a good athlete in another life and was attempting to bring those athletic abilities into the present. During the break, I asked him what past life talent he’d encountered. His face turned red, and he lowered his voice and whispered, “I was a great lover!” I can only hope that his lovemaking abilities have improved as a result of his sojourn into the past.

Releasing The Fear Of Death

Another benefit of past life exploration is the release of the fear of death, which enables you to live more fully and with greater intensity. When you really comprehend the fact that you’re infinite and eternal and you don’t die when your body does, you begin to feel a deep inner peace that pervades your everyday activities.

The thought of dying can be frightening or extremely sad to someone who thinks that this one life is all there is. Mitchell had AIDS and was very seriously ill. He’d never possessed strong religious beliefs and was terrified of death. He didn’t believe in reincarnation, but a friend persuaded him to consult me. I told him that he didn’t have to believe in reincarnation—instead, he and I could do a past life process and call the images he saw “soul dramas.” I explained that the snapshot images he would experience were a valid expression of his subconscious mind—whether they were previous lives or symbolic representations of his psyche wasn’t important—and those inner messages deserve to be heard, no matter where they came from. He could accept that point of view.

Mitchell went into a deeply relaxed state very quickly, as images and feelings of other times and places came easily to him. Suddenly he had a spontaneous encounter seemingly unsolicited by anything I said. He saw all the bodies that he’d inhabited in every one of his lifetimes coming forward like a great gathering of friends. Some were male and some were female, and many races were represented as well. As he stood in the center of this group, one of these past selves came forward and told him what he had gained from each life. Eventually, a body that looked exactly like his present one also stepped forward and said, “Each life allows you a greater and deeper understanding of who you are in your entirety. Each life is special, important, and valuable. The body that you currently inhabit is allowing you to develop your ability to receive love. You’re learning this lesson well, and soon you’ll be going home.”

At this point Mitchell began to sob, as the dam of uncertainty, fear, and pain crumbled. When he gained composure, he smiled and said, “I’ve never felt such a deep sense of peace. I’m ready to go when it’s my time.” He died a few weeks later, but I was told that his last moments of life were filled with profound grace and serenity.

Why Past Life Regression Works

Past life exploration is healing because it allows you to get to the source of your problems; until then, you’re dealing with symptoms rather than causes. The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In other words, when you release yourself from the limitations of the past, you can be free. Whether you call it genetic coding, cellular memory, or even collective unconsciousness, we’re all ruled by the vast repository of our previous experiences; and in many ways, they dictate the situations we encounter in the present.

For example, many compulsions and phobias are rooted in the distant past. If you’ve always hated wearing anything tight around your neck, you may discover that you were choked to death in a previous lifetime. By reliving—and healing—ancient memories and associated emotions, your current life-limiting behaviors will change.

We often create incidents today that subconsciously remind us of events from our former lives in an attempt to heal the original pain. If emotions such as fear, anger, or grief were suppressed during traumatic events in a past life, they’ll stay embedded in your energy field and form inner conflicts that recur lifetime after lifetime. As you continue to push these undesired feelings deeper into your psyche, a greater barrier builds between you and whatever you’re afraid to confront. But when you relive a past life incident, the emotions and decisions that were held back for so long finally have the opportunity to rise to the surface and be released so that they no longer control you.

To further understand why past life therapy works, it’s important to realize that it’s not necessarily what you endured in your earlier lives that creates problems in your present life; rather, it’s the trauma and emotions that you suppressed in the past that initiates difficulties in the present. Your past experiences don’t cause continuing problems—it’s your reactions to them that create challenges. For example, falling into a ravine in a former life won’t necessarily create a blockage in your present life, but bumbling down while feeling suppressed intense emotional anguish could.

Joshua experienced a past life as a young man in medieval Europe. He remembered telling his trusted friends at the time that contrary to the accepted belief, he strongly felt that the king wasn’t directly descended from God. Furious, his friends chased after him, causing him to fall down a ravine. As he fell, he was in turmoil—he loved his friends, yet that feeling was at odds with his fear as they brutally pursued him. As he plummeted, he made a decision that he’d never again share his feelings honestly.

In Joshua’s present life, he had always been afraid to speak his mind. In fact, when he’d start to say what he really felt, he’d often physically trip or stumble. He’d developed a subconscious association between speaking his mind and actually falling, but it wasn’t the physical trauma of his accident that caused his present-day blockage—it was the tumultuous emotions he felt at the time that he fell. Joshua was eventually able to change his lifelong pattern by using past life resolution techniques. Now he’s confident in his current life and can communicate what he really feels without fear.

Imagine two similar scenarios. In the first, an Aztec warrior is fighting alongside his best friend. The dust is churning as spears fly on either side of the gallant warrior. Suddenly in the haze of battle, a spear is flung straight at the chest of his friend. The young warrior steps in front of it, valiantly saving the life of his comrade. Mortally wounded by the spear that pierced his chest, he dies but feels a deep peace, for he has saved his friend’s life.

In the second scenario, two young warriors are battling side by side. They are best friends. Suddenly in the thrall of battle and obscured by thick haze and dust, one turns to the other and thrusts a spear into his friend’s chest. As the warrior lies dying on the battlefield, he learns that his best friend is having an affair with his wife and wants him out of the way. He dies making a decision that he can never really trust anyone.

In both scenes the physical trauma is the same—a spear wound to the chest causes death. In the first instance, the Aztec warrior feels exhilaration at having spared the life of his friend. In the second scenario, however, the warrior decides that it’s unwise to trust anyone. In future lives, when ever this man begins to get close to someone, similar memories an decisions will be activated. Whenever he starts to trust, he experiences severe chest pains and the fear of being betrayed. For him, establishing a bond with another activates an emotional and physical response from a past life.

It’s not your past life trauma that causes your present-day blockages; it’s the meaning you give to those events that haunts you through time. And it’s possible to travel back and change the significance of any event, and thus create a time/space domino effect that transforms your present life.

No Victims—Just Volunteers

When you connect with a past life—either through dreams, regression, or in waking consciousness—it’s important to remember that there are no victims . . . just volunteers. Every experience you’ve had may have been a necessary part of your spiritual growth to get you to the point where you are now. Please keep this in mind, especially when you encounter a lifetime in which you were a victim (or a tyrant).

I imagine the victim-volunteer scenario going something like this: You’re walking around in the spirit world. You’ve examined your past lives and decide that for your next incarnation, it would be valuable to learn humility in order to further your evolution.

You begin to pull aside passing spirits, “Hey, I’m about to incarnate. Why don’t you incarnate, too, and teach me some humility?”

The spirits all shy away from you, saying, “No way! I’m not going to mess up my karmic evolution by helping you achieve humility.”

Then finally shuffling up to the pearly gates comes Harry, an old acquaintance. You’ve shared lifetime after lifetime together—you love him deeply on a soul level.

“Hey, Harry, I really need to learn humility. How about it?” And Harry shrugs, lovingly puts his arm around you, and agrees.

He replies, “Only because I love you so much will I do this, because you know that it will be hard for both of us.”

You thank Harry profusely for the depth of his love and leap out of the spirit world into a baby’s body—and Harry, in turn, does the same. Gradually you both grow up, and Harry becomes your boss at your new job. It seems like he’s victimizing you, and you hate him with every ounce of your being. (You forget that you begged him to incarnate with you.) But along the way, you learn humility.

The individuals who victimized you are usually the very ones who love you the most deeply on a soul level. In my regression work, I’ve discovered time and time again that after processing the grief, rage, and bitterness that we hold against our abusers, there’s almost always an enormous well of love that’s uncovered.

Excerpt from Past Lives, Present Miracles

Part II coming soon.