I have long been fascinated with the concept of reincarnation since reading the book The Search For Bridey Murphy, written by Morey Bernstein. It tells the story of a woman in the 1950’s, who, under hypnosis is regressed back to a lifetime in Ireland in the 1800’s. Whether or not it is true, is immaterial. It drew me to explore further into the possibility that I had lived in other places at various times in history.

In the 1980’s, I was introduced to the pioneering work of Dr. Brian Weiss, a Columbia University and Yale Medical School educated psychiatrist who inadvertently found himself utilizing regression to assist patients with otherwise intractable symptomology. I had the pleasure of interviewing him initially for my own magazine called Visions in 1990 and then for Wisdom Magazine several years later.

Fast forward to 2016  and I find myself in a room with a group of others who are also enthralled, or at least curious about the topic and want to venture into the waters themselves. The Past Life Regression workshop was facilitated by Jessica Brown Ramirez, Caryn Benevento-Munroe and Erin Muldoon Stetson. The three women with diverse backgrounds had met at a training that Brian Weiss offered at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. They felt certain that they too had traveled around the block a few times together prior to this encounter, so they joined forces to teach.

The workshop included EFT-Emotional Freedom Technique, which is a modality that involves tapping on certain points on the body to release long held patterns and beliefs. It was described as being like acupuncture without the needles.

Another component was psychometry, in which we were invited to hold an object owned by another person in the class who we didn’t know (lest it muddy the waters) and tell that person our impressions that arose. The woman I worked with had a pearl ring she asked me to use. I was able to evoke messages and guidance that addressed issues she was facing and life changes she was making. When she held an earring of mine, she too came up with powerful phrases and images that spoke to my own transitions.

The next portion of the day incorporated a few meditations for healing and regressions into three past lives and one future life. Following each one, we were asked to journal about the experience and note the lessons learned.

In the initial journey, I was a 10 year old girl playing on the beach under the watchful eye of her father. When asked what year it was, my first thought was 1973. My logical mind questioned how this could be, since I was born in 1958. I remembered hearing (and Brian Weiss subscribes to his paradigm) that time is fluid and that lives are lived in overlapping, simultaneous ways. Susan (as I was told her name was) had recently lost her mother following a long illness. There are numerous details in this lifetime, but the important one that links this lifetime to the others I experienced, is that when he mom passed, she helin her hand a silver heart shaped locket that had a photo of them in it. Susan wore it every day after that. Five years later, a new girl comes to her school and they notice that they are each wearing the same pendant. They become friends and Susan discovers that this other girl’s father had died and left her mother a widow. The two scheme to get their parents together. Eventually they marry.

Lessons: Love never dies. People find each other when they need to. People can create new lives. There are indeed what I call ‘overlapping soul circles’. The Warren Zevon song, Keep Me In Your Heart, came through as well.

As we were led into the next lifetime, I feel a pain in my legs and I curl them up and a thought crosses my mind that I don’t have the use of them. I am a girl in 1922 who has polio and I am in a wheelchair. Sitting in the parlor of my parents’ NYC brownstone, wearing black woolen stockings and braces, I am beaming tutored by a bitter, angry woman who tells me that I had better learn what she is teaching me so I can be independent, since “No man will want you and your parents won’t be around forever.”  I am so upset by what she is saying that I tell my parents and they fire her. My next tutor is a supportive man who encourages my independence for different reasons; so that I can make a positive life for myself. I become a writer who travels the world, albeit in my wheelchair. I do eventually meet a man who is an artist and musician. We marry and have two children. On the last day of  that life, I am in bed with my family around me.

Lessons: I can overcome any challenge. Mobility looks all kinds of ways. I can trust a man to take care of me. I can speak my truth and ask for what I want and situations change. I can love myself even with perceived limitations. I can use creativity to thrive.

In the third lifetime I discover that I am a young boy playing by a stream, hanging out with rabbits, squirrels and fox. My father is a hunter who kills for sport and not because food is needed. I rebel against that mindset and we are often at odds and he made fun of my Dr. Doolittle-like relationship with animals. Later in my life, I become a veterinarian and animal communicator. People bring their animals to me and I make house calls to them if they have farm animals. I don’t recall if I married in that lifetime or had children, but at the end, there was George Bailey- ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ type tribute.

Lessons: Follow your path. Connect with nature. Speak your truth. Stand up to bullies. Love animals. I currently offer Reiki and massage for horses. Kindness counts.

In the future life progression, we were guided to a healing temple up steps into clouds. It reminded me of a Maxfield Parrish painting. I was led into a lifetime in which I lived in a pod of people who shared a home, responsibilities and interwoven relationships with each other. Each of us had a healing gift to offer. Mine was creativity and communication (as in this current lifetime).

Lessons:  No need to compete with anyone to feel valued. We are all special and have unique gifts to offer. Living in community and cooperation.

At the end of the workshop, I left with a sense that all is well and everything in my life is unfolding as it should.

“All is love…All is love. With love comes understanding. With understanding comes patience. And then time stops. And everything is now.” -Brian Weiss