I often will access and look at past lives in my soul
readings and divine energy healing sessions to help my clients understand the
karmic lessons in their lives so they can move forward. Also, by acknowledging the challenges and
issues, the energy of the client can shift into something more honest,
grounded, positive and flowing. It can
release guilt, shame, regret, confusion and replace it with understanding,
compassion, integrity and inner commitments.
Now, there are some fundamental premises to past lives:
1)
The Universe works under the premise of balance –
it’s not here to punish us but to have us grow in greater love, compassion,
peace and happiness. So whenever we have
a karmic debt owed to someone, or they owe to us, it’s a way of setting the
scales straight and making things right for everyone.
2)
We can increase our positive karma by adding
more compassion, peace and joy to ourselves and in the world through our
actions and behaviours. But it needs to come from a genuine heart, not
to “earn brownie points” so to speak.
3)
Some of the suffering we are experiencing now
may be connected to a previous lifetime. When we can know and understand that
connection, we can make better choices and allow for new ways of living so we
don’t continue the cycle of hurt and pain in ourselves and the world.
More and more people are realizing the reality of past lives
and how they shape and shift our life, while there are still others who scratch
their heads and don’t understand the necessity to look at the past, thinking we
are just to live in the now, while others, of course, don’t believe in past
lives at all. Though I understand the logic and the spirit of it, from my
experience, there are many benefits and blessings that come when we understand
where we’ve been and what to do or not to do in this lifetime. We can also make new commitments, knowing the
dire and great significance of our daily acts.
We can also balance out our karma with others and the earth so we can
enjoy feeling more at ease and at peace with ourselves and live in greater soul
integrity.
If you believe that you carry all the wisdom, knowledge and
experiences from this and previous lives in your soul, then why couldn’t you
access that for deeper understanding of your own suffering and truth so you can
transform your life and take new roads to greater peace, creativity and
happiness? Even just gaining insight into all dynamics from your past will help
you understand why you went through all that you did, alleviating yourself from
confusion, frustration and personal struggle.
I just did a past life meditation today, which is something
I haven’t done for a while. I was moved
to do this because my spirit is telling me I need to be in my own energy
because I’ve been depleting my resources due to some life and relationship
transformations.
Unsure of what would come up for me, and why I was being
guided to even go down this road, I willing submitted to this guidance and put
on the “Journeys into Past Lives” CD by Soul Coach Denise Linn. My intention was to release this feeling of
being frustrated and silenced. As I
deepened into the breathing practice to get me there, I let my mind not attach
to any ideas of how I believed this lifetime would look or be.
What I learned was that I was a young boy in China, and my
family owned a butcher shop in 1832. I was also seen as insignificant, small
and I didn’t matter. I worked hard for my family and got worn out. I picked up on the violent energies of the
butcher of pigs and felt an empathetic connection to them. I had a bone condition and died young, feeling
my lungs shut down. I was in a very simple room and no one was around. I was forgotten and disposable just like the
animals. My life seemed to mean nothing.
Now one can be skeptical about all of this, asking what does
this have to do with anything. But when
I saw the parallels in my life, this couldn’t be denied.
I have always struggled with self-confidence, feeling like I
didn’t matter. I have worked many jobs in this lifetime and have become burnt
out and exhausted. I also have a pre-osteoporosis condition, and I was a child
who was in and out of the hospital when I was growing up. I became a vegetarian 2 years ago, even
though all my life I had a deep compassion for animals throughout my life and
wanted to stop their cruelty in how people treated them.
I also knew people who worked at a local beef plant and I
would have a deep sadness and empathy for these people who would have to do
this job. I never knew why that affected me so much until today’s past life
meditation.
Also, for a summer, I lived above a Butcher’s Shop in
Kensington Market in Toronto which is very close to Chinatown. During my time there, a flood took over the
butcher’s shop and all the mice scurried up to the apartment where I was
staying. This created a whole host of problems, obviously. The subletter I was renting from somehow
thought I had created this mouse problem and our relationship turned sour. She was a vegan, poet and person with OCD and
mental health issues and so I couldn’t reason with her, and I also took the
blame because I admired who she was in the community. I believed that somewhere
it must have been my fault, which is usually the perspective of an abused
child. It was absurd, really. That was
also the summer when there was the huge blackout in the Eastern Seaboard. There were too many coincidences of misery,
suffering and chaos in this short experience that I had in this area. I also ended up on Unemployment Insurance during
this summer and everything seemed to be going downhill.
Now, that was a good 10-15 years ago. I had completely
forgotten about this summer in my past, but I know it had a deep impact on me,
looking back, where I felt like a failure, unworthy of a home, and believing
that I hurt this person who was a well-respected poet and social justice
advocate. In my innocence of living
above a butcher’s shop, I had felt frustrated, silenced, inadequate, insignificant
and tossed aside. Luckily, I didn’t have a near death experience at that time.
If you believe that we all go through certain experiences to
grow and learn in becoming more loving and self-aware people, well, this past
life has revealed a great number of things for me, especially:
1)
I’m to continue the path of being a vegetarian
and honouring the animals and be willing to advocate on their behalf.
Fortunately I committed to being a vegetarian 2 years ago and I feel more in my
integrity.
2)
To know that I matter and I am significant, even
if I am treated otherwise and am disposable.
You would not believe how often this feeling has crept into my life in
various significant relationships, where I would feel tossed aside and
insignificant, that I’ve outdone my use to others. How much of it was me and how much of it was
another’s stuff?
3)
I am to take care of my bone health through
being a vegetarian and to know that I deserve to have strength. I was diagnosed
with pre-osterporosis when I was in my 20s and I’ve somehow denied myself the
gift of taking care of my bones. I have a renewed commitment now, understanding
what challenges I went through
4)
To continue to have compassion for child workers
and sweatshop conditions while also de-programming myself to believe I have to
work myself to the ground and not see other choices.
5)
I really can’t live near or work at butcher’s
shops. It will just lead to bad luck for me.
Now, there are some people who can run the risk of blaming
everything on a past life, and that is indeed tempting, and that’s not what
this exercise is for. It’s main purpose is to resolve issues from the past so
we can live fully in the present. It’s also about taking full ownership and
responsibility for our choices and actions and perspective in life, in this
lifetime and previous lifetimes.
I believe we can shift a lot with simple self-awareness and
would love to walk alongside with you in that process of uncovering…
With love, peace and grace in all that you are and do.
Heather Embree
