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Unlocking Memories of Past Lives
to Make You Spiritually Well
by Sylvia Browne
An excerpt
from Sylvia Browne's Lessons for Life
Unlike the patterns that originated sometime between childhood and adulthood, there
are many phobias, everyday fears and incessant worries that don't relate to this
lifetime. Many times I've worked with people who were baffled by anxieties that seemed
to have no basis -- in other words, they couldn't be tracked through therapy or by
their own investigation into their past. In these types of situations, we've had
to go back even further and do what I call a "deep search" into a person's
overall chart, because the cause of the uneasiness resides somewhere in the cells
of his or her mind and body.
I once had a client who drove under the same overpass every day for 20 years on her
way to work. One day as she was approaching the overpass, she broke out in a sweat
and felt as if she couldn't breathe -- she was sure that she was having a heart attack.
She turned around and headed for the emergency room, where she was told she was "just
having an anxiety attack." (Those words, "just...an anxiety attack,"
just make me crazy. If you've ever had one -- and very few people haven't had a form
of this at one time or another -- then you know that it can be the most frightening
and debilitating experience you'll ever go through. Usually it comes out of the blue,
unbidden and without warning. You can't "cause" one; it just happens. But
back to my client....)
When this woman came to see me, I directed her in a meditation to return to another
time. When she did, she remembered being trapped under an old bridge in Pennsylvania
back in the early 1800s. She was buried under heavy beams and rubble, and she died
there. The amazing thing was that in her previous life, she passed away at the same
age she'd now reached in this life -- which explained why the phobia hit when it
did. After we did the guided meditation, she lost her fear and could go under the
overpass again.
Another time, I got a visit from the frantic mother of a 3-year-old. She came to
see me because every time she turned on the shower, her little daughter would scream,
"No, Mama! Don't!" The mother resorted to taking baths, but still needed
help because whenever anyone else in the family took a shower, or her daughter even
heard a shower, the young child would panic. Through my psychic sense, I immediately
knew what the problem was, without even questioning the little girl: She'd been in
Nazi Germany, and had been one of the women who was killed after being herded into
what seemed like a shower, but was really a gas chamber. I instructed the mom to
go into the girl's room after the child went to sleep and tell her that the time
of being afraid of showers was over, and that whatever she remembered happened in
a past time, and that she was safe now. Within a week, the daughter was free of her
fear of showers.
Life is like a record with different grooves, and sometimes the needle slips. What
we have to do to keep the soul safe from a negative fear that's no longer relevant
is release it. This is called "pulling the plug" on a negative past-life
implant. When my own children had night terrors, I did the same thing I instructed
the woman with the 3-year-old to do: I just went in and told them that they were
in this time, and what they were afraid of was in the past, long ago. When you do
this, it isn't necessary to go through gruesome details. The soul mind knows exactly
what you're talking about, and it will surrender the offending fear that blocks it
from being free.
This was the case with a 4-year-old boy I worked with who was just fine until the
day his dad bought a telescope and set it up in the living room of the house. The
little boy wandered into the room, saw the telescope, fell to the floor, and had
some kind of seizure. Of course his mother and father took him to countless doctors,
none of whom could find anything physically wrong with the child. Finally, they visited
one of the medical doctors I happen to work with, and he told the mother to take
her son to see me. She apprehensively made an appointment, and as soon as I saw her
son, I psychically realized that he'd experienced a recent death. He'd been in a
submarine, and when a torpedo hit, he'd been pinned beneath a periscope (which looked
a lot like a telescope to the little boy).
I put the child in a relaxed state and told him not to be afraid. I reassured him
that whatever he was afraid of had happened before, and that now he was in this time,
where nothing would harm him. This was the end of the seizures for the little boy
-- he's never had another.
Releasing the past, healing the present
You can and should explore your memories -- both from this life and any past lives
-- and be investigative enough to see what you learn from them. But analyzing isn't
enough -- you also have to neutralize any challenge by asking for release. By doing
so, you may even discover how you can turn negative events into opportunities for
positive growth. (Let me also say here that I'm the first one to recommend that you
seek therapy if needed.)
Let's say that you're dealing with physical or mental abuse. In fact, I'll use my
own life as an example. It's no secret that my mother was a master at insidious emotional
battery. I had a choice: I could have adopted her behavior, but instead I went 180
degrees so I'd be different from her. I often thank her -- and I even did so when
she was alive -- because without this negative example, I might have not been the
caring mother I am today. I never told my mother why I was thankful for her, because
it was enough that God and I knew.
The hurts we carry in life can't be covered up with Band-Aids. Like physical wounds,
these sore spots can only heal when the air hits them. Yet while it's important to
acknowledge and let out the pain so that it doesn't fester, it's equally imperative
that we adjust our behavior to release the past and move on.
I had a friend who talked incessantly about abandonment issues. In almost every experience
she had, she felt left behind. The irony is that by obsessively discussing this matter,
she seemed to draw more of it to her, and after hearing her go on about it so much,
I also wanted to run away! Her story really reinforces the age-old truth that thoughts
and words become realities. We can all definitely set ourselves up to fulfill our
own prophecies.
I see this all the time with my clients. The very thing that haunts them from this
life (as well as in their past lives) is what they continue to run right into time
and again. Don't feel bad if this happens to you, because we get stuck in this rut
from time to time, but to keep embracing it does stop the soul from growing. For
example, a male friend of mine whose wife left him was determined to hang on to the
relationship -- even though she went back and forth from her lover to him. His excuse
for not getting on with his life was, in his own words, "The fear of rejection."
What he didn't realize was that he was already living a life of total rejection,
and he was the one keeping himself in that place.
I recently heard a comforting story about a woman who had a very real near-death
experience. She went through a beautiful bright light and felt completely elated,
and then she was met by a gorgeous, radiant being. She exclaimed, "I don't know
if I'm good enough to be here!" The being responded, "We expect you to
spill the milk, but it's really how you clean it up that matters." How simple,
yet how true. That statement really brings home the words of Jesus, that if we become
more like little children, the kingdom of heaven will be ours.
Don't get me wrong -- there isn't anything easy about mulling over the painful parts
of your life, but you have to ask yourself: Do you want to be enslaved by your memories,
or do you want to simply see them as episodes that, painful as they are, helped you
gain strength and become who you are today? If you do the latter, you'll be able
to gaze into the mirror and know that you've survived the good and the bad, and you'll
be freer and even stronger for it.
Creating joyful memories
We've spent a lot of time discussing negative memories, so how about taking some
time to address all the good memories we have? For me, those are the times I've shared
with my psychic grandmother, my friends, my children, my teachers and my clients.
Even holding my grandchildren's hands -- these are life's precious moments. When
we make love happen, we allow our soul to grow beyond all the weeds of bad memories.
Unlike replacing harmful habits with healthy patterns, you can't just swap a hurtful
memory with a pleasant one. But when you take a balanced look at the positive and
the negative in your life, then you can take pride in not only what you've overcome,
but what you've become because of the sum of all your experiences. Learn, for example,
to say, "I've been abused, but there was a time when life was happy. I can and
will recapture that feeling without remorse or pain. I refuse to substitute a false
sense of security for happiness, and I won't be afraid to be alone, because I know
that I'm always surrounded by God, my guide, the angels, and all my loved ones who
have passed over to the Other Side. I will replace any negativity that's attached
to bad memories, and realize and repeat to myself: "It was only a learning process.
I have been loved and I can love."
Sylvia Browne's Lessons for Life (November 2004) is published by Hay House and
available at all bookstores or online at www.hayhouse.com
Copyright © 2004 Sylvia Browne, all rights reserved. |
| Dec 2004 |
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