Is Past Life Regression Real?
When my website guy brought up writing about this topic a brief flash of fear went through me because this can be a polarizing topic, but I would be doing a disservice to my audience if I didn’t address it since it’s one of the things hypnosis is most known for.
Past lives, are they real? If you believe it is, then it is real for you. If it isn’t in your belief system then it isn’t real for you. But in the end, does it even matter if it is real or not?
I propose that it doesn’t matter. What’s important is if doing a past life regression hypnotherapy session helps you. For the majority of people, it does. I work with many types of people, usually they fall into three categories:
Wholeheartedly believe in past lives and parallel lives.
Unsure, but open to it
Don’t believe
Any of these types can receive healing from doing a past life session because it can simply be a metaphor for something that they need to process to make a breakthrough in their healing.
With a trained hypnotherapist they will only do a past life regression session with you if it’s for a specific healing purpose and they know you’re going to take the information and use it to take positive action on the awareness you gain to improve the quality of your life. The goal is for awareness, perspective and release. Not to bring in guilt, shame or self-hatred.
This is scary, but I’m going to share it anyway because I think it’ll help illustrate the process.
Last year my hypnotherapist did a past life regression session for me around my issue of always trying to take care of people, and letting my needs fall to the wayside. I recognized as a hypnotherapist continuing to carry this codependent caretaking compulsion would harm me and my clients.
She guided me into hypnosis and had me travel back in time using imagery of stepping through a door that was a portal to the cause of my compulsion to take care of people. I arrived in ancient America, in a life where I was a medicine man for my tribe. After getting a sense of who I was in that life my hypnotherapist guided me to visit a significant event in that life that had to do with my caretaker compulsion.
This took me to a time in my early 20’s when I was still in training to be a medicine man. I had selfishly gone to the forest to be alone and continue my training. My little brother was very ill and died while I was gone. I became racked with guilt over his death, sure that I could have saved him had I been present. This guilt carried through that life and I pushed all my needs away and just overly took care of everyone in the tribe. On my deathbed I felt relief because I could finally rest and not be responsible for anyone.
My hypnotherapist guided me gently through the death sequence from that life and had me tune into any promises, vows or decisions I made as I died. This is where my compulsion came from. I vowed that I would always take care of others, so no more deaths could be on my head. Oof, heavy decision, right?
She guided me up into the interlife where I was able to objectively review the life. As I did I discovered that my little brother in that life had actively pushed me to be gone, so he could die then. It was part of his soul’s path in that life to die young, and yes I could have saved him if I’d been around therefore he made sure I wasn’t.
This was a profound revelation for me. How my caretaking could be harming others and keeping them from achieving what they need to in their life.
As I took this lesson and ran with it I realized how I was hindering people’s growth by solving things for them. My doing things for them kept them from finding their inner strength and capabilities. I was infantilizing them instead of holding space for their expansion and discovery of the power within.
I came out of this session freed from my caretaking compulsion. Knowing that the best way for me to help someone was often to just hold space where they could truly be themselves. Creating safety for the decompression and collapse we all need at times, so that they could tune into the strength and power they have.
As you can see, whether the past life is real or not, the story of it helped me find wisdom that I needed. If you don’t believe in past lives, you can think of it as a parable for your life and just focus on the message the story has for you.
Storytime is over, onto specifics for inquiring minds:
What is Past Life Regression?
It is the process of being regressed to a former life while in hypnosis in order to:
Discover past life programming and related fears to resolve current life personal issues
Resolve an issue and to grow personally
Process what is remembered and use that information to evolve, explore and heal
Balance your karma (more on the true definition of karma under the Is Past Life Regression Dangerous section)
Is Past Life Regression Dangerous?
This is a no/yes. Inherently it is not dangerous, because you’re just seeing, sensing or hearing a mental movie. The danger can come in with how you use the information. I won’t do this type of session until I’ve worked with someone a few times and can gauge their emotional maturity. It’s very easy for someone to take on guilt, shame, fears or other low vibration emotions. Especially if you go back to a life where you were the perpetrator. They might also use it as an excuse or way to blame something else for their situation.
In pop culture Karma is thought of as someone getting their comeuppance. Typically when you see someone being cruel or a jerk you might think “I hope karma gets you”.
Karma is not about punishment. It is restoring harmony and balance in the universe. How this plays out in lives is that in one life you might be the victim of a murder, and in a later life the killer. It is a balance of knowing and having been on both sides of the equation.
With people who aren’t ready to handle that they may have been a murderer, rapist, abuser, etc. in a past life, I won’t do this session with them. There is a danger in misuse of the information and it harms their current life progress. There are tons of other sessions that can be done to achieve healing.
Is Past Life Regression Scary?
You’re going to get tired of this answer, no/yes. (I’m having flashbacks to my tax days where the answer is always “it depends”).
Sometimes the past life you visit might be scary to watch. Some people do relive the past life and can feel as if they are actually there . This is where having a skilled hypnotherapist guiding you matters most.
There are many ways to help a person gain distance from what they are seeing or sensing, so that they can just gain information and not be traumatized. I often have my clients start as if they are sitting in a movie theater watching it on a screen. You can also turn it to black and white, make it a silent film, etc.
Benefits of Past Life Regression Hypnotherapy.
A past life regression session can often be the thing that finally helps you move past a block that you haven’t been able to resolve any other way. For me it was, with my caretaking compulsion in the story above. I’d done a lot of work around that issue without great results.
This type of session is great for phobias that don’t have an identifiable current life cause. I often think of this as a culmination session for clients towards the end of their work with me. If the simpler methods haven’t resolved it then either Past Life or Natal work is called for. I’ve seen people heal money struggles, codependency issues, fear of success, physical issues, getting rid of habits or behavioral patterns that are harming them and many other things.
A fun and incredibly beneficial session to do is to regress to uncover a positive talent, ability or awareness. It’s a great way to get in touch with something you forgot about yourself and utilize it to improve your life.
It can also just be a spiritual experience for someone, to get in touch with themselves at a soul level. As part of any session I perform there is an inter-life section to the experience where you can get in touch with a higher understanding of your incarnational life goals.
How to Prepare for a Past Life Regression.
The main preparation to do is narrow down a focus for your session. Some practitioners might just do a general let’s go back to a life just because session, but I won’t. This is the therapy part of Hypnotherapy, what’s the goal in going back to a life, what needs resolving that just isn’t responding to other treatment methods. And if there are several things to work on then you do multiple sessions with a different focus for each.
Often it’s me approaching a client with this idea, because I’m noticing that something isn’t going away that we’ve done lots of work around. So to prepare the client just needs to be open to doing the session. Whether they believe it’s a real past life they lived or it’s just a parable that helps them learn what they need to, to move past the block.
Can you do past life regression on yourself?
Short answer, yes. Long answer, it depends. Using trance and hypnosis to explore your inner world is a skill you have to develop. If doing a past life regression on yourself is the very first thing you try then you’re unlikely to have great results. Often you’re too busy just experiencing and getting used to hypnosis the first few times. The more you practice the better you get at exploring and guiding yourself.
You’ll also want to feel comfortable that you can take care of yourself if you go back to a scary scenario, such as a battle, rape or being murdered. Know that you can distance from it and leave at any time. Feel comfortable doing this. If you don’t then I recommend working with someone and not doing this on your own.
Also, be honest with yourself, are you planning to use this information to heal? Or will it be an excuse or way to blame something else and not take responsibility for what’s not working in your life
How to do a past life regression on yourself:
Induce hypnosis
Use imagery of a door, stairs or some other sort of time transit imagery to help yourself go back. (Like traveling in the Tardis!)
Use one of these phrases to guide yourself back to the correct lifetime. When doing guided self hypnosis I actually speak aloud to myself as I would a client. I’ve found it helpful in increasing my responsiveness.
“Go back now to the past life that is the karmic cause of ____”
“Go back now to the past life that has the greatest karmic influence on ____”
“Go back now to the past life that is the karmic source of ____”
Then let the information flow. If you are not a person who easily experiences imagery then tune into your other senses.
What do you hear
Can you feel anything
Is it day or night
Sense who you are
Explore the life. Guide yourself to move to a significant event in that life that has to do with what you’re there to work on. You can say:
“Go now to a significant event in that life that has to do with ____”
Be open and just receive the information
If you feel comfortable you can guide yourself through the end of that life. I recommend putting it out on a movie screen and making it black and white, so that you don’t end up traumatizing yourself. Especially if this is your first time doing this.
As you watch the death happen, ask yourself what decisions are you making about yourself or about your life right now.
Allow the transition to happen and your spirit to become free from that body
As you float above the body, notice any last thoughts you have about yourself or that life. Are you making any promises, vows or decisions?
Then float up into the light of infinite knowledge and higher awareness, releasing that life and being cleansed of it.
Become aware of all the important information you need for understanding and healing
Ask yourself what is the fear underlying this programming
Are you letting that fear from back then hold you back today
Ask what is your soul trying to learn, in this life, that relates to those past life events.
Ask what positive action can you take today that reflects your new higher awareness and heals that past life influence.
Once it feels complete dehypnotize yourself
Take some notes on what you learned
Explore how to integrate the messages into your life
Troubleshooting
Is past life regression not working for you? Did you do a session and get no results? A few main causes are:
Lack of rapport with the facilitator
Unskilled practitioner
A fear/worry of the process
Trying too hard, forcing it to try and happen instead of letting it flow and just be guided by the facilitator
Other energy blocks that need to be resolved first
Not being truly open to the experience
Lack of skill on your behalf, going into hypnosis is a skill. The more you do it the better you are and the easier it is to access information. This is why I don’t do this till a few sessions in with a client because I’m teaching them how to access information in hypnosis.
You may just need to find someone else to work with, or it might not be the right session for you. There are many ways to skin a cat as they say.
Resources
I do offer past life regression online sessions here. As I mentioned above we need to build rapport and do a few other sessions first, before diving into doing past life work. Hypnosis is a skill, to get the best results from a past life session this skill needs to be honed a bit first with doing other easier session types.
If you are interested in reading more about past lives or the interlife I recommend these books:
Many Lives Many Masters by Brian Weiss https://bookshop.org/a/23512/9780671657864
Journey of Souls by Michale Newton https://bookshop.org/a/23512/9781567184853
Search here for cheaper options on thrift books: https://prf.hn/click/camref:1011lqSGk/pubref:past%20life%20blog
(Please note that these are affiliate links. I will get a small portion of the proceeds if you make a purchase through this.)
