by Brian L. Weiss, MD and Amy E. Weiss, MSW
352 pages; HarperOne
Available at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | IndieBound

Freedom from Emotional Pain

Fears, phobias, anxieties, and other emotional states can be as debilitating as physical illnesses. Just like physical symptoms, psychological distress can have its origin in past-life events. Once those are discovered, healing can be rapid and relatively complete. Freedom and joy can be regained.

Not all our afflictions are rooted in the traumas of prior lifetimes. Current-life events are sometimes the culprits or may even be compounding past-life seeds. And the stresses of today’s competitive and overly materialistic world add their own weight to our emotional maladies. So much sadness and anxiety assail us because we are easily distracted and overwhelmed by day-to- day events. We have to juggle work, relationships, and interactions with other people at every moment. We have to deal with our daily needs. And so we forget that we are spiritual beings, which leads to emotional turmoil. Spiritual beings should think and behave like spiritual beings; that is our nature and ultimate destiny. But when the circumstances of everyday life lead us astray and we forget our true nature, that is when sorrow, worry, and fear enter. That is when inner peace, joy, and happiness exit.

All we have to do is remember: remember who we are and what we are, what we have been through, where we have come from, why we are here. As we do this, emotional healing will naturally follow, just as it did for the authors of the stories in this chapter.

As emotional symptoms are resolved, the patient’s family and friends benefit as well. Their stress and responsibility are lessened. Even beyond this healing shift, relatives and significant others may indirectly experience the feelings and facts of the regression. As they hear the patients’ stories, they feel the emotion and the immediacy of the memories; they react and respond to the improvement in their loved ones’ lives. Often, to their surprise and joy, they find their own symptoms and illnesses disappearing. Such was the case with Mira’s lover in the remarkable story that follows.

THE LESSON OF LOVE
The story of how I became acquainted with the powerful process of experiencing one’s past lives began during my summer vacation after seventh grade. I had grown up in Communist Bulgaria, and topics of any mystical or religious nature were simply not a part of my upbringing. However, a few years before that summer the wave of the democratic revolution had swept through Eastern Europe, and spiritual information had become readily available.

That summer I was thirteen years old. I came across your book Through Time into Healing. Even though the concept of reincarnation was not a part of my childhood and I doubt it was ever discussed in my presence, I did not question the possibility of its existence. It just seemed so natural, so normal. As Voltaire said, “It is not more surprising to be born twice than once.”

I absolutely loved the stories in the book. I loved the wisdom in it, the possibilities it presented to me. I loved it so much that upon reading the final few pages, I immediately decided to make a recording of myself reading the sample script given in the book and experience a regression for myself. As I was getting ready to begin recording, I remember thinking, But I am only thirteen. There is really nothing wrong with me. I have no phobias, no physical ailments. Why would I do this? But the pull, the curiosity in me was too strong to resist.

I made the recording, rewound the tape to the beginning, and even though I did not know what to expect, I pressed play. The recording guided me through a beautiful relaxation, and I felt very calm and comfortable. But at the moment I crossed through the door into a past life, that changed.

I immediately dropped into the body of a woman who was running for her life, and I became her. My heart was pounding with fear, and my inhalations of air were short, abrupt, and desperate. It was terrifying. I was running down a dimly lit hallway and knew that there were men chasing after me who would kill me if they caught me.

My gray suit consisted of a jacket and skirt made of thick wool. I wore black stockings and black shoes with small heels. My dark hair was neatly tucked in a bun on the back.

The brick walls reverberated with the sound of my steps as I ran. There were rows of doors on both sides, but upon trying to open them I discovered that they were all locked. Finally, a door handle gave in. I entered the room and saw that it was bare, with one small window with bars on it that was high up on the wall, close to the ceiling. I knew that I was trapped and that they would catch me.

It was at the time of World War II. I was a doctor who, instead of healing a German general, had poisoned and killed him. That is why these men were after me—they were seeking revenge.

The next scene was one that I looked at from above. I saw how I was put on an electric chair, how my hands and legs were strapped to it, how I was executed. Then something truly beautiful happened. I watched as my spirit rose from my body. It slowly drifted upward. There was a trail of white light in front of it that it followed. At the end of that path, there was an open door through which a magnificent white light was shining.

At the door there stood a being that glowed with love and light, waiting to greet my spirit. I felt such peace, such love, and such a sense of being eternal.

That night, I eagerly waited for my mother to return from work. I told her what I had experienced and asked her if electric chairs had really existed during World War II. Years later, I learned that they have been around since 1890.

That event was a formative experience in my life, and it is interesting that it happened at the age of thirteen. The number thirteen is believed to be the number of change. To numerologists and tarot readers, it is a number of transformation. It calls for a study of one’s basic principles, what one believes in. It attracts changes in the way a person defines everything in her life, which leads to shifts in her worldview and her existence. I had certainly been transformed by my first regression.

Many years later, the story of the lifetime that I had experienced as a child developed even further at a workshop at Omega Institute led by Brian. During one of the group regressions, an image of a long road lined with birch trees began emerging in my mind. I saw myself as a young woman walking down a quiet dirt road in the country. In my hand I carried a small suitcase, and on my head I had a kerchief. I was leaving my village to move to St. Petersburg to study medicine. The final stop I made on my way was to go to the cemetery, where I paid my respects at the graves of my dead relatives. My heart was heavy. It would be many years before I could return back home—if at all.

While studying at the university, I was recruited by the secret service of the Soviet Union. There were troubles brewing in Europe, and there were even talks of a possible war. They sent me to Europe to spy for my country.

I was a very attractive woman who knew how to use her charm, and it was easy for me to gather information. I saw a vivid scene of me sitting in front of a small device that I was using to send coded wires with the information I collected.

There was a nightclub establishment frequented by many Americans. I found myself going there as often as I could, hoping to meet a particular man I had come to know. I was surprised to discover within me that I was interested in him not because of my work but because I was falling in love with him. He was in love with me, too.

The next scene unfolded on a large set of stairs in front of a big administrative building. I had received orders to move to a different location in Europe, so I had come to say good-bye. The man stood in front of me, telling me that he loved me, begging me not to leave, and asking me to marry him. Even though I loved him very much, I could not stay. I had already given my word and pledged my life, my love, and my heart to my country. I assured him that when he went back home to the family farm in America he would marry a nice woman, have children, and be happy. I said good-bye and, with tears in my eyes, rushed down the stairs toward the car that was waiting for me.

Later, I married an important German officer. It greatly facilitated my work and protected me. World War II had already begun. I had been practicing medicine, mostly treating German military men, and had received orders to terminate a high-ranking German general whom I was treating for an illness. I saw myself standing in front of a table. Next to me, sitting on a chair, was the general. There was a glass of water on the table. I held a small container with powder in it and looked up toward the ceiling, feeling anxiety within me for what I was about to do. Yet, thinking that there was no other choice, I poured the powder in the glass. Instead of giving the general his medication, I had given him poison.

This is where my first regression as a child fits in. I saw myself, again, running down that hallway and eventually getting caught. But this time, because I was much older and better able to handle the whole story, I saw the gruesome details of the interrogations to which I was subjected. Did I betray my network? No. Until the very end, I maintained that I had acted alone. I was beaten, tortured, questioned, and then many more times all over again beaten, tortured, and questioned. The only thing that my interrogators spared me from was rape. They felt that I had belonged to one of them, and that was a line they could not cross. At the end, they placed me on an electric chair and executed me.

As my spirit was rising above the scene, I knew that the lesson of that lifetime was a lesson of love, of needing to approach every situation with love and of allowing myself to be loved too. That whole lifetime had been orchestrated so that I could have the opportunity to choose love when standing on those stairs as the American man asked me to marry him. Yet I chose to stay true to my promise to serve my country. I also knew that after I left, he felt that he had nothing to live for; my leaving had broken his spirit. He died in a dirt ditch, having been shot right in the forehead during combat with the German army.

In the hours that followed this experience, I was shaken to my core and filled with an enormous sense of regret for having wasted one whole lifetime and for having harmed another person. But knowing that we are eternal, I also know that every lifetime enriches our souls with invaluable lessons.

My soul must have chosen to experience and learn the lesson of profound love in my current lifetime, because nothing gives me a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment than bringing love, light, and inspiration to people. One of the ways I most enjoy assisting people is by helping them to experience their past lives and gain understanding about the people and the circumstances that surround them. I am also in a very loving relationship with a man who, coincidentally, has two very deep-seated and irrational fears: the first, a fear of ever losing me; and the second of being shot point-blank in the forehead. It makes me wonder: Is this my second chance at love with the American man I once knew? —Mira Kelley

As a thirteen-year- old, Mira acted upon her intuitive wisdom and her curiosity for understanding and spiritual growth as she listened to the tapes that she had made. This decision changed her life, leading her to her higher potentiality, her healing work, and eventually to a reunion with her soulmate. Her soul mate’s fear of losing her again is typical of the underlying theme of separation anxiety. Frequently, children who seem almost irrationally frightened of being separated from their parents have actually lost them in previous lives. They subconsciously remember the loss, just like Mira’s present-day lover. The cure for this type of separation fear is to recognize its root in a past-life event. The trauma has already happened. It is from another time, and it is not something to fear in the present or in the future. Her soul mate’s concerns about once again losing Mira and of being shot in the head both stem from the World War II era. Knowing this, he can release them and nurture a relationship that is freer and not constricted by deep-seated insecurities.

Mira’s description of the events after her physical death, when her spirit left her body, closely echoes studies of the near-death experience (NDE), studies that she was not aware of when she was only thirteen. The magnificent, restorative light and the loving spiritual being in Mira’s story are universally encountered in the NDE. Their comforting presence and validation of the afterlife help people lose their fear of death and dying. We are, they remind us, immortal, and death is but a doorway to the other side.

Every so often, a synchronicity will arise and almost forcibly seize my attention. Synchronous events are apparently coincidental occurrences of related events that, to me, have a linkage at a metaphysical level. We may not understand that causal linkage, but it is there.

As I finished writing my reflections on Mira’s story early in 2012, my phone buzzed with an incoming e-mail. Less than five minutes had elapsed since I wrote about releasing present-day fears because the traumas had already happened in a past life.

In the e-mail, a woman described to me how her “crippling fear of flying” had prevented her from fully enjoying life. Traveling for pleasure and for business was severely restricted. In 2003, she had attended a workshop that I was conducting in Miami. As I led the group through a past-life regression, she began to vividly remember a World War II lifetime.

“I found myself looking out of an airplane cockpit . . . I was a man, the pilot of a military personnel transport plane,” she wrote. The plane crashed “due to mechanical failure, killing all passengers and crew (as well as my copilot and myself ).”

The workshop ended. Within a short period of time, the fruits of her regression were ready to harvest. “Eleven days after the workshop,” she explained, “I had an emergency call and needed to fly to Boston. I felt nothing . . . zero . . . no fear . . . there was nothing. Since that day in 2003 I have flown many times and have never had a single moment of fear or anxiety. So, though this has been a long time coming, thank you, Dr. Weiss.”

If I needed a cosmic exclamation point, here it was. Only moments after I had written about it, confirmation that current fears and phobias often have past-life roots arrived by e-mail.

Remembering these roots can completely cure the symptoms. There is no need to be anxious or afraid anymore. The workshop that cured this woman took place nearly nine years ago, yet her e-mail came within just five minutes of a perfect bull’s-eye. She could have told me her story at any time over all those years. The probability of the timing being a coincidence is remote. And, as a final connection, both stories involved traumatic deaths in World War II.