“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances.” – William Shakepeare
Living in the beautiful event-loving town of Winona, MN, nestled between the mighty Mississippi River and scenic bluffs, I experienced The Glass Menagerie during this summer’s Great River Shakespeare Festival. Below is a fictionalized past life regression featuring the shy and fearful Laura Wingfield of Tennessee Williams’ play to illuminate the function and flow of this time traveling hypnotherapeutic specialty.
A graphic designer in his twenties by the ironic name of Tom (a fictitious client in this fictitious story) details his anxiety and self-sabotaging tendencies to me prior to his past life regression while sitting in the relaxing and reclinable blue hypnotherapy chair in my office.
During the hypnosis induction, I ask for guidance to a past life that is most significant for him right now. (As much fun as it is to discover past lives, the insights to current life issues and purpose can be life altering.) Tom, after drifting deeper within, notices that he is in an apartment in St. Louis. The year is 1937. He is a female named Laura. (As genderless beings, souls often choose to incarnate as different genders to learn different life lessons.) Laura has a limp as a result of a childhood illness and possesses an almost paralyzing shyness.
Tom agrees that I may call him Laura as we discuss this past life. Laura lives in a fantasy world of glass figurines whose only chance at love is her brother’s coworker, Jim, who comes over for dinner. Jim, Laura’s only “gentleman caller”, happened to also be her secret high school crush. It turns out that Jim is engaged to marry someone else, dashing Laura’s hopes of a loving relationship.
I guide Tom to a later date in Laura’s life to discover that Laura lived alone, once her overbearing mother died, receiving checks in the mail from her world traveling merchant marine brother. After Laura’s peaceful death in her sleep at the age of 87, I guided Tom up out of that body to meet his spirit guide. His guide, looking like a ball of white light, took Tom to a restful healing place to reset and refresh his spirit from the life as Laura. For further healing, I asked Tom to individually look into the eyes of Laura’s mother and brother, the eyes of Jim, and finally into Laura’s eyes to send and receive insight, love, and forgiveness.
The past life regression showed Tom that he does not have to play it small anymore like he did in the lifetime as Laura. Unlike Laura, Tom has supportive parents, a great education, and plentiful opportunities. The shared imagination and creativity of both Laura and Tom serve him well as an artist. Tom left my office with a sense of renewed purpose.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ― Marianne Williamson
I received an email of gratitude from Tom six months after his session. Overcoming his anxiety and procrastination, he updated his portfolio and landed a better job. He now feels free to try new things because one of the reasons he choose his current life was to chart his own course, undefined by social or familial constraints of his previous lifetime (or the pen of Tennessee Williams). Tom became the playwright of his own life.
(Hope you have enjoyed this fabricated glimpse into a past life regression. Of course, real people do not experience past lives as fictional characters. Rarely, do people experience past lives of real famous people. However, almost always, people tap into the potential and magnificence of their authentic selves.)
NOURISHING HAPPINESS 