How do past lives affect us? In a previous post, I discuss how Karma is not about punishment. From conducting countless past life regressions, I know you are neither punished nor rewarded for actions in past lives. In fact, you are always loved and accepted. At the same time, you are affected, in your current life, by unresolved issues from your past lives. Now, let’s look at some examples drawn from my clients’ experience.

Adrianne’s past life 

My client, Adrianne, is a perfect example of how past lives can affect our future.

In her current life, Adrianne is happily married to Erin, but she does have a problem. Adrienne is very attentive to a new female friend which upsets Adrianne’s wife, Erin. Erin senses a level of obsession in this friendship of Adrienne’s. Consequently, Erin presses Adrianne to end her relationship with this “other” woman. Confused, Adrianne knows she cannot end it, but she doesn’t know why.  Hoping to understand, she schedules a past life regression.

Note: I discuss this in more detail in my book, Other Lives, Other Realms.

During her regression, Adrianne returns to a past life in which she has a younger sister. This sister shares the same soul as Adrienne’s new friend. Tragically, the sister dies prematurely. In the past life, Adrianne’s name is Anna, and Anna feels responsible for her sister’s death. Completely devastated, Anna never recovers from the loss. Instead, she withdraws from her husband. Unfortunately, this man shares the same soul as Erin, Adrianne’s current wife.

Because Anna never addresses her grief and guilt, the emotion from this past life is still active, even after Anna dies. When Adrienne meets her reincarnated “sister” from her previous past life, the guilt is triggered. Adrianne’s is consumed with helping and protecting this woman. Consequently, the real source of her obsession is carried over guilt. 

With this realisation, Adrianne feels the deep loss and guilt she never resolved in her past life. After the regression, she feels at peace. Now she kindly concludes the relationship with her past-life sister. Erin’s loss in the past life as Adrienne’s husband is also restored.  

Meredith’s experience: Do past lives affect us

Before her regression, Meredith is in a state of confusion. She is torn between fulfilling her own needs and meeting the expectations of her parents and friends. Full of doubt, she fears making decisions. During her regression, she learns the origin of this conflict and discovers the same battle has raged in several previous lives.

Meredith relives a past life as a healer, a competent but somewhat isolated woman. As a healer, she relies on herbal remedies and her psychic abilities to help people, particularly women. Unfortunately, she lives during the era of the Spanish Inquisition. Condemned as a witch, she is horribly tortured and then burnt at the stake.

Meridith discovers she experienced persecution in several lifetimes. Disturbed, she is shocked to see how mass hysteria and religious extremism can lead to such cruelty. Now she realises she is still carrying fear from the tortures she endured centuries before. Consequently, she becomes a victim, afraid and unable to navigate the challenges in her life.

In the regression, we work through her fears and gain a deeper understanding of her experiences in her past life. Her trust restored, she knows herself better and makes decisions with more ease. 

How Gabrielle’s past lives affect her future

Gabrielle is afraid of water, especially seawater. Even standing ankle-deep on the beach, the undertow arouses strong feelings of anxiety. Yet she has no memory of any water-related trauma in her current life.

I regress Gabrielle to a past life where she is an adventurous teenage girl. One calm evening she climbs into a little boat, planning to row along the shoreline a little. Suddenly, a storm rises up, sweeping her out to sea. She panics, deciding to swim back to the shore.

Unfortunately, the elements overwhelm her. Even as the waves drag her down, she keeps struggling, trying to reach the safety of the shore. Although she drowns, a part of her—the part that wants to survive—refuses to accept that fact. She remains trapped in the terrible reality she has created for herself, fighting constantly to keep her head above water.

In the regression Gabrielle accepts her death. Her body dies while her soul returns to the higher realms. In her current life, anything fearful that confronts her triggers the past. Now being trapped in that timeless state is gone. Her phobia of water had carried over from the past life. Often a fear of drowning is an example of how past lives affect your future. When we resolve our past life trauma, we are free of our over-reactive fear.

Rescuing the dead

Suffering a violent or unexpected death often traps us. When we fail to accept the reality of our death, we are in a netherworld of perpetual resistance. However, we need not remain stuck. In my counselling and regression practices I have used hypnosis and other techniques to rescue hundreds of people from the purgatory they inadvertently create for themselves.

From my research and personal experience, I am certain that many of us carry emotional burdens from the manner of our past life deaths. While these emotions are not apparent when we are reborn, they can easily surface when we face a triggering circumstance.

For example, the first time Gabrielle dips her feet into the ocean and feels the tide pulling at her ankles, her latent fear takes hold.

The first time Meredith is in trouble for not conforming to her parent’s or society’s rules, her fear surfaces. 

When Adrienne first meets the woman who shares the soul of her past life younger sister her need to rescue is triggered. She carries guilt from the past life and that affects her current actions. 

Until we find the original cause of our problems we cannot let go.

Many of the challenges we face—not wanting to have children, a fear of commitment, fear of flying, unexplained anxiety, a compulsion to help others, health problems and addictions—echo unresolved conflicts of our past lives.

Resolving past life issues

Until we resolve these issues, we are in a trap. In this life and in future lives, we are subject to their triggers. In fact, at a deep level of our psyche, we attract situations that trigger these unresolved issues. We suffer anxiety, obsessive attachment, fear of commitment, panic attacks or depression We are destined to keep meeting these disturbances until we make peace with our past lives.

Once we re-experience the situation that gave birth to our negative emotions and release those feelings, we create a new perspective, and our over-reaction loses its power. The more we address our past-life trauma, the more at peace we are in our lives.