Everything you ever wanted to know about past life regression and more.  CJ’s interview with Mira Kelley, author of “Beyond Past Lives” about past lives will blow open your mind to a new way of thinking about everything from your relationships, health, and more.

What defines who we are today?  Are we defined by our past, present, and future?  And just how far back should we go to define our “past”?

by CJ Liu

My own journey has taken me back to past lives which has helped make sense of irrational fears, unhelpful beliefs, and enigmatic body pains. You may not believe in the idea of past lives, but if you are willing to explore this mysterious territory, you will be rewarded with a greater understanding of who you are and how you perceive the world around you.

In my exploration, I’ve unearthed a far share of past lives of being brutally killed to living a peaceful existence in the country. These various lives included a comical grab bag of experiences where I was a gay nun, a philandering priest, a prostitute and a corrupt church official. Even my life circumstances have varied from living regally in an Egyptian palace to being a homeless orphan on the street.

It makes you wonder…what’s the point of all these incarnations? Intuitive folks, like Mira Kelley, suggest that in each life we come with the purpose to learn something about life. These life lessons are concepts we come to learn, such as understanding love, compassion, acceptance, power dynamics, asking for help, etc. A video by Danielle MacKinnon goes one step further into the idea of incarnating for the purpose of life lessons. Before we incarnate into a new life, we must sign a soul contract. Then we must fully experience our purpose by incarnating as different genders with different social economic status, ethnicity, and sexual orientations, as all of these variations allow for a new perspective that we can add to our soul’s experience.

The challenge with incarnation is to understand the meaning of these lessons. If your life lesson was to learn about love, you may experience living a romantic fantasy with a loving soul mate. This same life lesson, however, can be experienced differently in a life with an abusive soul mate in the next life. The challenge in this aspect is learning to feel, experience, and share love even when paired with a soul mate that beats and verbally abuses you. Both of these lives allow you to learn about love. Sadly, I’ve found with my own explorations that sometimes I learn my lessons, and other times I don’t.

Diving deep into your past lives helps you gain a deeper understanding of your soul’s journey and evolution throughout time, which translates to a deeper sense of knowing yourself today.  Understanding your past lives help you make sense of lifelong challenges, unexplained issues, and vexing relationships tormenting you today, and present the opportunity to make new decisions in this lifetime for the benefit of your soul’s evolution.  Plus, it’s a fun exploration into a reality we don’t often connect with.  Get some expert advice below for Mira Kelley on how you can begin your own journey of discovery.

Mira Kelley, author of “Beyond Past Lives”, shares her expertise on reincarnation and answers the most frequently asked questions about past lives.

What is reincarnation and past lives?  How do you define karma?

Reincarnation is an ancient idea that spans through many Eastern religions. It’s the idea that we have more than one life. When we die, our soul leaves the physical form of our body and continues to live on through different life forms. There are many theories about what happens after we die and what happens before we come back to the next life.  (Listen here to Danielle McKinnon’s idea on what happens before we come back into physical form and incarnate. James Van Praagh explains what happens when we die here )

Watch my interview here with Mira Kelly as she describes what Karma is and what it is not.  Hear, Mira’s definition of reincarnation.

How can believing in past lives change the way you live? What are the benefits of understanding a past life? What are benefits of doing a past life regression? How can you re-decide and choose decisions from your past?

CJ and Mira talk about benefits of exploring past lives in the video here. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=29m16s)

I’ve found that a belief in past life fundamentally changes the way I think about my current life. How?  My whole existence orients around time with appointments, deadlines, action items, and a sense of things that need to be done right away. Inherent in this behavior and lifestyle is the belief that time matters because you may not be here to see tomorrow. Logically, if you only have ONE life to live, you better get moving because time is short and moves fairly quickly. Whether it’s true or not, the idea of having multiple lives feels oddly calming and has allowed me to enjoy my current life more.

Many find that understanding their past lives also helps them with healing and understanding:

• Relationships with others.
• How current fears and anxieties link to past life traumas
• Past life traumas.
• Understand transitional states from one life to another
• Alignment with your life purpose
• Your talents of your past.
• Physical ailments
• Unexplained attitudes and behaviors towards certain situation, people, etc.
• Beliefs about who you are.

How can I change my life path now despite decisions I’ve made in my past?

Mira explains how you can choose a different path at any moment and change your current reality. Find out how to re-decide a decision you made in your past here. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=24m8s)

Who are you connecting with during a past life regression? (oversoul, soul group, higher self, angelic realm)? How does the whole connection to past lives work?

Mira explains technically what happens when you do a past life regression here. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=38m26s)

Regardless of where you first encounter the notion of past lives or reincarnation, the basic idea is the same. We are all connected to a Source; depending on your beliefs, call it God, higher consciousness, etc. The Source, in any case, is interested in creation, experience and growing. Our soul, for instance, is connected to the Source and serves as the Source’s portal into the human experience. It’s sort of like the World Wide Web with each of us creating a personal blog that uploads to the Source every waking moment of our existence. All of our lives, past or present, are connected to our Highest Self, which enables our current self to be able to connect through time to all past lives and the Source.

Initially, this “relationship” with the Source felt parasitic to me. I disliked the hive mentality and being slave to “the Source”.  My role as a data collector for the Source made me feel like a victim. However, over time I’ve shifted my perspective on the relationship as being symbiotic and mutually beneficial. My Higher self and soul is a mini-version of the Source. This means that I can benefit not only from my soul’s customized database of my past lives, but also from another person’s soul experience captured through the Source’s database. My connection to the Source means that I have access to everyone’s knowledge (higher consciousness), even to the greatest scientists, like Einstein, or philosophers, like Socrates.

Here’s what Mira Kelley writes in her book “Beyond Past Lives” about our Higher Self (p212):

The Higher Self is what Mira calls the bigger, wiser, and unconditionally loving part of our soul. Her sense is that the Higher Self holds the template of our greatest potential. It represents the greatest possible manifestation of certain themes and goals the soul would like to explore in a life. It is the highest possible achievement our soul would like to embody.  And it’s the Higher Self that we connect to during a past life regression.

Listen to Mira’s description of the structure of souls here (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=17m16s).

“Each one of us has a Higher Self.  Our Higher Self is part of us – it’s the vibration of our true self. When I talk with a client’s Higher Self, the client connects with the Higher Self’s frequency and accesses its clarity of understanding.  By doing so, the client becomes that vibration.  This is one of the reasons why my regression sessions are so transformative and profound” (Kelley, p212).

“Your Higher Self is an extension of your soul that exists in the higher dimensions; It is not oriented in physical reality the way your mind is. Your Higher Self holds the themes, and overall vision for your current life. It carries the energy vibration of your soul, allowing you to connect and align with your vibrational essence and purpose.”(Kelley, p xvii)

“The levels of existence start at the bottom with the individual soul and go all the way up to God consciousness. As you rise through the levels, each resonates at a higher vibration than the previous one, and the individual nature of conscious energy becomes less and less and the merging of consciousness becomes greater and greater, until you reach the One.  Angelic consciousness is the first level, or split, below the energy of God, and the first to know themselves as separate and individualted beings from the one consciousness of Source.  By splitting further and further into the denser vibrational realities, angelic consciousness descends into the level of the Oversoul, which further splits into individual souls. … Simply think of a triangle. The base represented the physical incarnations of a soul as people, and the top represents the Course. In between you find the Oversoul and angelic consciousness above that” (Kelley, pxvi)

 What forms can I take when I reincarnate? Can I reincarnate as a bird?

There are lots of theories on this, but the version I particularly like is that each soul can take on many physical forms lifetime after lifetime.  So, you can have one life as a cat, a mouse, an insect, or a human.

A book that I read on Hinduism while traveling in India, suggests that there is a spiral and natural evolution that a soul takes. Each life moves up the spiral of evolution from fly to bird depending on the soul’s deeds during that lifetime.

If we stay with the idea of reincarnating as a human, each lifetime you get to experience all of the various iterations of the human experience. You may be a women or a man, heterosexual, bi-sexual, or homosexual. You may reincarnate as a Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist living in China, India, France, or Sweden. In some ways, isn’t this the ultimate expression of truly living life to its fullest?

What we misunderstand about past lives? Is it sequential? How you can meet a version of yourself in this life.

Past lives are not sequential. Find out how you can bump into another version of your soul here. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=5m23s)

Why do we take so many forms in each life? What is the plot?

Each life comes with a soul lesson or theme. I’ve interviewed several folks on this ((Listen here to Danielle McKinnon’s idea on what happens before we come back into physical form and incarnate. James Van Praagh explains what happens when we die here) and the idea is that there are certain concept(s) we are trying to learn during a lifetime such as love, patience and self-worth.

Here’s what I’ve found out about my life. One of the themes throughout several past lives has been about expressing my voice. In one life, I was a young girl from an affluent family that publically protested the withholding of food to the poor and was buried alive because of it. In a different life, I was a hermaphrodite who was suddenly hit with Bell ’s palsy and then molested but was unable to speak my truth. The silence caused me to be cast out as possessed by the devil and I eventually died on the street as a homeless person. While these lives sound awful and full of trauma, they are past lives that have revealed themselves because the originating soul was seeking to heal in this lifetime.

In these different lives, there are other people that help create the whole scenario and create the learning environment. Many psychics and mediums describe these other people as part of a person’s soul family. For instance, in one of my lives as a young girl, there was my family, the city officials that buried me alive, the city dwellers, etc. that made up my soul group.

Here’s the idea. Before I reincarnate, I sign a soul contract (click this link to find out about soul families and contracts) with my soul family and we agree on the life lessons and the role each person will play in my life. As with any great story, there are heroes, villains, supporting characters, and extras that help create just the right learning environment.  As this life shows, some of these interchanges may be reaffirming and positive, while others may be challenging and negative. All of them are for your learning and growth and preordained.

What are Soul mates or Soul groups?

Here’s in an earlier video where I first discovered that being a “Soul mate”, or be part of a “soul group” did not fit my romantic notions of a soul mate.  Here’s a video by Shepherd Hoodwin on soul mates or twin flames. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3fVq8SJK-I. Here’s an article on soul mates from a Buddhist’s POV: https://www.fireitupwithcj.com/dev/buddhist-love-soulmates.

Click here to blow your mind open as Mira explains how you can meet a version of yourself in this lifetime, but as the opposite gender. For example, I could meet the male equivalent of the “CJ” soul. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=9m5s).  Hear how this idea of parallel souls is craeted here.

Here’s what Mira Kelley writes in her book “Beyond Past Lives” about Soul Groups and Higher Self (p20):

“I use the word soul to refer to your essence, your being, your spirit, or energy of your consciousness. Your soul projects aspects of itself into physical reality… Every soul originates from an Oversoul, a composite of different dimensions and environments.

“Every incarnation is a fragment of the Oversoul. The Oversoul is an energy consciousness that is comprised of all the souls you have ever been and ever will be. It creates fragments of itself because it desires to know itself by experiencing life from many different perspectives.  When the Oversoul chooses to learn about a specific theme- let’s say the lesson of love-it creates energy splits of itself, or different lives, each of which explore and experience love.  P20

“Even though we speak of individual souls as fragments of the Oversoul, it is important to note that each soul is complete and whole unto itself… Each soul has consciousness and the ability to exercise its free will, choosing its experiences in the different dimensions of existence. Despite fragmenting itself, the Oversoul is whole and complete…The fragments that compose an Oversoul are called “counterpart souls” because they are one another’s counterparts, sharing the same Oversoul signature vibration.  A group of Oversouls comprises a soul group. During each of the next levels of existence, the Oversoul resonates at a higher vibration that it did the previous level of existence.”  P20

“A souls group is a number of Oversouls who have created close bonds with each other through their different incarnations. The members of a soul group have an agreement to help one another experience the lessons our spirits incarnate to learn (P xvii).

How are past lives related to karma?

CJ and Mira Kelly describe what Karma is and what it is not here. Hear Mira’s definition of reincarnation here. :

Karma is the idea that you come to earth with a life lesson(s) and that you will experience that lesson through all perspectives until you understand it.

Past lives and reincarnation are sort of like the movie Groundhog Day where in each lifetime, you hope to learn your lesson and your soul evolves until you “get it”. For some, karma is seen as a punitive thing for undeserving bad people.

Imagine someone like Hitler.  It’s not uncommon to hear others vengefully exclaim “that dude is going to get punished in his next life because he has bad Karma”.  While it may be seen as punishment, it’s more helpful to think as Hitler’s next life as offering a balance for his deeds from his former life.  In Hitler’s case, he may reincarnate as someone who undergoes the extreme prejudice from others and gets imprisoned and brutally killed. This next life will help him experience the same lesson from a different perspective for his soul’s growth.

What are some new discoveries about time and past lives? (Non linear, parallel lives)

While I have personally experienced past lives, I haven’t worked with as many clients as Mira Kelley.  Mira is an explorer in the area of past lives. Her discoveries about how we are connected as souls and the concept of time and past lives not only blew my mind, but it also challenged my limited view of past lives:

1) Mira clears CJ’s confusion about linear progression of souls and life lessons and talks about how life lessons work here. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=3m25s).

2) Hear Mira’s answers to listener’s questions about parallel lives here. (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=49m44s).

Addressing Skeptics: How do you know that past life regressions are real? (Share Past Life stories)

Check out this video that shares when Mira Kelley performed a past life regression with Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s: (http://youtu.be/EXVxKKlJU7w).

 WHAT TO EXPECT WITH PAST LIFE REGRESSION?

How can you find out about your past lives? What is a past life regression? How is it different than getting a psychic to do a past life reading?  Try a past life regression meditation.

http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=7s

There are many ways that you may have come across the concept of a past life or reincarnation.  Perhaps, you have read about past lives or reincarnation through a religious text,or maybe a psychic told you that your current problems are related to a past life. In the case of a psychic, they would have connected with some aspect of your psyche and was able to share highlights of your life.

I interviewed Ainslie MacLeod about this topic awhile back and he shared his experiences as a psychic here.  It was Ainslie that helped me find a past life as a little girl that was killed during St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and link it to my fear of not being able to express myself.

Past life regression therapy is a therapeutic technique that involves hiring a therapist to walk you through a meditation that would help you personally access and re-experiencing your past lives directly versus using an intermediary, like a psychic.   If you want to get just a taste of what it may be like to do a past-life regression click here as Mira Kelley steps you through one process she used during a training.  (http://youtu.be/ZLzl0hdf8Os?t=20m30s) or if you prefer a male voice you can try Brian Weiss here (http://youtu.be/xTnAqDPBsoY)

You can get a CD from Mira Kelley as well at: http://www.mirakelley.com/product/healing-through-past-life-regression-and-beyond

What do folks generally see, feel, experience when they go to a past life? When in a regression, how do you know if you are seeing something that’s real or imagined? How do you know if you are getting the right thing or just imagining it?

Mira Kelley writes in her book “Beyond Past Lives” (p209) that with her guidance, clients are able to intuitively identify who they are in a past life, and then the images, sounds, and smells begin to flow. Mira recommends that clients trust the first impressions, thoughts and feelings that come to them. She suggests that clients no judge anything, even if it doesn’t make sense.  Everything is divinely orchestrated. Things always come together perfectly and make sense at the end of regression.  Often times Mira asks folks to use the power of their imagination to jump start the process and enable it to fun free.  This allowing often helps open a client into the past life.

Mira Kelly describes what will happen in a past life regression (p211)

“Every session is unique. Each reflects the particular circumstance and needs of the person being regressed. Some people experience a life from birth through death- what we would think of as a “normal” human life. Other clients experience themselves as different life forms, such as dinosaurs, monkeys, flower, and frogs.  In other lives people are entities who live on other planet or on spaceships. And then there are those mystical experiences where people meet their angels or guides, see how souls are created, or experience what the primary Source of all is like.

In addition, the way people experience regression is very different. Some see movies flowing in their minds, rich with details..For others, the regressions are entirely an emotional experience, where the stories are known through feelings. And of course, there are sessions where clients hear or “touch” things and describe them to me.

In other words, there is no “right” way for past or future lives to be revisited? P210

Logistics- What are things that are helpful to do before a session? What mindset should you have? Do you have to be a believer?

In Mira Kelley’s book she states that a lot has to do with your soul’s readiness, rapport, and your openness and willingness to change in conjunction with other unknown or unforeseen forces on that particular day. She describes that every session is different.

How to do a Past-Life Regression yourself (Techniques for Remembering Past Lives)

Why is hypnosis used as a technique? Can you use other techniques that allow you to get to unconscious? What happens with hypnosis and how can you make sure that you aren’t being lead in directions that doesn’t seem right?  – Under hypnosis, do you remember past lives?

Listen to the YouTube video where Mira Kelley describes what happens to your brain, body, and spirit during a past life regression here (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=40m8s)

Find out what happens with hypnosis and other methods to get you into the same meditative space here (http://youtu.be/820BX3QOclw?t=40m8s)

Here’s what Mira Kelley writes in her book “Beyond Past Lives” about hypnosis:

“Regression does use hypnosis, but is very different from the common perception we have of it.  Most people have seen “hypnosis” performed onstage, for the purpose of entertainment.  Stage hypnosis is based on an unspoken contract that is agreed upon when the audience volunteers walks onstage.  The hypnotists show up expecting his or her commands to be taken and obeyed. The person who chooses to be the show’s guinea pig agrees that he or she will follow the instructions received. This is very important to understand, because you cannot be controlled unless you agree to it.

I assure my clients that they will remain in complete control throughout our session together. If something feels uncomfortable or becomes emotional, they can always open their eyes, get up and walk away. ..Hypnosis starts with feeling safe, allowing yourself to become relaxed and focus on your attention on the images and emotions that arise within.  In reality, it is nothing more than an altered brain-wave state-, a state of deep relaxation and creativity. These are typical brain states for all of us…your brain operates in beta brain waves. When you begin to relax, your brain easily moves from a beta-wave state to an alpha-wave state. With my guidance, clients move even deeper – from alpha to theta. Theta is the state of being aware but drowsy. ” p 206-207

Is it safe to do regression yourself?

Here’s Mira Kelley’s answer to this question:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_2_tcM8Gnw

About Mira Kelley author of “Beyond Past Lives”

Mira Kelley grew up in Bulgaria, where at the age of 13 she had a powerful regression experience. Following her graduation from law school, Mira practiced as a corporate and securities attorney in a large law firm in New York City. A painful physical condition led Mira to rediscover the instantaneous emotional and physical healing available through regression, and now she assists people in transforming their own lives in this way.
Stories from Mira’s sessions are included in Wishes Fulfilled by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer and Miracles Happen by Brian L. Weiss, M.D.; they have also been featured on Oprah.com.