#36. Past Life Regression
‘What if you’re Hitler?’
‘Excuse me?’ I turned from the television – Hercule Poirot, Death on the Nile - to face my wife, her eyes bright with enthusiasm.
‘Hitler! What if you’re Hitler?’ she asked. ‘At your past life thingy.’
‘Can you not say that? What if you put it in my head?’
‘Ok… You were probably a count.’
‘Not Dracula?’
‘No, no. Not Dracula… Chocula, maybe.’
I turned back to Kenneth Brannagh’s twitching moustache and mulled it over – what would the hypnotherapy uncover? Was I someone important in a past life? Or, perhaps, just perhaps, it’s all just a bunch of hippy woo-woo nonsense?
The next day, I arrived in leafy suburban Kingston (not Jamaica) 20 minutes late, wishing I could regress to one hour ago so I could leave 20 minutes earlier. It was one of those clinics that was actually just a person’s house – like where you go for acupuncture or reflexology or a Brazilian butt lift.
First up, a question-and-answer thingy. My quote-unquote therapist – soft-spoken and doe-eyed, wiry hair stretching for the ceiling – asked me some quite probing questions about some quite personal issues. It turned out I’m searching for meaning in life and social connection. Who knew!
She asked if I wanted to meet my spirit guides or masters. ‘Guides, please’, I said, not wanting to be my subconscious’ bitch. Then, I lay on a bed, a clinical one with paper tissue on it, like you might find in a massage therapists or somewhere you get a Brazilian butt lift, and she told me to close my eyes and imagine a tiny hoover sucking all the air out from under my eyelids, sealing them shut. Tap, tap, tap went her fingers, on various pressure points around my body. Tapping, she told me, removes conscious thought so my emotions can take over. With each tap, she asked how I was feeling.
‘I’m anxious,’ I said. ‘I’m anxious I might reveal something embarrassing.’
I felt less anxious for saying it.
She had me locate the feeling in my body, as a kind of light, and give it a colour. Yellow. Each of the twenty times she asked me to visualise a light in my body, it was yellow. What other colour would light be, I rationalised. My emotions hadn’t yet taken over.
Drifting into my mind, under her guidance, I went into a garden, visualised a flower. What colour is it? Pink. How does it make you feel? Reassured. She told me to hold the feeling in until I couldn’t take it anymore. How could I possibly feel too reassured, I wondered, and nodded politely.
Next, a childhood memory - a garden. My family were there, with me, as a child. They were chatting and playing and running around, but not with me. Child-me was happy to be around them, but felt left out, unloved. He said that he’s ok, but he’s not. He needs a hug, but he doesn’t get it. I, a grown-up, approach my family and speak to them. I express child-me’s needs for connection and reassurance; I release my hurt. They, in return, tell me what they need from me: to show up and try, to stop being standoffish.
Childhood trauma cured for good, I left the garden and visualised a big tree, the tree of life. There was a door, one of many, magnetically pulling me towards it. Each time I went through a door, I lived through a significant moment from one of my many past lives.
I found myself in a meadow, dark green, Ireland. I was there with my wife. Peaceful. Shift to a courtyard now, with other soldiers – a military drill. A test. I have to go and fight but I don’t want to. I’m feeling coerced by society at large. There’s anger, resentment. Shift to a school playground, where I’m fighting with a friend. I’m proud to stand up for myself, but I don’t want to hurt him. There’s a crowd; I’m embarrassed they might see my weakness. Now I’m in a classroom, giving a presentation. No one applauded; I didn’t change the world. I’m deeply disappointed. A hospital next – I’ve just been born. I’m with my mum. Feeling happy, at peace.
Yet again I’m tumbling through darkness into another life. But it feels weightier this time, like I was someone important. I’m in a playing field, alone, a child. I’m kicking a red ball – bounce, bounce. Then I’m in my early twenties, wearing brown moccasins1 and a trench coat, sitting on the porch of a house, smoking a pipe. I’m not British; it’s mainland Europe, some time ago. Now my feet are cold and wet – I’m in the trenches, with my friends, dirty and haggard. It’s a war. I light a pipe again, and feel my moustache brush against it.
Oh. Oh no. Mainland Europe. Some time ago. A moustache. Surely not? Please, lord no. Then it hits me – I know who I am.
Poirot. I’m Hercule Poirot.
Bam! I’ve been hit by a car. Finitely crushed under its old-timey wheels. Blackness. Cold. Terror. My lives are over.
Thank God – my stomach was beginning to rumble and I’d lost all feeling in my buttocks. I was getting a bit tired of having to think up new scenarios. I’d already seen three green meadows and fought in WWI twice.
And as for my spirit guides? Well, keep working hard, they told me, listen to your instincts, and don’t be put off by challenges. Just keep going - and have faith. Work for something meaningful. Be a present and caring father. Et cetera, et cetera.
It was nice advice. And obviously my past lives were just scenes from my own life, and my subconscious fears and fantasies, dressed up in period clothing. It told me things I already knew deep down, but it brought them to the surface, to be examined in the light. It was emotionally tense. I came out drained, eyes stinging. Through the catharsis, I did feel more at peace. I had a better understanding of myself – that I use anger and resentment as defence mechanisms, that really I’m craving love and connection, as we all are.
And that, most importantly, I was never Hitler.
Don’t know what these are, so I’m surprised to say I was wearing them – debunk that, naysayers