“Sloane” carried herself quietly, reservedly, as if her presence was an imposition or even a mistake. There was something about her, though, something captivating, and it was more than just the façade that some severely depressed people wear to hide their inner pain. Maybe I glimpsed her resolution to be strong again.
I welcomed her into my office and let her talk. She told me the story of her life from the time she was little until that day, a few weeks before she turned 48. She shared a plot full of heartbreak and disappointment and, in my eyes, uncelebrated achievements despite both. I asked her, “Are you empowered?” She said quietly, with a catch in her voice, “No. I have no power at all.”
On a scale from one to ten, she ranked both her powerlessness and her sadness as 10/10, and both were constant. On days that she was not expected at work, she neglected herself and life in general. She did not like herself. She had no joy. She couldn’t find the energy to do anything, let alone anything that she once loved to do. In fact, on those days, she didn’t get out of bed. Sloane was severely depressed.
The sole purpose of our first meeting was to talk and to decide together the plan for her therapy. I listened to her and then, allowing her to rest, performed a Tonglen meditation with her. Tonglen is the Tibetan Buddhist meditation of give and take, in which one visualizes the pain or illness of another (or a group, or the world), breathing it in and accepting it into oneself, then heals it using Source and love, and then breathes the purified essence back into the person. She agreed to come back the following week for the first of three regression therapy sessions. In the meantime, I asked her to spend as much time as possible with her horse, a friend and comfort to her, and to keep a daily gratitude journal, jotting three things a day for which she was grateful.
SESSION ONE
Life Summary
Sloane revisited a past life in which she was a young peasant woman who shared a profound and deeply connected love with a beautiful man, whom she married. The love they shared was magnetic and radiated from them like light. He was her sun, the center of her universe. All was perfect until one day, shortly after they married, he did not wake up. With no apparent cause, he died in his sleep. She became wrought with grief. She screamed and sobbed and pleaded for him to wake up. When he did not, her life fell apart. She became despondent and lost. She no longer washed herself, ate, or took care of anything around her. She became completely lost in depression. All she wanted was for him to come back. No longer believing in God, she prayed to her husband for strength, and in her desperation, she repeated the words “I am not strong.” Exhausted and completely spent by her grief, she prepared poison, lay down on his side of the bed, drank to her death, and allowed the suffering and pain to consume her without a fight.
Transformation
She was so overwhelmed with sadness during this life that we navigated much of it in a safe, protective bubble of light. At one point, when she could not go on after her husband’s death, I invited him to join her in spirit, to help her gain understanding of the seeming injustice of it all and to help her move on to find healing. This meeting was a beautifully cathartic experience for her, in which she was able to ask him why. He told her: “My work was done. It was time for me to return home.” In reviewing their soul contracts (pre-life soul-level agreements) for that life, he told her “we agreed that I was to help you know happiness, love, and purpose.”
When her Spirit Guide joined them, he took the explanation a step further, tying it back into her life now: “This is the life for you to see now, as you grow stronger in your as Sloane. I am showing you the highest supreme love that you can reach to give you something to aspire to on your own, without anyone.” At first she found this cruel, but slowly, through love, she came to understand that self-love is a beautiful and worthy goal.
After this, she was able to go back into the life to learn all the important details until her death. In the Spirit Realm, her Spirit Guide returned to her, stood before her and said: “You are worthy.” When she disagreed and tried to criticize herself, he reached under her chin, lifted her face to his and said: “No. You are. No more speaking poorly about yourself. There is nobody else like you. Your journey is not done.” He then held out a gift for her — a necklace with an anatomically correct heart charm. She explained: “This is my heart. I have held life here, and this is where I hold love. He is reminding me.” (I found out after the session that this was a necklace that Sloane had actually bought for herself a few days earlier. She had felt drawn to it, as if it was imperative that she buy it.)
Her husband from the past life came to her again as well and told her: “Love yourself. Everything else will follow.” She came to understand that she must be kind to herself. They had explored their soul contracts earlier, and now, with more understanding after having lived out the rest of that life, she was aware that her part is to love herself.
She did not recognize the soul of her husband as someone in her current life and she asked him if she will meet him as Sloane. He said: “You will see me again.” He told her that he helps her every day, and that “it is time for you to bring voice to her intentions and needs for assistance to ask for help when you need it.”
When I asked her to look into a spirit-form mirror, she was “too disappointed to even look at myself.” Her Spirit Guide touched her heart, as did I, and we activated all of the lovely light within her. After, she was able to look at herself and see herself in the future. “This is me as I want to be: healthier, happier.” I touched her heart again and asked her to look into the mirror at herself now: “I see pure white light!” She beamed and admired her own brightness.
SESSION TWO
Sloane experienced two days of intense sadness after our session, but after that “it did not register at all.” Over the course of the week between sessions, her powerlessness fell to a ranking of 2/10. The difference in her from the first time I met her was stunning. She glowed, had energy, and was excited about life in general. She told me: “I have lots to do and I don’t feel hindrance in doing it. I have been sleeping better, and have been having very vivid dreams. I haven’t remembered dreams in 40 years!”
Life Summary
Sloane relived her life as Elizabeth, the only daughter of a governing lord. She had never known her mother, who died at childbirth, and had been raised by her father, whom she adored. When she was a young woman, her father passed away and she took over as governor. Despite the imposing wishes of her father’s advisors, whom she had inherited, she governed her people with grace and love, ensuring their rights, their education, and their healthcare. She became a beloved leader. She never doubted her authority nor her commitment to do what was right for her people, and in that assuredness, she dismissed the advisors once and for all. In another role reversal for the time, she actively courted a young man, Daniel, and married him to spend a long life of happiness together. She died an old woman, at the age of 86, adored by her husband and beloved by the people she governed for more than 65 years.
Transformation
When I asked her what her own personal learning was from reliving this life, she said: “I have the power to control my own destiny, to choose, to be benevolent, to give of myself and to get so much in return. I have the power not to let others dictate my will.” She paused, however, and added: “This doesn’t seem possible.” Her Spirit Guide joined her then and once again lifted her chin: “This is you. Be open to this. You are capable.”
She had nothing to say to the advisors that she dismissed from service, though she did identify her emotionally abusive current-life ex-husband in the group. Upon reviewing their soul contract from that past life she found that his role was to teach her “that I am my own person.” Further, his current-life soul contract with her is to “teach me that I am stronger and more capable than I think I am.” This all made sense to her.
When she saw herself in the spirit mirror this time, she saw a kind, benevolent, and empowered woman. I asked her to describe herself to me. She said: “I am genuine. I am loving. I am magnificent!”
We moved forward from the transformation of the past life experience into three current-life memories of powerlessness that she was now able to view with new insight and understanding. In the process, she could adeptly express her anger towards her father, who was absent, selfish, and neglectful in her childhood, and to show compassion for her mother, who was overwhelmed and found solace in alcoholism when she and her sisters needed her. She came to understand that much of the sadness and neglect of her childhood was not in her control, and therefore, not her fault. This realization begins the healing of her current life.
In closing, we asked her Spirit Guide to share the most important lesson for her. He said: “Things will work out the way they are supposed to. You can actively find your own way, your own destiny, your own path.” She had a hard time with these words, still feeling underpowered, so I asked her to ask him why she should believe him. He said nothing but, in response, he turned himself into a beautiful, bright and powerful star, radiating a penetrating white light of love. She was immediately convinced.
SESSION THREE
When Sloane met with me again the following week, she rated her sadness and her powerless both at 0/10, and told me: “I do not feel powerless or sad at all. I trust that the universe will give order. I am open to it. I have been asking for a lot more help, both spiritually and from friends, and I have received it. I believe that this is my rebirth!”
I knew it was time to turn our focus from eliminating powerlessness to activating empowerment and that the final step in our work together would be to transform her inner child and current life experiences, completely liberating her from all the pain she’s held deep within her for a lifetime.
All the way back, inside her mother’s womb, Sloane experiences her mother’s own sadness, regret, and fear and adopts them as her own. She is anxious about coming into this life. When “grown up Sloane” speaks with “baby Sloane,” she tells her: “This is not all about you. You have a destiny. There’s a path. There’s a plan. Initially, it’s not going to be easy. You will experience pain so that you can better understand struggle, but remember that the people you love do not suffer because of you. You are a bright light. It will change. There will be an epiphany, an awakening after you come to the realization of the full extent of grief, sadness, and adversity. Then you will be free to learn and live your life for yourself.”
These words bolster her, and she travels through her current life, from powerless memory to powerless memory, transforming each one by seeing it now in a completely different light. She heals herself through a rough childhood of neglect, poverty, and abuse; through an abusive relationship and marriage; through a challenging divorce; and through a lifetime of never believing that she had the power to determine her own path — even though, in all reality, she did determine her path, and did very well along the way. She actively decides to break the patterns of her parents. She heals herself in her relationship with her father and acknowledges and gives love to nurture her mother. She is able to recognize the role her ex-husband played in her life and to truly accept that she actually made positive choices along her way to empower herself for her own rebirth.
At the end of the session, before I brought her out of trance, she told me with conviction: “I am not powerless. I am not emotionally defeated. I made choices based on what was best for me. This is my life! I did all of this! And I have set myself up to be the best possible me!”
CONCLUSION
Since our last session three weeks ago, Sloane has changed everything in her life. Literally everything. She has moved halfway around the world to start a new job. She left her friends, her work, her pets, and her home to start anew overseas. This move was on the calendar when she sought regression therapy. She chose to prepare herself for the shift by healing old wounds beforehand. That takes guts — both the move and the commitment to be well before it.
Healing takes time, but Sloane no longer describes or defines herself as powerless. In fact, she is empowered. She does experience waves of emotion — homesickness and sadness —and there are times when she feels exhausted, but this is all natural not only for someone who has gone through all this work, but also for someone who has upended every aspect of her life in one fell swoop and is still settling in. She will find her balance and her new normal. What is most important is that Sloane has embraced the fact that she is a self-powered woman who has decided to make these changes, and she is well in progress on her own rebirth.
Photo Credit: LostApostle, Etsy.com
Susan Hurley is an incredibly intuitive spiritual regression therapist and energy healer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Learn more about her on her website: SusanBHurley.com.
