Jaclyn Beckerman Coaching

Saturday I took the bus to Philly early in the morning to attend a 10am-5pm workshop with Brian Weiss.  Dr. Weiss is famous for his work with past life regression therapy and has written a handful of books on his experiences with patients using this tool for healing.

Throughout the day he talked about some past experiences and gave background information for those who weren’t familiar with his work and did a few experiential exercises with us including a couple past life regressions.

They would turn the lights very low and put on some soft background music and he would guide everyone into a trance (hypnosis) which is really just, as he mentioned, relaxed focused concentration.

In the first regression I saw myself as a king.  I was a large man and had a full white beard.  I was sitting in my throne and people were lined up to offer me gifts.  There were people lined up facing inward on either side of this procession as well.  I was very pleased to receive the gifts but I was not very generous in giving to the people which made them resentful.  It was like it was all about me and I didn’t really care about the other people.  The lesson for me to learn was that of being generous and giving to others the way I’d like to be given to in order to foster love, respect and unity.  When we fast forwarded to my death I saw that my throat was cut by my brother (who was my brother Michael in this lifetime) who wanted the throne for himself.

Later, in the second regression, I saw myself as a pregnant wife who had had a lot of trouble conceiving.  When I had the child it was a girl and my husband was angry about this because he wanted a boy.  He then forced me to have sex with him against my will repeatedly until I got pregnant again.  I felt worn out and beaten down, and died in childbirth giving birth to another girl.  I didn’t get to look into the lessons of this lifetime as we moved on to look at another.  Looking back on this now I think the lesson to learn is to express myself fully – it’s okay to get angry and it’s okay to rebel against people who treat me badly or things I don’t agree with or am not happy or comfortable with.  I notice this theme in other past lives I’ve seen recently as well.  In the past (in this lifetime too) I’ve tended to be somewhat submissive about accepting what other people want and not standing up for myself because I don’t want to rock the boat. I need to trust my gut and follow my instincts instead of allowing others to influence or dictate my thought process or actions. At this point I was a bit stuck on the images I had seen and was aware of someone having fallen asleep and snoring next to me and had trouble focusing on the images.  We had spirit guides, who I saw as two children, a boy and a girl, come to take us to our next destination.  There were 5 or 6 doors, each leading to a different time period, we were to walk through the door that called to us the most.  I went through the 20 BC door and found myself as a thin woman named Genevieve in Egypt wearing a white cloth robe and sandals.  I didn’t see anything else about the lifetime though.

Dr Weiss said that Karma basically means that what you sow is what you reap.  Actions have consequences and they come back to you until you learn the lesson.  Karma is there to teach you not to punish you.  Once you learn the lesson, the karma dissolves because you don’t need it anymore.  This is why past life regression therapy seems to work so well for people to dissolve fears, phobias and even illnesses, because by learning the lesson you are meant to learn, you complete the karma.

Another thing we did was partner up and exchange a personal item with our partner.  We then went a bit deeper into trance and looked for what images or messages we got from holding the object.  For my partner I got that he had been a boy scout when he was very young and his father had been a bit indifferent and emotionally flat towards him.  I got that he just wanted to be loved by his father but didn’t feel like he had that.  I also got that his father had passed away and was very sorry and regretted how he’d been towards his son and wanted him to know he loved him very much.  I also saw that he lived in a house – at first I saw a two story house and then a single story and then the idea of an apartment in the house even though I knew it wasn’t an apartment building.  My partner verified that all of this was really accurate which was pretty cool.  He’d been a boy scout, his father had died 4 years ago and had terribly regretted how he treated his family because he was always busy and away doing other things.  He also said he lived in a two story house but his grandparents lived on one floor and his family lived on the other which explains the different imagery with the house.  While I’ve read some people and looked at future events I hadn’t really looked at anyone’s past in their current lifetime so it was awesome to be able to confirm the accuracy of what I saw.

We also did an exercise that has you have a dialog with some illness you possess (physical, emotional or mental) in order to heal it.  I did it with ‘laziness’.  You ask the illness a bunch of questions and it answers and then you switch places with the illness.  What I got from this experience was that I’m afraid of getting so busy and so caught up in doing things that I won’t have time for fun, play, relaxing or well being.  So if I make it a priority to include those things and even maybe schedule them in, it will be easier for me to be productive and do the activities or tasks I know are important to do.

It was basically the kind of exercises I’ve already been doing/working with now but it’s always a fascinating experience and I got a lot out of being there.

I did a past life regression with Rethnea on Sunday.  It was very cool.  It’s very similar to visual (intuitive) meditation except you’re answering questions about yourself and not someone else.  You can check Rethnea out on her blog.  She’s warmth, generosity and peace all wrapped in one delightful package.

I saw glimpses of 3 past lives.

In the first I was a cavewoman.  My cave was on the side of a mountain next to an ocean.  It had and entrance made of 2 long stones (top to bottom) standing on either side of the entrance and one on the top like a hood.  There was an ocean at the bottom and when I went up to it to look at myself I saw I had an average build, long dark hair, bare feet, brown clothes and was kind of dirty.  Then we fast forwarded to dinner time where I saw I had a husband (a big burly guy) and 2 young children, a boy and a girl.  We often ate meat.  I wasn’t very satisfied with my life and seemed to just be getting by, settling for how things were although I wasn’t really happy.  We fast forwarded to the next significant thing that happened where I saw that I was chased down and murdered by a man, being stabbed in the back with a sharp object.  I wasn’t clear on why.

In the second life I was a princess in either India or Egypt – at first I thought Egypt but once I was there I thought it was India.  I first saw myself walking through a bustling village and people stopped when they saw me.  I felt a lot of love and compassion for them.  I was maybe in my late teens and had long dark hair pulled back wearing a headpiece that come to a point between my eyebrows and a purple garment that wrapped around me.  We fast forwarded and I next saw myself living in an ornate palace with my father and younger sister (who I believe was my older sister Jen) – it seemed somewhat solemn in the scene I saw.  (This is extra interesting because afterward when I shared this with my sister she said she’s been told be two different psychics that she has been a Indian princess and a Egyptian priestess in past lives!  They say you frequently reincarnate with the same group of souls although they may exist in a different relationship to you.) There may have been more family but those are all I saw.  I had the sense that my mother had passed away after my sister was born.  Fast forwarding, I was forced to marry (or be with – I wasn’t clear on whether or not we were actually married or not) a man I didn’t know or love who was very aggressive and cruel and I was really despondent about it.  I had 2 children with him, both girls.  He abused me and treated both me & the girls with indifference most of the time.  When the girls were older he sexually abused them.  I found this out when I noticed they seemed upset and quiet – slouched over a bit.  I tried to run away with them but didn’t escape and was brought back.  I was raped and strangled to death by him.

What I learned from this was that in both these lives, I settled for relationships as they were, even though I was unhappy with them.  I just got by and put up with it.  I learned that if I’m unhappy in a situation to not just stay there and to follow my instincts and my heart.  To not worry about the rules and whatever circumstances seem to be present, but instead to pursue whatever my heart yearns for and have conviction in that it will work out.  But also to create joy or satisfaction no matter what my circumstances are.  Each lifetime ended violently which I wasn’t asked to look into but I think it speaks to why I’ve always been afraid of men taking advantage of me and not trusting them.

In the third, which I had just a brief look into it, I was a young boy (maybe 6 or 7) being picked on by other children and they threw sand in my face.  This was what I saw when we looked into the root of my habitually itchy eyes.  The lesson to learn here is that I let myself be affected by what others thought of me too much when it really only matters what I think of me and that I know myself as great.

Messages from my highest self:

I learned that I procrastinate in order to avoid feeling like I’ll be stuck with something if it works out.  Which is a waste of energy because I can always change things and take on new ventures whenever I want if I want.  I spend so much time avoiding doing things that would move me forward because I fear that I’ll end up stuck in a situation that feels like I’m settling or putting up with however things are.  Basically I straddle between the ‘settling for’ and the ‘never settle for’ by sticking with things I know no longer serve me for longer than necessary while on the other hand (and sometimes simultaneously) jumping from idea to idea, venture to venture, relationship to relationship in order to not get trapped.  What I see I need to take on now is finding middle ground where I can commit to something and allow it to continually evolve into whatever serves me best.

I need to learn trust and compassion.  I need to listen to and follow my intuition instead of ignoring it.  Noticing when I have doubt or a nagging that something isn’t right for me and actually taking it seriously.  At the same time I need to learn to trust both myself and others.

Once persistent message was that everything I need is within.  Love is within.  I need to love myself completely and fully and allow it to flow forth from me to others. I also need to learn patience. I need to love and have compassion for people no matter what because everyone else is the same as me.

I have to remind myself of why I fell in love with things in the first place and to CHOOSE joy as my predominate experience.  I got that I should meditate every morning when I wake up to practice being with stillness and that I could also meditate on a particular way of being like peace or joy or love.  (This will help me sleep better as I sometimes still have trouble as would having more regular sleeping hours).  I also got that I should write my book every day for at least an hour.

It was definitely a cool experience.  I’ll have to let you know what comes of it.  We’re doing past life regression work in my intuitive tools class with Deganit Nuur this month so I’ll be able to relay what others see as well!

Thoughts/comments?

Well, turns out it’s just being put in to a trance state. Which is what you’re automatically in when you go to sleep and when you wake up, when you’re driving a car or watching TV or a movie.

I went to the NYC chapter International Coaching Federation monthly meeting tonight where Debra Berndt, a well trained hypnosis coach, presented. She told us all about how hypnosis works and taught us some basics for how to use it on ourselves as well as our clients. She took us through a grounding meditation as well as an amazing short hypnosis. We went into a really deep trance and were to repeat new suggestions we had created to reverse our old negative thought patterns and visualize having these new things in the future.. To put it mildly, this was fantastic.

So to further explain the point of hypnosis, you have your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. If what you want is not what you have – it’s because of some negative core belief you hold in your subconscious (usually made up before the age of 9) and the subconscious belief is not changeable at the conscious level. In hypnosis, you go beyond the conscious mind directly to the subconscious where a difference can be made. The actual act of being hypnotized really just involves you going within into (often extreme) relaxation. This allows your subconscious to emerge – from here you can find your true blocks and suggest new beliefs.

Naturally, I’ve subsequently determined that I’m tremendously interested in further learning how to do this and adding hypnosis to my practice as a service I offer. What can I say? I love this stuff.

And yet again, as has been consistently showing up in my world, she also told us how being with those of a higher consciousness or who have what you want will carry you up to their level by the force of a community and bring you those things as well. Sounds like my friend and goose stories, no?

Anyway, I bought one of her hypnosis CD’s on success and will be listening to it. That and have promised to follow up with her about possibly doing an individual session. (She also does past life regressions by the way).

Have you ever been hypnotized before? What was your experience with it?