What to Expect during Your Past Life Regression Hypnotherapy Session

Ready to go back in time, but are a little unsure as to what to expect? Well, read on, because these sections cover what you may find happening during your PLR session.

But wait! Before you go back to a past life, we need to point out one thing. One of the experiences that often take people unawares during a PLR session is that when they get back to their past life they may well find that they are the opposite sex. That means a man may well have been a woman in a past life and vice versa. Let us just point out here and now that this is not a reflection of your sexual orientation, nor does it mean that you have a deep-seated desire for a sex change! It just means that the quirks of time travel do not recognize the gender boundary, and it is entirely possible that you were a member of the opposite sex in many of your past lives.

Setting the scene

During your PLR session, you are not necessarily going to step out of your cur-rent life and straight into a full, technicolor awareness of your past life. Your mind may need a little help orientating to this new experience and your therapist helps you get settled in through a process of questioning. She wants to find out from you:

Who you are. No, she won’t just ask ‘Who are you?’ Your therapist needs to help you build up your awareness and may ask you:

What you’re wearing
How old you are
Your name

Where you are. Your therapist may ask you to tell her:

What you see around you
The name of the place you’re in
The date
The time of day

What you’re doing. Your therapist may ask you to:

Describe what you are doing (obviously)
Explain why you’re doing it
Share how you feel about doing it

If anyone is with you. Your therapist may ask you:

If anyone is with you (er, again, obviously!)
If so, who that person (or persons) is and why they’re with you
How you feel about having that person (or people) with you

This may seem to be quite an interrogation, but it is very important in helping you really get into the character and experience of your past life. Once you are fully there, you can get on with exploring all that it contains. Who knows, you could be an ancient Greek standing on a cliff top, or a Victorian gardener going about his business, or even a proud Mayan mother tending to her children.

If you step into your past life and see nothing or hear nothing, bear in mind that you may be blind or deaf in that life, or perhaps you are in a dark or very quiet room! I (Peter) once carried out a PLR with a patient who reported that they could neither hear nor see anything when we were trying to set the scene. In a moment of inspiration I asked that they reach out and tell me if they could feel anything. A moment later they reported that they could feel a wall. It turned out that in the life they were visiting they were both deaf and blind.

In most cases, you experience the past life as if you are there, so don’t be surprised if your voice changes a bit and you feel the emotions you felt back then.

Visiting those important times

You’re in a past life, so now what? Is this the part of the life you need to visit?

Not necessarily. This may only be your entry point to that life; a quite mundane period that allows you to adjust gently. On the other hand, you may step out into the thick of things; right into the heart of the matter, at the point in that life where the problems you’re experiencing in this one began.

Wherever you start off, your therapist will ask you to visit the important times in that life relevant to your problem. Keep in mind that there may be more than one event in more than one life. This is an insight gaining exercise, helping both you and your therapist understand how your problem got started. As you visit these times, your therapist may ask you what’s happening, how you’re feeling, and what you feel you need to do in this situation.

You may find that all your hypnotherapist does is ask you to experience these times. At times, you may feel the need to let out some emotion. If you do, go ahead and let it out. It may be that this pent up emotion has been festering away inside you in your current life, contributing to your problem.

By the way, if the thought of crying or laughing, or even shouting in front of your hypnotherapist is embarrassing, let us reassure you. Your therapist is very used to seeing displays of strong emotion and welcomes them as a healthy release for you. If you don’t feel any of these emotions, don’t worry – there may be none for you to feel at this time.

Being present at your death

Right, put on your black armband and bring in the doom and gloom brigade, because this is where it gets a little morbid – but for a very good reason. How you meet your end in the life you are visiting, may have a very strong relevance as to why you are experiencing your problem.

For example:

Was your death violent? If it was, it could very well be a contributing factor to your problem. The way in which you shuffled off this mortal coil may be representative of the reason you’re seeing your therapist.

Maybe you drowned and now have a phobia of water. Maybe you starved to death and now have a weight problem. Maybe you were poisoned and you now have irritable bowel syndrome.

If your death was peaceful, it may not be a contributing factor to your problem. However, what happened to your body after your death may be, so read on.

What happened to your body after your death? In many cases, this can influence a current life problem. Maybe your body wasn’t discovered and you have an unexplained sense of being lost in your current life. Or perhaps your body was unceremoniously cremated and you now have a phobia of fire. It could be that your body was misidentified and you were buried under the wrong name, and you now lack a sense of who you are.

Was anything left unfinished at your death? Were there things you needed to do, but couldn’t as your life was cut short? Were there people you needed to say something to, but didn’t get the opportunity to do so?

Any unfinished business can follow through and cause havoc in your current life. Maybe you had unpaid debts in your past life and are too frivolous with your money in this one. If you didn’t show enough affection to a loved one you may find that you are now too emotional in relationships. It is possible that you were harsh with someone without getting the chance to apologize and now find that you carry a sense of guilt with you wherever you go.

Healing past hurts

You’ve been through it all; lived and died, and now have an understanding of why your problem started. Is that it? Is your problem resolved? Maybe. For some, the very act of gaining understanding is enough to kick a problem out of their lives forever. However, that isn’t true for every person or every problem. Not to worry. There is another step to take in your PLR session to help ensure that your problem is truly dead and buried.

To round off your session, your hypnotherapist gives you the opportunity to ‘heal’ that past life. In other words, to go through it and make amends, to change what needs to be changed, to say what needs to be said and so on.

How can she help you do this? A very popular way is to visit the point of death (here we go with the morbidity again!), and as your spirit leaves your body, allow it to go through the life and to heal whatever it is that needs to be healed.

Completing the journey and returning to the present

So that’s it, the life is healed and there is nothing left to do. Just wake me up and I’ll be on my way then. Wrong! There is plenty more to do. After all, you don’t mend the hole in a tyre, but not put it back on the bike. You need to put your past life back where it belongs, and then make sure that nothing else needs fixing:

Sever the tie to the past life. After you heal a past life, many therapists suggest that you sever the tie you have to that life, so that you can be sure that it will no longer influence you or encourage your problem to return. How they do this depends on the therapist. Some have you imagine cutting a silver thread that attaches you to the life. Some have you imagine that that you are permanently shutting and locking the door to that life. Others may be less specific and have you cut the connection in whatever way you feel is right for you.

Your therapist should suggest that before you sever any tie, you bring with you all the positive learning that the life gave you into your current existence.

Come out of the past life. It is important that you are formally brought out of the past life. If you simply emerge from it, you may be somewhat disorientated. Don’t worry; the disorientation will pass in time. But to avoid this, the general rule of thumb is that you’re brought out of a past life the same way you were taken into it. If you stepped through a door, you step back through a door. If you walked down a tunnel, you walk back up a tunnel, and so on.

Check that there are no other lives you need to visit. Before you are fully re-oriented back into your current life, your therapist should help you to check that there are no other lives that need to be visited. After all, more than one life may be contributing to your problem, and you want to clear the lot out in order to really ensure that it has been dealt with.

You may find that you can do this in one session, or it may need to be done over several sessions, depending on how much needs to be worked through in each life.

Whether you are doing it for fun, or using it to solve a problem, you will find that every hypnotherapist will have their own particular approach to carrying out PLR. Whatever your reason is, you will find that a visit to your past selves can be a very interesting, rewarding, and ultimately problem releasing experience for you.