Five

From Self-Sabotage
to Strength

Self-sabotage is counterproductive, and yet all of us do it at some point in our relationships. Although there is a reason for this behavior, we are not always clear on exactly what we are doing or why. We need to dig deeply into our history and motivations to uncover our reasons.

While we desire a loving, happy relationship, we also fear it. We have been hurt or disappointed in the past. We have been rejected or felt the loss of a loved one. Our sabotaging behavior is trying to protect us from feeling this pain again.

Until we understand the deeper reasons for our confusing behavior, we are likely to continue it, needing to feel close to our partner sometimes and at other times, pulling away. What we really want is love, but this is not what we are consistently expressing. Withdrawing isn’t love. Being angry isn’t love. Putting up with inappropriate behavior isn’t love either.

Although our behavior is supposed to protect us, this doesn’t work. We end up getting hurt anyway. In a way, we have been dishonest, with ourselves and our partners.

Self-fulfilled people are consistent in their relationships. They know what they want, and if there are problems in the relationship they want to explore, understand, and correct the issues.

How do we stop sabotaging our relationships? We need to address our diminished self-worth. Our first case explores this problem.

Diminished Self-Worth

Anna, thirty-six, comes to her Life Between Lives session feeling devastated after a series of abusive relationships. Her previous partner, Fred, was abusive too, so she left. Now she is in a new relationship with a man called Max. Feeling anxious and doubtful, she wonders if she can trust any man again. Her deepest hope is to be a mother in a loving family.

She comes to a session wanting to know why she has had so many unhappy relationships and how she can fulfill her dream of creating a close and happy family. During the session, Anna’s guide answers her questions about her relationship with her ex-partner, Fred.

Together they had agreed on their relationship before they incarnated. The souls of Anna and Fred have shared many incarnations and played many different roles. Anna’s relationship with Fred in her current life has a specific purpose. She is to develop strength from the pain she experiences in the relationship. Anna has now learned what was needed. They had a past life together with an impact on her current life.

In this earlier life in the sixteenth century, Anna was a man named Karl, while Fred was Karl’s crippled sister. Karl had cared for his sister throughout her life. This information clears up something that had puzzled Anna. She now understands why she has felt so much care for Fred in her current life.

The practitioner asks Anna’s guide for information about the abusive relationships in Anna’s current life and what Anna is meant to learn.

Mainly she is to learn strength. As a human being, she needs to experience the loss of her partners to develop strength. It is the only way her soul can bring her into full awareness of her whole soul self.

The guide agrees that Anna carries a deep separation anxiety that influences her tendency to self-sabotage. Because she is afraid of losing her partners, she tolerates their destructive treatment. Her fear of loss is greater than her current self-worth. The guide says that most of Anna’s undercurrent of fear and anxiety has now been dissolved. He addresses her inability to feel deep love for her new partner, Max.

It’s a protective shield against old painful experiences. Handle it with understanding and compassion for yourself. You also need patience at certain moments. The protective shield will dissolve over time. Base your communications on love. Express your feelings, your needs, thoughts, and impulses clearly and honestly. Be authentic and reflect his responses. When appropriate, dispute with him and set your boundaries. As you begin doing this, he will learn as well.

Anna discovers that she has not yet fully learned her lessons from the abusive relationships. She still needs to discover her true self-worth. Her guide gives her more information.

Your purpose is using your intuition to help others. Give your intuition more attention and influence in your daily life. Intuition and feeling constitute your inner perception and are great gifts. Other objectives are learning to trust yourself. You can do this through meditation and being in contact with me, your guide. In your daily life, you can receive my guidance whenever you want. You are aware of the signs in your body that tell you when you and I are connected.

Anna reports feeling goose bumps all over her body. This is one of her signs.

The practitioner asks Anna to gaze into a special mirror that will reflect her soul, suggesting she can remember and reexperience her whole soul self. Anna does this for some time before describing what she sees.

I am a bright, golden, oval-shaped being, radiating warmth, cordiality, joy, lightness, playfulness, purity, trust, compassion, and love.

Anna is deeply touched as she acknowledges the beauty, power, and wisdom of her soul, knowing she can recall her true self any moment of her life. Anna is now taken to a reunion with her soul family. She recognizes people from her present life.

Fred, my ex-partner, is there. He takes my hand, indicating that he regrets his destructive behavior and apologizes for it.

Max is there but a bit at the back. Others are there too. We have so much warmth, sympathy, familiarity, and liveliness together.

Anna is immersed in this love for some time before a shadow of sadness crosses her face.

It is sadness about the past. I am at odds with myself.

Anna is feeling guilty because of her past life as Karl. She feels Karl didn’t care enough for his sister. She also feels guilty for sabotaging her relationships in her current life. The guide explains how to release her guilt.

She can release the guilt by recognizing that she just couldn’t do better and accepting that, as a human being, she is not perfect.

The guide explains that perfectionism is a kind of pride. This is arrogance, which means trying to be like a God, all powerful and perfect. The opposite of conceit is humility. Natural pride is a sense of joy that is shared with others, while perfectionism is driven by deep feelings of inadequacy. The guide instructs Anna to let go of all her perfectionism, guilt feelings and self-condemnation. Anna says she senses a change as her guide imbues her with the energy of this new way of being. After a pause, Anna declares that all is well with her ex-partner Fred. Then she reports what is happening with her new partner, Max.

Max is stepping forward toward me and I see him also as a brilliant light, radiating calm, strength, honesty and confidence. It feels like he stands totally behind me. I feel now like I am entering a peaceful love which I couldn’t feel before. This is totally new for me, especially the calmness. Before, I always thought a love relationship had to be thrilling.

Soon after, Anna thanks her guide and says goodbye, promising she will be in touch. She comes out of the trance sensing a change has taken place. Nine months after the session, Anna gives the practitioner an update on her progress.

I often think of my session with you. What I experienced helped me tremendously with my self-confidence. I closed the issue with my ex-partner completely. My empathy and sensitivity intensified, and I am in close contact now with my guardian angel and all spirit helpers. Again and again, I delight that I can see my guide and I am so thrilled whenever I think of my soul group. They give me security.

This year my grandma died. I miss her, but I know now that she belongs to my soul group and that I will see her again. I helped her a little during her passing. The session showed me how to say farewell to earth, how to leave the body and go home. I could tell her my experience, reducing her fear of dying and assuring her that all will be well. The session helped me greatly in the relationship with my new partner, Max. I am still seeing his radiant soul coming forward, showing me that I don’t need to fear him, and that I can trust him to not disappoint me. I am more deeply involved with him as we have now moved in together.

Two years later, Anna shares some good news.

I want to let you know that six months ago I delivered our daughter and I feel proud of the little one, as she is so special. In the beginning it was not always easy, but each day I learned with her and she is the love of my life. We are indeed a beautiful small family. I think often of my session. Back then I couldn’t have imagined how wonderfully everything would develop.

Anna has put her guilt to rest. Unworthiness was the source of her self-sabotaging behavior. She has stayed in relationships that a person with healthy self-worth would have left. Perhaps they wouldn’t even have started such a relationship in the first place.

Before she came for her Life Between Lives session, Anna knew she was in trouble. She was anxious and beginning to see the signs of the same old patterns starting again. She carried so much fear and guilt, she didn’t know how to be relaxed and trusting in a relationship. Anna was taken to the source of her problems to release the past and gain a new healthy perspective that built her self-worth on the inside.

Low self-worth increases our fear of rejection. Feeling unworthy, we look for evidence of our self-worth from others. Instead of looking within, we look for validation externally. The guides often advise us, “Look within!”

Taking Love for Granted

Sometimes we sabotage our relationships by taking our loved ones for granted. This is always a risk within a relationship. The old saying “familiarity breeds contempt” is relevant here. Whatever or whomever we have present around us all the time we often devalue. Keeping a sense of death nearby can enhance our appreciation of life. This sounds morose, but there is wisdom in these words. Being aware of the impermanent nature of life and our relationships is wise.

The case of Roger demonstrates how fear can inhibit our expression of love. Because of our fears, we can miss opportunities and take the presence of our loved one for granted.

Roger, a thirty-six-year-old gay man, has just returned to his hometown after working for several years in another city. He quickly finds a new job and a pleasant place to live, but he still feels unsettled. His family of origin, who live in the area, have accepted his homosexuality but the small town and the church are judgmental. The problem becomes acute when Roger meets Jerry, a new boyfriend he likes a lot. He feels guilty about having a controversial relationship, and this constrains him from pursuing it. He is not sure this narrow-minded town is the best place to be. He comes in for a Life Between Lives session to gain insight into his dilemma.

While exploring his doubts, Roger finds himself back in ancient Italy. He is a man of about thirty, named Christian, who is a guard in the army based in Rome.

My responsibility is to patrol the surrounding villages. I usually go by myself, as things are generally peaceful. The worst trouble I have faced is breaking up a squabble amongst villagers. I live in a two-room stone structure with the other single guards. We play games and do drills. I was recruited when I was seventeen years old and have been a guard ever since. I would like to get married and have a family. In one of the villages, there is this girl who I have noticed. She is very beautiful.

Christian does not pursue a relationship with this girl. Instead, he stays in the army, living with the other single guards. At forty he retires.

After leaving the army, I move into the hills outside of Rome where I live by myself. I feel guilty because I am attracted to other men. That is why I need to get away from Rome. Occasionally I see some of my old army friends, but I am lonely.

Sometimes I go to the tavern in the village. One day, I meet this guy and we start talking about horses. His name is James. He invites me to see his horses. We become friends and then we become more than friends. Relationships between men are not against the law, but they do make you an outcast from society. That is why it takes some time before we become lovers. We move in together and we are happy.

At this point, Roger realizes that James in Christian’s life shares the same soul as Jerry, his new boyfriend in his current life.

Christian explains that after many happy years of being with James, he comes home from the market one day and finds that James is dead. There are no signs of foul play and James had not been ill, not to Christian’s knowledge anyway. Christian is shocked. He grieves deeply for this loss. He continues to live in James’s house and look after the horses, but he is lonely. Finally, he goes back to the tavern hoping to make some new friends. He does make a few casual friends, but he never finds another lover. He lives alone until he dies quietly, after a brief illness, at about age sixty.

Now I know that true love exists, because I had it with James. I also learned that you can’t replace love with other activities, you must rely on yourself. I could have found another relationship if I had really tried.

I realize I should have let James know a lot sooner how I felt about him, because I let too much time go by. My guilt about being attracted to other men kept me from expressing my feelings.

The practitioner asks Roger what he has learned about his current life challenges in the light of Christian’s life.

I can see that you need to love and hold on to the people you care about the most because you are not guaranteed future time together. Once you love someone and they become a big part of your life, you are lonely when they are gone. Then you need to be around others, to talk to others and to be open to another love. Christian’s love for James kept him from looking for anyone else. I need to love Jerry and hold on to him. I’ve been feeling too guilty to let him know how I feel, but love is important enough to go after.

Roger left the session determined to pursue a relationship with Jerry regardless of what others might think. At last contact, Roger and Jerry were spending a lot of time together, allowing their relationship to develop.

Roger, in his life as Christian, had taken James for granted by ignoring opportunities to express his love. He was inhibited by guilt about the nature of the relationship. After James died, his guilt took a different turn. Now he feels guilty for not expressing his love to James. This prevents him from taking opportunities to develop a new relationship.

Roger receives useful knowledge from his regression. He can see how the fear of humiliation is holding him back from expressing love. Many people sabotage their relationships because of fear. We gain power when we understand our fears and the sad consequences of letting fear rule us. With this knowledge, we are motivated to address our sabotaging behavior and move forward. We then have an opportunity to fulfill our dreams of a loving relationship.

Overcoming Rejection

We don’t realize how frequently the patterns of behavior we exhibit are habits that have been with us in several lifetimes. Humans are habitual, and repetitive thoughts and actions create patterns. It simply means that when we are faced with the same circumstances, we react in familiar ways. This is a bit like tunnel vision. With certain problems, we have the same attitude and solution that we held in the past.

To break a pattern, we need to know we are caught in its grip. Once we get an inkling that we are repeating a pattern, we have an opportunity to be present and observe our behavior, seeking ways to stop any sabotaging pattern that affects our relationships.

Tina, thirty-six, is the single mother of two teenage children. She works as a social educator in a school and is a part-time psychic. She comes to her Life Between Lives session wanting to know why her relationships with men have been so disappointing.

Her biological father left her mother for another woman before she was born. During the summer vacations with him, he spent more time flirting with women and socializing with adults than getting to know her, his daughter. Her husband also left her for another woman.

During her session. Tina relives a past life as a dark-skinned man in North America in the 1950s. He is a tall, handsome professional dancer named Michael, aged twenty-three.

I do not get the respect I deserve. I am in love with a woman of a different race. [deep sigh] We must hide. She and I work together but we are not allowed to be seen together even privately. [crying loudly] I need to use a separate door and cannot live in the same place when we travel.

Michael has a very loving family consisting of a widowed mother and siblings. The practitioner asks about the woman he loves.

She came to sing with our band. [cries deeply] She lost our child! It’s an impossible romantic relationship. We have different skin color.

Michael’s life is short. He feels broken and tired of life, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. Eventually he ends it all with an overdose. Tina meets her guide, who explains why Michael faced the challenge of an interracial relationship.

Having a close loving relationship to someone can hurt you the most. If you manage to cope with close romantic relationships, you will cope with a lot of other difficulties. It is a way to learn. Tina is learning that a romantic relationship is worth waiting for and fighting for. She needs to wait. The general theme in her incarnations is loss, dejection, and sorrow. When love ends, it hurts. It is about learning to cope with strong feelings.

The practitioner asks if Tina has had any lives where she participated in a happy romantic relationship with a man. Excitedly waving her hands around, Tina goes to a life, long ago, when humans were primitive hunters and gatherers.

It is hot. I am a woman with large feet. There is sand here. I do not wear many clothes. My chest is naked and, down there, I wear a cloth. We cut our hair with a knife, it hurts. We endure a lot of pain. I feel strong. I am with someone, a man.

She laughs out loud, looking powerful and proud of herself as she mentions that her man is shorter than she is and also wears a cloth around his waist.

My children are in the village with the tribe where we live. We wander. We take animals. We gather. We hunt. We pick what we can eat from the ground. We all sleep together to keep warm. We use skins from animals to cover our bodies. Sometimes we meet others and we stay for a longer time. We do ceremonies. We communicate well. It is an inner communication, sort of. We all know what to do. We all contribute.

The practitioner asks about fire and the animals they hunt.

Yes, we have fire. The men do it! I am good at hunting. They look like bulls or buffalo or something like that. They are huge animals. I hide. Often we are many in the hunt, but sometimes just one.

The practitioner asks about personal relationships and families.

The children are everybody’s children. We foster all children. I have one man. We are not that interested in sex. We do not really feel up to it. We know that if we become pregnant, we will be restricted. I have children. We women help each other. When it is time to give birth, we leave the village, and an older woman helps the woman in labor.

Our interactions between men and women come naturally without rules. It is just there. Initial sexual intimacy is after we have our first bleeding. The elder women tell us what it is. I had a ceremony with them. They took me to a special place away from the tribe and they told me stories. It was very safe. We are never alone here. Sometimes the men and women all stay together.

Tina discovers this is one of her first incarnations on earth, saying that the tribe is very important. She comes to the end of this tribal life. She is short of breath as she speaks.

Ah, I am dying. I must leave my body. I must leave my tribe. They must leave me! [crying out] I cannot walk! I am wounded. It hurts. My feet and legs do not function. The tribe do a ceremony, then they leave me alone. They need to continue to wander. They need to survive.

I see cliffs. I love cliffs. I like the colors. I have nothing now. An animal eats some parts of my body. I am leaving now. I feel just calm.

The practitioner asks for any important messages from that tribal life.

Men and women were equal in that life and respected one another. We had different ceremonies with all kinds of intentions. We all made our contributions to help us survive as a tribe. Tina, in her current life, has a lot of strength and has proven that she can survive alone, unlike our need to be together in the tribe. In the past life, I was left to die alone because it was more important for the tribe to survive than to take care of a single person who could not be saved.

Tina is very attracted to a man she is working with, but she feels great stress inside her whenever they meet. She feels inferior to him. She feels attraction, but she does not want to act on it. She thinks he is too smart. She does not dare to look at him because she feels stupid.

The practitioner asks about this inner conflict between attraction and inferiority that stresses her. Tina’s guide explains what is happening for Tina.

She tries to communicate, but she finds it hard to talk to him. Because he is an academic, Tina cannot cope with his intellectual nature.

Tina cries.

I can meet him on a soul level, but not on a personal level.

The guide continues with more information.

The guy is a challenger. He is not what Tina believes he is. She thinks of his knowledge, but while he has knowledge, she has wisdom. Tina is not familiar with his vocabulary. That is why she feels insecure and becomes silent in his presence. She does not invite him in because of her fears.

Tina is suddenly back in her childhood years when she was only ten and in love.

I am in love. I have been in love with my neighbor, Mattias, for a long time. I feel very uncertain when I am near him. I feel a longing. I cannot get close to him. He has beautiful eyes and invites me in somehow. He is funny, and he laughs, but he is also sad, not realizing I know.

Tina examines this time in her young life.

Whatever I did made them laugh at me. I was looking for confirmation.

Her guide gives more details about Tina’s self-devaluating views.

She feels that she is not as smart as the others. She cannot learn the alphabet fast enough, she cannot swim as fast as the others. She feels stupid. They laugh at her. She does not get the help she deserves. She thinks that there is something wrong with her because she cries so much.

Tina cries for some time before suddenly becoming angry. She is imbued with a new inner strength.

Enough is enough! The others need to take care of their own garbage because it is not mine! I am more than they think. I can now take back my feminine sexual power. Men and women are equal!

Three weeks after her session, Tina writes to the practitioner.

Since my session I have dreamt a lot. The dreams have been clear and informative. I felt compelled to create an altar. I filled it with feminine symbols and a letter to my future husband. I have felt calm and my trust has increased. I am confident that I will meet a great man in this life, and we will be happy together.

During her regression, Tina’s guide has taken her on a journey to change her perspective. She has felt awkward and inadequate in her recent lives, especially in the life where she was a dark man in love with a white woman. That life and her childhood experiences increased her fear of rejection.

Reliving her powerful life in the tribe helped recalibrate her energetically, wiping out much of her old pattern of feeling fearful and inferior. Then when she remembered her childhood, realizing how small and weak she’d felt, she fired up, repudiating this feeble version of herself. With a new perspective of her inner strength, she was able to build trust in herself and her future.

Overcoming Feelings of Rejection and Jealousy

Constant rejection in childhood can manifest as jealousy in our adult life. Jealousy is an awful feeling. Although jealousy is an emotion, we experience it physically in the body. People describe feeling crushed, sick, stabbed, fearful, or angry.

These strong feelings usually compel us to take some type of destructive action. We can harass our partner for reassurance, accusing him or her of being unfaithful. We can become sneaky and suspicious, crossing boundaries by examining our partner’s phone, computer, or whereabouts. While we make our partner’s life difficult, our life is also unbearable. We feel unsettled, desperate, and unhappy.

Augusta, age forty-two, expresses many of these jealous actions in her life. She admits she sabotages her happiness by carrying a sense of rejection into her relationships. When she feels insecure, she can become obsessed with her partner’s previous relationships, even though she knows deep down that her obsession is not warranted. Her partner feels hurt and frustrated, pulling away from her emotionally.

Recently, Augusta has become more aware of her feelings and actions. She wants to overcome the feelings of jealousy she has carried all her life.

She was born to her mother out of wedlock, and her father’s extended family harshly judged not only her mother, but innocent little Augusta as well. While these people later accepted Augusta’s half-brother at birth, she was ignored from the moment she was born.

Although her father always treats his son and daughter as equals, and her half-brother is always loving toward his sister, her father’s family have never accepted her. Augusta grew up feeling wary of other people. Her early experiences of rejection created a deep sense of insecurity within her, which can easily be triggered into jealousy and judgment.

She schedules a session because, after many years of living overseas, she is going to meet members of her indifferent paternal family. She knows it is time to heal her feelings of jealousy and rejection.

In the regression, she goes to an incident in her childhood.

Augusta and her brother enter a shop owned by their father’s brother, their uncle. Her brother is given some coins, a sizeable sum for a seven-year-old in those days. He goes to share the coins with his sister when he is immediately told the coins are not for sharing. She weeps as she remembers this rejection, and the sad look on her brother’s face.

Her guide takes her to two past lives, each presenting a family of differing sentiments.

I am young girl of about eight walking in a forest. I feel happy in this forest. I am carefree and visiting a familiar place. There is a house nearby where I live. I don’t want to go back into the house. There is no love in that place. I have two parents, but the dad is not nice. He is aggressive and mean, threatening my mother. There are no other children. I don’t feel safe in that house. I am neglected. My father ignores me, and I keep out of his way. He picks on my mother and he is never happy. I don’t feel much connection with my mother either. She is sad and closed off.

Augusta is given information about her lessons in that life.

This life is about not knowing love, so the young girl goes into the forest and connects with nature. Nature is her friend.

She is taken to another life.

I am close to the ocean at night and there is a chill in the air. I am wearing boots and heavy, thick clothes. It is a cold place like Ireland.

I like to go out in the evening to a low headland overlooking the ocean. I feel peaceful. I enjoy the view and the quiet. I feel connected to nature.

There is a house close by. It is small and cozy with a fire. I feel that this home does have love, a respectful, nurturing, and peaceful love. It is just me and my wife who live here now. We are good people with good hearts. I find peace in the open spaces in nature. I enjoy time with my wife and I enjoy time alone. I am reflecting love and I am full of gratitude.

Augusta reflects on this life.

His wife left first. He is really connected to God. He doesn’t feel alone, and death is not scary for him. He feels faith and trust.

The practitioner suggests Augusta step into this man, and she does.

I am feeling so connected. I know what it is to truly know God. I have been connected in past lives and I can get there again.

Augusta now remembers how wanted she was by both her parents, despite the circumstances of the extended family, and how happy her mother was at the prospect of meeting her firstborn child.

Augusta feels whole and peaceful after her regression. Her sense of security has returned. She is determined to stay open when she meets her extended family and not react with judgment in the way they have always done with her.

Jealousy can be put to rest, but this doesn’t happen by focusing on others and what we think they have that we don’t have. We need to look inside to heal our jealousy. When we discover what we felt we were denied, we need to acknowledge our hurt and feel our grief. Augusta did this when she remembered her brother receiving the coins that she was denied.

Later she felt the love she was missing. It had always been there, but she had forgotten. Somewhere, sometime in the past, we have all felt the profound energy of love and connection.

You don’t even need to have a Life Between Lives session to reexperience this unconditional love. Once you relax deeply, gaining a state of meditation and expansion, ask your loving guides for connection. Open to the idea that profound love is there for you. A flood of loving feelings is always available and can pour into your heart.

Protecting a Broken Heart

Sometimes our sabotaging behavior has its origin in a past life. In some past lives, we experience so much grief that we close our hearts in an act of protection, and that wariness carries forward into a subsequent life. Unfortunately, we are unaware of our protective stance and look outside of ourselves for the cause of our loneliness and lack of connection in relationships. If we have a dispassionate, unengaged partner, we can blame him or her for our unhappiness. Only when we look deeper can we discover the true cause that is playing out in our life.

Tricia, thirty-six, describes her current husband, Bart, as an emotionally detached, intellectual thespian. Still, she feels a bond with this man, probably because they have been married for ten years and are raising two boys, the eldest from her first marriage. These two boys are quite different, with the youngest, five-year-old Thor, having intellectual and obsessive tendencies like his father.

Both her husbands have been emotionally absent and neglectful, and Tricia wonders why she is attracting men with these characteristics.

Tricia experiences a past life that opens in a scene in a Chicago neighborhood in the 1920s on a foggy, cold night.

Oh, it’s 1922 and I’m wearing a pink dress. I am a woman of thirty-two. I am walking arm in arm with a man on one side and a woman on the other. We are dancing, tripping, and fumbling along the pavement because we are all quite tipsy.

I’m a flapper in that life. I’m playful. Happy. But not really. It’s fun, and I’m caught up in my profession as a successful journalist. I write about entertainment. I’m living that lifestyle, playing in it, but something’s missing. I’m quite lonely.

After exploring the ins and outs of that career, she is taken to the last day of that life.

It’s cold and wintery. Now I am eighty-three years old. I am lying in bed in an opulent room. No one is around but the help. I am being taken care of, but I feel very alone.

As she looks back on that life, she describes it as lonely and depressing, without love, just being surrounded by helpers.

Apparently, the love of my life in my twenties had gone off to war, fulfilling his patriotic duty. I never saw him again. When he left, he took my heart. Subsequently, I never let anyone get close to me so I would never have to say goodbye. I stayed alone from then on. Even though I expressed myself creatively in my work, it felt like a waste. I was never able to connect meaningfully with another human being. I learned life isn’t worth living if there’s no connection.

She identifies some aspects from the past life that are active in her current life, including the solemn regret she feels whenever she is faking happiness, as well as the influence of her decision to never let herself get close to anyone.

She understands how this decision to stay detached set the stage for her relationship pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable men. She must learn to open and connect if she wants to break this pattern.

Following this understanding, she moves effortlessly upward to her life between lives. She sees an image of a sticky tar pit.

Everything feels stuck. I get the message!

The council encourages her to trust and utilize her intuitive abilities, reminding her that everything is energy. They also tell her she is a channel to lovingly awaken people on their path.

At one point in the regression, she reviews the group of souls in her current life.

My husband is off in another quadrant of souls. I feel he is disconnected from my energy. My son, Thor, is in that group as well. Now I understand why he is so bonded to his father. My other son is part of my group. He will eventually have a daughter. I can see I will be closely connected to this child, my granddaughter.

From the regression, Tricia now has a deeper understanding of the dynamics of her family. She knows why her husband is so detached and takes her for granted. She can see why her younger son is close to his father and why she and her older son feel more connected. She also knows why she chooses emotionally unavailable men. Like her husband, she too has been afraid of emotional connection. Because of her fear of being hurt, she has avoided men who can connect.

From remembering her past life, Tricia learns that trying to stay safe by closing her heart doesn’t work. We attract partners who are like us. Our unresolved issues draw to us others with similar emotional patterns. We have been designed to resolve our issues. Until we do, others will be like mirrors, reflecting our distortions and dysfunctions back to us. A closed heart will meet another closed heart, until we awaken. Once awakened, Tricia remembers there is no fulfillment in a life without emotional connections.

Four years later, Tricia has left her husband. When she separated, she understood why her son, Thor, chose to go with his father. They are alike. With this realization, she avoids much grief.

Now she is in a committed relationship with a very loving, spiritual man. They are closely connected and are open and honest with each other, ensuring they do not sabotage their relationship.

There is always a reason behind the choices we make in our relationships. The cases here clearly demonstrate how decisions and experiences in previous lives can influence our choices in our current life. Nothing is wasted. Even sabotaging our happiness can be useful. An emotionally lonely life, like Tricia experienced, can be a profound and worthwhile lesson. She learned the importance of being open to emotional intimacy. Disappointment and rejection in a past life, like that experienced by Anna and Tina, can increase strength. Loss, such as that suffered by Roger, can build courage and motivation. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of our past behavior can be painful, but it is also greatly freeing. We can move on with our lives with increased self-awareness, knowing we can avoid sabotaging ourselves and our relationships.

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