It can happen, and if it does, it is important not to take it personally, because it is not you. It is a past life version of you. The soul is the same but the physical body is different. When a lifetime like that comes up, it comes up because there is some connection to the energy of that time and place in your life today. These situations come up so they can be better understood in terms of what is going on in your current life, processed in the most appropriate way, and released as part of the thorough review we do before you come back, while you are still relaxed. Part of the release is helping you understand that it is not you, and part of the process may involve the past life self forgiving themselves. And you stay in control the whole time. If you feel uncomfortable inside an experience, you can go from being in the body to being the observer watching it.

Karma is the spiritual law of cause and effect, what goes around comes around. In my experience, karmic debts or unresolved patterns come with you from past lifetimes when your soul did not fully take in a key lesson from an experience. During the past life review near the end of a session, you get to look at those difficult cycles with a wider view. When you consciously identify the lesson your soul was meant to learn, forgiveness or self trust for example, the pattern loses its grip. Clients often tell me that once they recognize the lesson clearly, they stop repeating the same painful loop in this life. That is what clearing karma looks like in practice, understanding rather than punishment.

An analytical, left brain mind, which I see often in engineers and software developers, is no barrier to hypnosis. To quiet that logical chatter I use a simple visual exercise I call the Ball. You imagine holding a ball, toss it up, and allow it to change into something different. It sounds almost too simple, but what it does is shift you from trying to analyze what is happening into simply allowing impressions to flow from your subconscious. Once that shift happens, the critical mind steps out of the way and my analytical clients access deep memories and knowings just as easily as anyone else. And here is something else about analytical minds. Engineers and programmers are often very creative people, using both sides of the brain, because engineers design things. I worked for 12 years as a programmer, so I can say from personal experience that writing software takes a combination of logic and creativity, and that combination makes an excellent hypnosis subject.

That instant, unexplainable familiarity with someone is often a sign that your souls have shared many past lives. Souls travel and incarnate together in groups, working on shared lessons over many lifetimes and trading roles as spouses, siblings, parents and close friends. Before your session you fill out a cast of characters list with the important people in your life. As past life scenes come up, I cross reference that list, and clients are frequently surprised to recognize a current spouse or friend in a very different role. Seeing the original agreements and karmic bonds behind the connection tends to bring clarity, and many people come away understanding why this particular relationship feels so deep.

Recurring dreams of combat or fighting are often your subconscious trying to process unhealed past life trauma, or a parallel lifetime, while you sleep. Sometimes that spills over into intense physical sensations or waking up exhausted. In hypnosis we can go into those recurring dream scenes safely, locate their original source, understand what they are trying to tell you and find emotional closure. Once the subconscious has done that work, it tends to let go of the protective loop it has been running at night. Clients who came to me with dreams like this often tell me their sleep became peaceful again. Your dreams are trying to get your attention. A session gives them somewhere to be heard.

I feel that I connect with my own guides, as well as others in spirit, during sessions, and one way I do that is through my pendulum and sometimes muscle testing. I cannot say for sure where the answers come from. It may be my guides, your guides, the Masters of Light I have written about on the blog, or another guide who is a guide to one of your guides, but there is a connection, and the answers come. During an active session they let me quickly double check information, verify the exact identity of the spiritual guides or attachments present, and confirm that an energetic block, a negative contract or an earthbound soul attachment has fully cleared before we move forward. Think of it as a second line on the phone. The answers come through your voice first, and these tools give me a fast, reliable way to check them.