Are You Living in the Past?

By Sandy Penny . WritingMuse

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Are You Living in the Past?

Past Life Remembrance by Sandy Penny

When I was first learning about metaphysical subjects, I believed in reincarnation, but I had no particular interest in pursuing the subject. I figured, what’s in the past is past, and I was focused on improving my present and future.

Then a funny thing happened. I met a person I felt so connected with that it was embarrassing how I was feeling. I felt like I was really happy to see him again, like a long lost friend, but we had never met before. The connection was so strong and mutual, I couldn’t ignore it. Some people would have immediately felt it was a romantic attraction because that’s how it felt. It was like running into an old friend and getting a rush of memory.

One of my spiritual friends said, perhaps it’s a past life connection. Something in me resonated to that, so I scheduled my first past life regression just to explore the possibilities. I did indeed find a past life connection where we had been married, and he had died when I was only 28. In this time period, I was 28 when we met. Meeting at the age at which he had died in the earlier life was a kind of trigger to remember, and that was the beginning of exploring my past lives. Interestingly, once I knew the connection, the compulsion toward him subsided.

Philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Finally I understood the reason for knowing about past lives—because they may be affecting this life. If you don’t know the driving force in a relationship, you may be unconsciously repeating old patterns. Instead of making forward progress, you may be going around a circle. You either evolve or revolve. The only way to stop the circle is to become conscious of the pattern and choose to interrupt it, complete it, take your right action and move on.

Sometimes one particular lifetime is having the most impact on this life. Before incarnating, we choose the tools, challenges, limitations and opportunities for this life. How we use the tools, face the challenges, transcend the limitations and take advantage of the opportunities determines how we experience this life. After each life, there is a life review in which we assess how we did with the lessons we chose, and we integrate them into our soul energy.

Anything that we judge or feel incomplete with, we are offered the opportunity to repeat or face in a different way. This is what we call karma. Karma is not about punishment and rewards. It is the results of what we feel about how we lived our life, and the path of learning. “What we feel,” not what someone else feels or judges us for. We examine ourselves from a place of love, compassion, understanding and a broader vision of what we were trying to accomplish. Then we choose what’s next. If we feel we completed the lessons or experiences we set forth for ourselves, we choose something new and different.

Sometimes we are moving forward, and we have a few niggling little pieces that we want to address, so we incorporate an opportunity into our lives to address it. It could be something very small and seemingly insignificant, but has a powerful impact on someone we feel we owe a debt. Sometimes we feel so grateful for someone who was in a past life, that we want to do something nice for them in this life. So, when we meet them, we feel compelled to help them, even if there are challenges in doing so.

Many of us do not have memories from past lives, but we may have clues that guide us.
Past life indicators: