Category: Relationships


Can Hatred be Healing?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

Over the last three years, I’ve had some wonderful unfolding through trance and healing work, but now I really feel stuck. I was severely abused as a child, and my whole family is still covering up for the abusers. The spiritual counselor I’ve been working with took a sharp turn from many good things to this whole new place I hate: He wants me to forgive my mother. Why should I forgive someone who beat the heck out of me? I just don’t see it. I’m not stupid; I understand that she came from her own bad karma; I get that letting go helps me. However, hating her is the only real spiritual clarity I’ve had in years. I know how awful that sounds but I feel a great clearing to see what she did, so to ask me to forgive her makes me nuts! He is insisting that I am staying stuck. It sounds right but I can’t even imagine letting go of my newfound hate of her and all she did. Any suggestions?
Susan

Dear Susan:

I feel both you and your therapist are right – you’re just viewing this from different perspectives. It sounds like this healer knows what he is doing, for he has helped you a great deal, proven his wisdom and earned your trust thus far. I agree with his assessment of the situation: that holding on to hatred of your mother will keep you stuck.

At the same time, however, it’s imperative that you love and trust yourself enough to honor your true feelings. If it doesn’t feel right to let go of this hatred yet, then you must do what feels right and best to you.

Please do note that when we forgive someone, that doesn’t mean we’re to blame for whatever they did. Further, when we have feelings of hatred for someone, that doesn’t mean we are somehow at fault. It feels to me like you really need to love your inner child by clearly acknowledging what happened to you when you were small and validating your feelings about that.

Perhaps it doesn’t feel like you can let go of this hatred because you’re waiting for validation of your feelings from some of the key people involved. As you move forward and learn to love yourself even better, it won’t be so important to get that external validation, and this will empower you to release more of the deep pain that you’ve been carrying around for years.

For now, by allowing yourself to be angry with your mother, you are finally starting to affirm your love for yourself. Children who are abused tend to have very low self-esteem, and when they decide that they deserve better and they get angry, then instead of turning all that pain inward, they start to flow it outward toward whomever or whatever mistreated them. This begins to release the energy, which can bring a profound sense of relief. Hatred can thus indeed be healing when it represents a shift toward greater self-love. It’s just one step, but when we’ve come from an even lower vibration, we may feel much better than we felt before.

I feel your counselor is trying to help you but needs to be patient and understanding of where you are in this process. This is one of the trickier aspects of spiritual counseling: when we’re forever tapping into higher truths and aligning with a super high vibration, we can lose touch with ordinary life, which diminishes our effectiveness as healers.

You are naturally conflicted. In seeking help from this counselor, you are in essence asking him to guide you to a warmer, happier place. Let’s say that initially, when you were in a place of tremendous emotional pain and struggle, it was like you were living in a frozen, barren tundra. As you began to shift out of feeling powerless, unlovable and victimized, you moved into feeling more empowered and angry at your abusers. While this doesn’t sound all that wonderful, it was like moving from that frozen tundra to someplace like Toronto: even though it’s still really cold there, it feels so much better than where you were before.

Meanwhile, your healer is living in a tropical paradise and is eager to help you find your way to the wonderful place he has found. In continuing to work with him, you are in essence asking him to help you keep moving to a better/warmer place. At the same time, however, you are telling him that you don’t want to leave the cold weather (hatred) behind.

No doubt you just need a chance to rest and recover from your recent trek, to integrate your experiences and gather the strength and courage for another journey. On a spiritual level, you’re feeling pretty worn out and at the same time, feeling so much better than you did before that you’re wondering if you really do need to keep moving.

You are free to stay where you are with all of this for as long as you like. If and when you feel ready, you can inch your way toward paradise or you take a big, sudden leap. It all depends on what feels right to you, what you’re ready for, and your own inner guidance.

In terms of your relationship with this healer, the important thing is to recognize that he may have the answers you need, that you may not be ready to hear them or act on them yet, and that is all okay.

I believe the lessons in this situation are naturally perfect for everyone involved. You are learning to honor your feelings, trust yourself, and make choices based on what feels right to you. You’re learning that if you try to deny or repress your feelings, they will get swept under the rug again, and there they will make all sorts of lumps and bumps that you will trip over in the future. As they’ll then be hidden, you won’t know why you feel the way you do or keeping doing the self-destructive, crazy things you keep doing. Thus you are very wise to take all the time you need to fully work through and release your feelings.

Further, until you give yourself permission to feel all that you really feel, you will naturally resist moving on. Imagine yourself on that journey south, and that someone else is pushing you to keep moving even though you’re weary and need to rest a bit. In this scenario, it’s natural to resist being pushed. If, however, you claim your right to set your own pace, then you will sense when it’s time to get going again; it will feel comfortable and right for you to do so.

Your healer also has lessons in all of this. He’s being reminded to respect and honor his clients as unique spiritual beings who are being guided by Divine wisdom via their own hearts. He’s being reminded that everyone is always in just the right place for them. He’s being reminded that, in order to be a good teacher, he must teach at his students’ pace, not the pace that he would prefer. He’s being reminded that he can do his best to help, but he can’t move for you: only you can truly change your life, and trying to rush the process will only take longer in the end and prove more stressful than necessary. Your spiritual counselor does sound wise. My sense is that he isn’t truly trying to rush you, but is instead simply spelling things out for you, letting you know that when you want to make further progress, you will have to head in a certain direction. You can take all the time you need getting ready for that spiritual journey, but he’s right that in order to get to a tropical paradise, you’re eventually going to have to head toward the equator. You can take all the time you need, of course, for the relative paradise of inner peace will always be there, ready for you to call it home.

– Soul Arcanum

Healing Romantic Obsession


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC, 2011. All rights reserved.  
 All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve been seeing this man for about nine months. We had an open relationship. At first I was totally against it, but I felt like this was the only way I could be in his life. He has guided me on becoming more spiritual. (I think I have always been spiritual but now I’m not afraid to embrace it.) He is almost like a mentor to me. Now it seems he has fallen back in love with an old flame with whom he has children. It hurts that he just dropped me and committed to her. I want to disconnect from the spiritual connection we share. It’s like he is with me wherever I go. I love him but the pain and torment is something I can live without. I’m scared he will know and try to put a spell on me. He has done this in the past, and while it did not work on me, it was effective on others. I want to be free of this spiritual connection. It is very powerful and like nothing I have ever felt before.

Ameerah

Dear Ameerah:

Your question reveals what is happening on a metaphysical level. I find it particularly interesting that even though you say this man dropped you and committed to another, you write about your relationship in the present tense as though it is ongoing. In fact, you go back and forth between present and past tense when describing this relationship, which reflects how it’s both over and not over at the same time for you.

I’m wondering how you know about him putting spells on other people; I can only assume that he actually told you that he has done this. You imply that he tried to put a spell on you and that it didn’t work. Whether he overtly tried to influence you in this way or not, it’s pretty clear that you are “under his spell,” at least in the conventional sense of the term. This saying reflects our awareness on some level that it is possible for someone who is very magnetic and charismatic to influence people to feel as you are feeling.

Breaking free of a charismatic lover is in some ways similar to breaking free of the influence of a cult leader. In both scenarios, the “follower” gives their power away to someone they perceive to be somehow extraordinary. In order to reclaim your power, you have to begin to know YOURSELF to be just as special, lovable, and wonderful as the one you’ve been worshipping. When you make another person your God, you set yourself up for anguish and disappointment. It’s time to stop making him so special and begin to look for the divine within yourself and everyone else.

To be immune to the influence of charismatic types, you have only to own and exercise your power to consciously create what you want in your life. This is all about taking your power back. To have influence over us, a person must have stronger will/chi than we do. In order to break free, you must summon enough will power and desire to match that person’s energy or supercede it. This means you have to want to be free even more than he wants you hanging on. You also have to believe in your power to be free and to create what you want in your life even more than he believes in his power to influence you. This is definitely a battle of wills.

He may be the sort of person who wants as many admirers as possible, or who wants to have a back-up lover waiting in the wings just in case his current relationship doesn’t pan out. The good news is that he is focused elsewhere right now, and it will be impossible for him to summon enough desire to keep you if you begin to take your power back. This just makes sense, for your desire to have your life back will be much stronger than his desire to keep something he’s not focused on or attached to hanging around in the background.

Following are four ways you might go about ending this obsession. Allow your intuition to illuminate the best remedy for you by choosing whatever you feel drawn to. Please keep in mind that any of these options can instantly work for you if you bring your whole being to it.

Ways to End Romantic Obsession:

Guided meditation to cut psychic cords: Set aside special time for this exercise, then get quiet, close your eyes, and visualize the connection between you as a cord like string, linking you together. If it feels right, mentally explain to him why you are cutting the cord. If it doesn’t feel right, then explain to the Universe what you are doing and why, and ask for your guides and angels to help you. Focus on the positive: on what you want and the good that you expect to come from this. Be very clear that you are now taking conscious control of creating what you want in your life. You may perceive something in response from him or the Universe. This may include impressions, insights, ideas or solutions, so pay attention and allow whatever comes to you to lead you to new awareness and healing. When the time feels right, cut the cord by visualizing yourself with scissors or a knife cutting away whatever connects you. As you do so, say out loud: I cut this cord so that we may BOTH be free to find greater love and happiness. The more you can embody the feeling of love and happiness you desire for yourself and everyone involved, the more powerful the ritual will be. Afterward, get rid of anything he gave you, and remove all traces of him from your world.

Direct healing from Spirit: If you are adept at prayer and meditation and have a strong relationship with your spirit guides, you can enter into a deep meditation and simply ask Spirit to heal you of this obsession. Ask to be set free, for all thoughts and feelings about him to be taken away, and to feel the way you want to feel: free, at peace, and hopeful about the future. Ask to be guided to something new to pour your love and passion into. Pay attention to what happens, especially in your body. If you are strongly connected, you’re sure to feel something shift or change within you, and afterward, to notice that you feel profoundly changed on an inner level by this exercise.

Spells and rituals: There are many “spells” and rituals you can perform to break free of obsession. Given the space limits of this column, I don’t have room to offer one here for you. The subconscious mind loves ritual, for it’s a way to communicate with your deeper self about what you want and to rally the forces of the Universe to help you achieve your aim. If this idea resonates with you, I encourage you to search the internet for an appropriate spell/ritual, and devote all of your being to it.

Hypnotherapy: Hypnotherapy is a very fast and powerful way to heal and release the past and program yourself to move forward to create what you want in your life. If the above methods don’t appeal to you or leave you somehow wanting, don’t give up hope: I’m sure a skilled hypnotherapist will be able to help you.

A final note: the surest way to release an obsession over something that has ended is to find something new, wonderful and fulfilling to get “obsessed” with. Whether it’s a new relationship, an exciting project, a pet or some endeavor you’re passionate about, if you choose something that blesses you in equal measure to the psychic and emotional energy you pour into it, you will wake up one day and realize that you can’t even remember the last time you thought about old whats-his-name.

To help you with all of this, I recommend you check out some of the great deep trance processes in the spiritual toolbox at Soul Arcanum. :)
– Soul Arcanum

 

How Do We Plan Future Incarnations?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve always wondered something about reincarnation. How do we choose our next lives? What makes us choose to have some experiences and not others, for example? Do we choose our occupations? How we’ll look? How much planning do we get to do?
– Rachel

Dear Rachel:

Please note that this is only my understanding of reincarnation based upon what I’ve read. You may want to explore the works of Michael Newton, Ph.D.; he has hypnotically regressed many people to the period between lives and extensively explored these very issues.

It is mind boggling to ponder all of the factors that may come into play with planning a future life. Where does one begin? By way of metaphor, we might compare this to adopting a child. First I imagine you have to consider your options. What children (bodies) are available to you? Do you want a boy or a girl? Do you want a child (body) from a particular place or culture? The more particular you are in your needs, the harder it must be to find just the right fit.

Just as some prospective parents will be very careful to make sure that everything is just right before they adopt, others will be a bit more reckless and impatient. We each have our own unique nature, and it’s my understanding that we go about planning future lives much as we go about living this one.

Alternatively, we might compare incarnating in the physical like planning a trip or adventure. We will have certain things we feel drawn to exploring. For some of us, it may be most important that we have the opportunity to further develop and exercise certain skills, or to make a difference in the world. In this case, we may need to make sure we’re born to a family that will give us the opportunities to do this, or that we have a physical body capable of supporting our goals. Usually such a person will know from a fairly young age what their “higher purpose” is; they will feel drawn to this again and again, or display a gift related to it.

For others, these sorts of considerations may not be so important; they may not care so much what they do or where they do it so long as they can be with a certain special someone, or affect karmic healing of a particular personal issue. For these people, the body and life they choose will be largely determined by their ability to meet and create relationships with key individuals, or engage in certain experiences.

On top of all the personal desires and needs we must consider, we also all have “soul families” that we tend to incarnate with again and again. We meet up with them in the “afterlife,” where we plan future adventures with them. We can usually find members of our soul family in the people we are closest to of our own generation. The folks in generations before and after ours may be special to us, but probably are not of our own soul group. Grandparents we have shared a special sense of kinship to, however, are often individuals from our own soul family.

Thus our siblings, best friends, lovers and mates – these people are probably from our soul family, while our parents, children, aunts, uncles, etc., are probably not from our own soul family. While they may be very special to us, they are not necessarily of the same vibration or working on the same lessons and issues we are, and are thus probably not our first priorities when we are planning future lives and relationships.

Further, usually we will choose to have very different experiences from one lifetime to the next. We may be intrigued by the idea of incarnating in a different culture, for example, and living a very different life from the one we’ve just left behind. Again, imagine that you’re planning your next vacation: most people would choose to explore somewhere new, though a few might want to return to the same place they always go because it’s dear to them. If, however, someone very important to us has decided to incarnate into a certain family in China, we may very well say, “Hey, that sounds fine. I’ll do the same so I can be near you.”

Once we choose where we want to be and what will be most important to us in this next life, we may begin to explore our options for bodies. Sometimes we will accept bodies that may not be ideal in order to get other things that are more important. Sometimes we may accept bodies that have special challenges in order to develop other capacities. For example, if we strongly desire to explore physical power and energy, we may choose a very powerful, athletic body. If, however, we need to develop more on the inside – build up our intellects or our spiritual awareness – we may see a physically challenged body as an ideal catalyst for this sort of development. If we are strongly determined to be in a certain place or with a certain person, we may be more flexible about the particular body we get, so long as our main goals are assured.

I don’t want to imply that we are choosing all of this in a very conscious way, like sitting down with a brochure and a checklist. For most people, I imagine that planning a future life is sort of a dreamy process, and more one of emotional desire leading us naturally to fulfillment than mental planning. As we evolve in our spiritual development, however, we gain more conscious control over our lives – both this life and our future lives.

There is only so much control we have over the physical. If we choose a certain set of parents, for example, then we have to work with the DNA they have to offer. By way of gross example, we can’t decide to be born Asian to Caucasian parents. We have to work with the physical foundation available much as we work with the physical body we’ve been given after we’ve incarnated.

This is why spiritual development is so powerful and valuable; the more evolved we are, the more the soul is leading versus the body/ego. So a very advanced soul may have a lot of conscious control over a future life, as well as the ability to mold the physical body to the vibration of its soul energy. In a less evolved soul, the body/ego does more of the leading, and one feels more “at the mercy” of one’s instinctive reactions and physical reality. This only makes sense if you think about it. For example, if one gains the ability to consciously manifest healing in the body by working with natural spiritual law, then one has far more influence over the body than someone who has yet to evolve into this level of wisdom and understanding.

I do believe that whatever we focus upon, we manifest, and that this would be true of manifesting a new life. When we focus upon something with strong emotion, we naturally flow toward it. This is a natural process that leads us into new experiences, including new lives. So if there is something we greatly fear, we will probably manifest it. It’s interesting to ponder how when we experience something, we usually learn from it and eventually lose our fear of it. If there is something we greatly desire, we will probably manifest that too, and by fulfilling that desire, eventually come to a point where we don’t crave it anymore.

Perhaps the one exception to this rule is that of true love: It is the one force that never dwindles away, but instead can inspire us forever. This is the force that keeps us longing for and reuniting with our loved ones or “soul mates” lifetime after lifetime. Perhaps it is the unending nature of this force that leads us to consider true love to be so divine.

In summary, if you want to have more conscious control over your future lives, devote yourself to spiritual growth in this one. If you work through your personal issues, cultivate love and harmony in relationships, and stretch yourself into new potential, your efforts will be rewarded forevermore.

– Soul Arcanum

 

Further Healing Old Emotional Wounds

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I need some advice on a situation that doesn’t seem to want to finish. I had a short but cataclysmic relationship with a young man a few months back. We were both in places in our lives at the time that drew us to one another very quickly and intensely. Things progressed rapidly then suddenly blew up. It was devastating to me, but I’ve done a lot of work around this and have come to a pretty good place. I finally allowed myself to be angry with him, and then I forgave him and it felt wonderful. Since he teaches at my daughter’s school, I see him in the mornings, but the kicker was getting an email from him telling me that he is looking at an apartment in my building. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the Universe, yet the old wounds began to open up. Part of me isn’t the slightest bit surprised that he is marching back into my life, for I’ve always believed we had more stuff to work through. I try to feel loving toward him as I know he is going through some challenges himself, yet I need to resist getting sucked into the cycle of putting his needs above my own. How do I gracefully accept the possibility that he can be my neighbor as if nothing ever happened between us? I want to tell him to get lost and go live somewhere else, yet I wonder why he is coming back (or being sent back) into my life. What do you think?
Loretta

Dear Loretta:

Before we delve into your personal spiritual lessons in this situation, I think it’s important to contemplate the possibility that he is missing you and was either feeling you out by telling you he was thinking about moving closer to you, or is indeed planning on moving into your building because he hopes that with time and effort, he may be able to rekindle your romance. (If he was as anxious to put your relationship in the past as you seem to be, instead of emailing you, he would most likely either look elsewhere for an apartment or at the very least, avoid telling you about his plans.)

This possibility aside, let’s explore the deeper spiritual issues at play here. Your reaction to this situation indicates that you do indeed have more healing and growth to accomplish. This is something of a spiritual test of your healing status. Given your panicked reaction, I think you’d be wise to view this situation as a wonderful opportunity for you to heal more completely from this very intense emotional experience. (If this process was complete, hearing from him and seeing him wouldn’t faze you any longer.)

Your situation illustrates one of the strange but beautiful things about the Universe: anything left unfinished naturally comes back up for us time after time until we master it. It may not seem like the time is right for you to deal with this yet, but these things also tend to happen when we’re ready to take our learning and growing to the next level.

Further, our feelings are very clear road markers regarding where we are vibrationally in relationship to other people, relationships, issues and experiences. When someone from the past comes back into our lives and we’re overjoyed, then clearly, there is nothing troublesome that was buried under the carpet that needs to be brought out into the open and cleaned up. When someone shows back up and we feel wary, anxious, angry, upset, etc., it’s a sign that there is great potential for further personal growth via this situation.

This doesn’t mean that we have to welcome everyone we’ve ever been involved with back into our lives with open arms. In fact, I often read for people whose lesson is to love themselves enough to learn to say no. Being confronted by people to whom they’ve given their power away in the past tests their resolve to create something better in their lives, and until they find the strength and self-love to choose what is really good for them, those people will keep coming back. So though we naturally want to run away from people who have broken our hearts in the past, they are often our greatest teachers.

Of course, people keep coming back into our experience in order for karma to be worked out as well. It’s my understanding that this doesn’t happen due to some grand elaborate plan. Instead, the force behind it is more like gravity: our intense emotional connections to people are like elastic bands, so whether we love them or hate them, when people evoke strong emotions in us, they will keep coming back into our experiences time after time, lifetime after lifetime.

Sometimes, even after we’ve personally made peace with the past, people come back into our experience because they still have karma or issues to work out. I don’t feel that this is the case for you, however, because if you were fully at peace with this whole experience, you wouldn’t be afraid of getting sucked back into things with him.

You mention being afraid of putting his needs before your own, and it sounds like this may be the big lesson in all of this for you. What better way to learn (and practice) honoring your own needs than by being in a situation that challenges you to remember? We don’t learn anything by avoiding challenges, which is no doubt why we subconsciously create and recreate the perfect situations in which to master whatever we need to learn.

As for trying to be neighbors as though nothing ever happened, I don’t see the point. Why pretend that nothing ever happened when it did? The more real you can be with your own true feelings and the truth of the situation, the faster and more directly you will be able to get to the heart of things where you can unravel anything that is tangled and move on to create the love, peace and happiness you long for.

I assure you that your situation holds nothing to fear and lots of blessings for you. Even if you do get sucked back into some sort of relationship with this guy, it will no doubt lead you either to the fulfillment of some desire or greater peace and clarity, after which you will be more empowered to create what you want in your life. If you strive to approach this situation with love and wisdom, it will also improve the karma between the two of you, which means the next time you reconnect, instead of feeling anxious, you may feel delighted and go on to enjoy all the love and harmony you’ve cultivated between you.

My advice on how to make the most of this situation can be summed up in one line: attitude is everything. This is true with spiritual lessons and with all of life’s challenges, for that matter. When we sink into fear and resist whatever comes our way, we make everything so much harder for ourselves. When instead, we stretch to be our very best selves, and we relax and choose to trust that one way or another, everything will work out fine, life begins to just flow. In fact, it does better than flow: it grows brighter and more beautiful every step of the way.

How you approach this will absolutely determine the quality of your experiences. If you can embody love and trust and let yourself shine, this situation may not affect you one bit as you sail forward to your dreams. If you really pour your best self into it, you may even be able to cultivate a deeply beautiful, rewarding experience for all involved.

– Soul Arcanum

He’s Angered by Others’ Lack of Enlightenment


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’m 19 years old and I feel like the luckiest person in my community, for I’ve been blessed with the power of peace and love. It’s never been this way for me before. I struggled to graduate from high school because I wasn’t in harmony with today’s materialistic focus and crazy ideas about what really matters in life. To overcome insomnia, I started experimenting with marijuana 16 months ago, and I’m still using it while attending a local college. It is obvious to me that marijuana is what enlightened me. I now feel compelled to share these thoughts of love and awareness with the spiritually blind people around me, including my mom. Here’s my question: how do I INFLICT others with the same insights I’ve received? I do educate my peers on human nature and how it’s not right to hate anything or anyone, from spiders to other races. This sort of ignorance stirs up great anger inside of me.

Kamron

Dear Kamron:

While I understand where you’re coming from, it’s important for you to understand that you are caught up in ego just as much as the people around you. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t experience negative emotions like anger about the way other people think. Negative emotions are of a low vibration, so when we feel angry, sad, depressed, or frustrated, our vibration is too low to be in harmony with our higher selves, which means we must be viewing things through the ego. Similarly, positive feelings like love, peace, joy and appreciation are of a high vibration and in harmony with the higher self. It is only when we are feeling positive emotions that we are able to view other people with divine wisdom, compassion and understanding.

There are many, many people who believe that they have found the one spiritual truth and feel driven to save others from themselves by persuading them to adopt their views. This is the path of the missionary and the Evangelist, not the path of the mystic, healer and spiritual teacher. Here’s the rub: in viewing others to be “wrong,” “lost” or “inadequate,” they reveal themselves to be just as snared by ego as the people they are trying to save – perhaps even more so.

This is not to say you are “wrong.” You are absolutely NOT wrong – but neither is anyone else. When one first begins to seek and find spiritual answers, it’s natural to pass through the phase you are currently in. There are higher levels of understanding beyond this, however. At those levels, one no longer feels compelled to change anyone or anything around them, for one can see that all is well and everyone is just where they need to be and thinking and just what they need to think and do in order to learn whatever they need to learn and fulfill their own destiny.

To become angry with people for their “ignorant” views is a bit like a senior in high school getting frustrated with kindergarteners because they just can’t seem to grasp Calculus. What the senior fails to realize is that there are higher levels of understanding beyond what they have attained. Teachers and college professors see no problem, for they know that everyone is progressing according to their own path, their own ability, and their own pace. Instead of focusing on what the younger students fail to grasp, one should look ahead and try to personally develop further.

The problem then is not the way the world or the people around you think and behave but what is causing you to judge the world as inadequate and the anger this brings up within you. To begin to work through this, I recommend you study the great spiritual teachers throughout history. Imagine what it may have been like to fully embody love and see all in creation as perfect, and then to have to put up with the rest of us as we squabble like children over the Earth’s resources and various abstract ideas. Fortunately, I’m sure Jesus, the Buddha, and our other true mystics saw all of this as perfect too, for they knew what we are all in the process of learning – that everyone is just where they need to be and all is well. I also recommend you undertake spiritual practice beyond smoking marijuana. (Meditating free of intoxicants would be a great place to start to cultivate peace, understanding and equanimity.)

As I read your question, the term “indigo child” popped into my mind. The term indigo child is based on the idea that starting in the mid 70s, a large number of children began to be born with indigo auras. Supposedly these children came in with a strong agenda: to eradicate war and teach people to better respect the planet and each other. As you did, many indigo children have a hard time in school; as they extraordinarily self-referencing, they question everything and refuse to conform to a systemn that they view to be pointless or flawed. These children are often diagnosed with ADD or ADHD because they simply refuse to give their attention to endeavors they deem to be pointless. (Most have an amazing capacity to pay attention to matters they do value or enjoy, however.) These children also show an extraordinary interest in spiritual matters; given their non-conformity, intelligence, and questioning minds, they tend to be anti-religion but ardent spiritual seekers.

The pattern of experiency you describe is very common these days, for as the planet evolves, the children being born are more spiritually evolved than their parents, teachers, governments and cultural mores. It is the young who shake up the old: as each new generation has sparked further social evolution, slavery has been abolished; women have gained the right to vote; bigotry has become highly unacceptable and all sorts of other moral progress has been made.

Of course, whenever you lecture others on how they “should” be, you just evoke their own fears and egos and turn them off. Even your greatest wisdom will then fall on deaf ears. If instead, you look for the beauty in them and you radiate love and peace yourself, you will draw people to you like moths to a flame. I recommend you look ahead of you toward what you need to learn next and cultivate inner love and peace through personal spiritual practice. Allow your own divine light to shine, for this will brighten the world around you and naturally draw those who are ready for your wisdom to you with open hearts and minds.

Can you love the people around you who don’t share your passionate ideals as much as you love spiders and other races? The key to rising in peace and awareness is to look for the beauty in everyone you meet and to keep in mind that each person is doing their best according to their unique history and destiny.


How Our Sexual Partners Affect our Spiritual Vibration

By Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

For about a year now, I’ve been doing some powerful meditations to raise my vibration so I can better heal myself and others. I’ve been told that having sex with someone I don’t love would cause my vibration to drop to that person’s level. This worries me because while I do not believe in engaging in casual sex, I’ve often felt very strong emotions toward someone I’m dating. These emotions may or may not evolve into love, but when I begin to feel this way and crave an emotional exchange with that person in the form of sexual intercourse, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to mess up my vibration, but if I have strong feelings for someone and I know they care about me as well, I have trouble abstaining from sex with them until I know for sure, which may not happen until the relationship is over anyway. I would be very grateful for any thoughts you have on this.
– Angela

Dear Angela:

Let’s explore the notion that having sex with someone you’re not positive you love may deter spiritual development. Certainly we find the notion that sex and spirit are somehow at odds in many religious traditions, and casual sex is frowned upon in most cultures. The practical problems that can arise from being too casual in our approach to sex are obvious, but these social mores are also rooted in some metaphysical truths.

It’s important to remember that every interaction between people involves an exchange of energy, and sex involves the fullest exchange possible. In fact, we might consider S.E.X. an acronym for “soul energy x-change.”

When we go to buy a car, interview for a job, or even meet someone new in a social setting, we will tend to be somewhat guarded. In various social interactions, we only let so much of our true selves “out,” and we only let so much of that other person’s energy in.

When we have sex with someone, however, we “open up” to them. You might say we get naked with them on every level. This means the auric walls that normally help us maintain our separate sense of self come down, which leads to an exchange of energies. Because of this, the people we have sex with can have a much greater impact on us than other people. When we “invite” a lover to mingle his or her energy with ours, all sorts of things can happen.

At the positive end of the spectrum, we can actually heal others (or be healed by them) via sexual interaction. In your case, if you had sex with someone who had a lower vibration than yours, with the right approach you may raise that person to YOUR vibrational level.

Sex can be a very spiritual endeavor. It can stretch our capacity to be giving, sensitive and compassionate with our partner; it can challenge us to rise above ego and self-consciousness to be fully present in the moment; it can take us to the edge of our boundaries, trust issues and hang-ups, where we become nothing more than who we were when we came into this world – one being reaching for bliss with another.

For many people, the ecstasy of orgasm is the closest they get to divine bliss, and as such, it can open them up to a whole new dimension of experience. To me, orgasm is the clearest experience we have of the ultimately energetic nature of life. Sex can initiate the release of kundalini and encourage spiritual development. Sexual energy is powerful, and our deep desire for love leads us to many of our most important life lessons.

When it comes to matters of love and sex, I strongly believe that there are no hard and fast rules: we have to trust our intuition to lead us. For example, most of us are naturally attracted to people who are on our vibrational “wavelength.” It is unlikely we would date someone of a vastly different vibration for long, and thus unlikely we’d have sex with them in the first place.

We have a built in barometer that deters us from opening up to people whose vibration is so far from ours that it could be harmful to us. Having sex with someone this different tends to feel awkward or wrong. Some people, however, actually get a dangerous little thrill out of acting AGAINST their intuition and being “bad,” especially when it comes to sex. Women who always go for “bad boys” are a good example, and they usually suffer some nasty consequences as a result. Of course, drunken one-night stands tend to yield some interesting pairings as well!

When we do have sex with someone who is not a good match for us, we expose ourselves to all of their issues and energies. This may lead us to get caught up in all sorts of dramas. Then negative emotion lowers our vibration, and all the drama distracts us from our higher/spiritual goals.

One of the greatest hazards of casual sex is the potential for attachment by astral entities. While this can happen outside of sexual contact, when we completely open ourselves up during sex, it is easy for an entity attached to our lover to shift to us.

Also, I have heard from many women over the years who were making love to their husband or boyfriend when “someone else” moved in. Sometimes that other being was perceived to be “inside” their lover, and the women felt their lover “become someone else.” Sometimes they actually saw the other entity above or next to their lover, trying to “take over” the lovemaking session.

The lower astral is full of opportunistic entities that are earthbound due to some addiction. The spirits of sex addicts are drawn to lust, and try to live vicariously through people engaged in sex. If, however, you and your partner are making love at a high vibration, lower astral entities with neither be attracted to you nor able to affect you.

The more love you flow during sex, the more it will nourish your heart and spirit. If your partner is not spiritually “awake” and you are, he could weigh you down spiritually, but this would extend beyond the bedroom anyway. This doesn’t mean our partners must share our paths or even our passion for spiritual growth; there are lots of ways to be “spiritual.”

So how do we decide when to “do it” in a relationship? While we should trust our intuition, we might also remember that when we have sex with someone, we are essentially telling them that we trust them with our lives, our health, our hearts and our dreams for love. For some people, that sort of trust comes easy, and for others, it comes hard.

I also think that to learn anything in life, we have to be willing to explore and experiment, so if we feel strongly drawn to do something and there is no obvious reason it would be foolish, we should do it. This is how we’re guided to learn the things we need to learn and heal the issues we most need to heal.

Finally, I think you may be too caught up in defining what it means to “really love” someone. Even if you don’t know if you want to spend the rest of your life with your partner, you can still interact with them WITH love. If you look for the divine in the one you’re with, you will embody love. When you do anything from this high vibration, wonderful experiences are sure to follow.

– Soul Arcanum


Is Resisting Love Bad for Your Health?

 

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am a woman with a male friend whom I know loves me, but I have closed myself to those feelings. I don’t allow myself to think about him or enjoy the look in his eyes when we meet because I am afraid. Since we both have families, according to my religious beliefs, this love we feel is wrong. My question is, am I doing more harm than good to myself by blocking the energy of this love? On a metaphysical level, what am I doing by blocking the energy that’s coming my way and not letting my energy go out to him? I have started having some small twinges of pain and other sensations on the left side of my chest area around my heart. Have I blocked my heart chakra with this move? Thanks for your wisdom.

K.

Dear K.:

We can and do create blocks in our chakras all the time. We do this when we resist something out of fear of what is happening or might happen in the future. When we try to deny or repress our emotions, we constrict our life force energy. When we make a habit of this, over time we can develop all sorts of problems and issues. So in not being “open” to this man and the feelings between you, you have indeed energetically closed yourself down.

Just last week I wrote about how frequent headaches are associated with psychic development because many people feel overwhelmed and try to shut down their psychic perception. Our chakras are directly linked to our physical health; everything begins in spirit and funnels down into physical manifestation, so when chakras are forced closed or remain blocked over time, we can experience physical pain and even serious health problems. I’m not telling you this to try to scare you, but rather to emphasize that you are wise to listen to your body, for it is definitely trying to tell you something.

Our bodies don’t lie, deny the truth, twist things or rationalize the way our minds do, so often the truth our bodies tell doesn’t match what society thinks is proper or even what we believe is right on a conscious level. When our bodies are saying one thing and our minds are saying another, we have to make a choice: do we choose what FEELS right in our hearts or what we’ve come to believe is right based on what outside influences (other people, religious teachings, etc.) have told us in the past?

My sense is that you live in a culture where breaking with tradition may be much harder and more frightening than it is for many of us these days. While I can appreciate that, it’s also clear to me that it is this outside pressure that is making this lesson so powerful for you. If your decision were easy, it wouldn’t require you to ponder it so deeply and question what you’ve been told in order to find your own truth.

I recently made the acquaintance of a minister who works with the dying. He is a true spiritual warrior who is on the front lines every day, doing his best to serve God and do what he believes is right. He is also in a situation very similar to your own in that he is married but is in love with another. So far, he too is shutting his heart down in order to do what he thinks is right, and he is totally miserable.

As he is a devoted Christian, we had a long chat about how Jesus questioned the beliefs and mores of his culture, and listened above all to the truth speaking to him through his own heart. I think we are all wise to ponder how history’s great spiritual teachers developed the truths upon which today’s religious views are based. It wasn’t by listening to what other people told them was true or what had been established as right or wrong in the past; their celebrated truths arose from within them.

No one can tell you what is right for you. In order to make that decision yourself, you must pray to be guided to clarity and listen within for that guidance. As you do this, it may greatly help you to ask yourself and Spirit a few key questions, such as:

What is the path of fear, and what is the path of love?

When we make decisions based on fear of how others may react or what may happen in the future, we put outside influences before the truth in our own hearts; constrict the flow of our life force energy, personal potential, health and joy; and make our lives smaller. When we make decisions based on love, curiosity, passion, hope, desire and inspiration, we put the wisdom of our hearts first, which expands the flow of our life force energy, personal potential, health and joy. This naturally encourages our lives to grow bigger, more colorful and more fulfilling. Though it is always more rewarding, it is often far more difficult to choose the path of love, for it requires courage as well as faith in ourselves and the divine voice speaking to us from within.

Another great question to ask yourself is: what would I want those I love to do if they were in my shoes? For example, if your husband was in your shoes, would you want him to follow his heart or would you want him to deny his heart out of a sense of obligation to you? Sometimes, it’s most telling to ask ourselves what we would want our children to do in the same situation, for many of us love our children more than we love anyone else – including ourselves. So if your daughter was in your situation, what would you hope she would do?

Finally, it’s important to realize that you can heal your life and any metaphysical problems you’re experiencing without doing anything in particular in your relationships to other people. The first step is to acknowledge the message the pain in your heart is sending you. Instead of judging yourself harshly for feeling as you do, you must give yourself permission to feel as you do and allow that energy to flow freely. This does not mean you necessarily act on those feelings; it means you allow them to be what they are without judging, rejecting or ignoring them.

There is much you can do on the inside to feel better even if you don’t change a thing on the outside. None of this is really about your relationships with other people anyway; it’s all about your relationship to yourself and the Divine. I have a free Chakra Clearing and Charging Meditation that will help you energetically cultivate inner peace and well-being regardless of what is happening in your outer experience. that will help you energetically cultivate inner peace and well-being regardless of what is happening in your outer experience. You can find it at Soul Arcanum.

Finally, I have an idea on how you can have your cake and eat it too: go ahead and act on your desires, but do so on a metaphysical level only. Many people in similar situations end up fulfilling their desires in their dreams, and some of these even go on to learn how to astral travel in order to live a “double life” on other planes. For more on this, Google “astral love” or “astral sex,” and check out D.Soul Arcanum Conway’s book Perfect Love: Finding Intimacy on the Astral Plane.

– Soul Arcanum

 

 

Historical Portrait Sparks Strange Feelings


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I hope you can help me understand this strange occurance. While visiting a city in northern Europe a few months ago, I felt instantly drawn to a man I saw on a painting. I did some research, and it appears that this man was a statesman who died in the mid 17th century. While I was visiting the city, I felt this strange sense of familiarity. I am not saying that I was experiencing deja vu or recognizing specific places, but now and then, for a few seconds everything felt familiar to me. It was as if I had been there before but all in a very blurred sort of way. Since then, I have been looking for information about that man, getting to know more about him, and even drawing his portrait. I feel stupid to feel this attraction because this is so unreal! He looks exactly like the kind of men I was attracted to as a younger girl. I really don’t know what to think of all this. Is it just my imagination? Is it just because I am very sensitive to the arts and historical places, or is my unconscious trying to tell me something?

S.

Dear S.:

While this is almost certainly past life related, before I go into that, I do want to mention one other possibility. Thinking of a particular person in spirit tends to draw that spirit close, so it’s possible for spirits to become attached to any item that makes people here think about them. I can think of no item better suited for this than a portrait. If the spirit of this man is attached to his portrait, then when people gaze at it and wonder about him, he may try to influence them. This would be especially true if someone who is particularly psychically sensitive were involved. If this spirit was stuck between planes, the spirit could then attach to such an individual and try hard to communicate with them. I don’t feel this is what is happening here, but I wanted to mention it so that people know it’s a possibility.

To me, it is clear that you knew this man in a past life, and that you had a loving, positive relationship with him. I actually hear such stories all the time. When someone is famous in some way, it makes it easy for anyone who knew them in a past life to find and recognize them on a soul level.

I often hear from individuals who are certain that they have a soul connection to some figure in the media. Like you, they tend to feel kind of crazy about this, but I think it makes perfect sense. It’s not like they feel this way about all sorts of different celebrities – there is just one figure to whom they feel strangely connected. Imagine that you knew and loved someone in a past life, and then you saw their picture on a billboard or saw them on the evening news. Most likely, you would have the classic symptoms of a past life encounter: time would seem to stop for a moment, your attention would be completely grabbed by that person, and you would have this strange feeling that you either know them, will know them, or simply have some profound connection to them.

On a logical level these connections may seem unlikely, but they happen more than common logic would explain because we are naturally drawn toward people we’ve known in past lives. It’s a bit like gravity; what goes up must come down, and what is pulled apart must come back together. So, for example, if you have a strong past life connection to the mayor of some town in Idaho, then the one time that mayor makes national news, synchronicity would make sure you saw it.

This brings us to your experience. I encourage you to review how you came to visit that particular city in northern Europe and how you came to view that portrait in particular. People often have inexplicable feelings of affinity, curiosity, and familiarity with places and cultures from past lives, so someone who has always longed to go to Japan or Ireland probably does so for past life reasons.

As for how you came to view that particular portrait, I’m betting that you either felt strongly drawn toward that experience or that synchronicity played a role. For example, you may have seen a brochure about a tour that included that portrait and felt a very strong desire to take that tour. Sometimes the way we make such connections is more unconscious; it’s like we find ourselves sort of sleep walking along like puppets being guided by some outside force. It’s a difficult thing to describe, but if you’ve had such an experience, you know what I’m talking about.

Often these connections come about through interesting and unlikely twists in the course of our experience. For example, we may have a conscious plan to do one thing, but then our alarm clock malfunctions, we miss the bus, it suddenly starts to pour, and so we duck into the nearest doorway. There, we run into someone we’re meant to meet or we discover something like your portrait – a strong tie to a past life or our future destiny.

How this happens for the individual largely depends on how consciously psychic they are. If you’re the sort of person who listens within and acts on your intuitions, then you will naturally flow toward the answers to your questions, destined connections, and the fulfillment of your desires. If you tend to be more physically focused and rational, these strange experiences tend to be rarer and to come about in stranger ways, for the Universe has to work much harder when we’re not working with it; when we are constantly asking for direction and acting on the inner prompts we receive, we make it easy for the Universe to guide us.

I love that you mentioned that this man in the portrait looks just like the sort of men you were attracted to when you were younger, for I believe that both past and future loves play a strong role in the “types” we are attracted to. One of my earliest experiences of “destiny” began when I was around 12 years old and saw Mikhail Baryshnikov on the cover of People magazine. Like you with your portrait, time seemed to stop and I was gripped by his image. I remember thinking that he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Fast forward seven years to when I met my future husband for the first time. My first thought was: He looks exactly like Baryshnikov! I am convinced that, instead of being drawn to my husband because he looked like a famous dancer, I was drawn to the image on the magazine cover because he looked like my future husband!

It’s possible that you’re about to meet this man from the past again – in his new form of course. As these destined junctures approach, all sorts of interesting things tend to happen. It’s possible that your soul knows that you’re about to reconnect, and in searching for him, it led you back to the last place you saw this man. (How romantic!) The good news is that if you keep following your impulses and instincts like this, if you’re destined to reconnect, you will naturally be drawn together again.

To get more information about your potential history with this man, you might pursue past life regression therapy. Through a psychic reading, you could find out if you’re going to meet him again and what your subconscious may be trying to tell you through these unusual feelings.

– Soul Arcanum

 

Telepathic Pain Connection


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I was with my fiance, Scott, for ten years before he died. Scott’s mother is 84 years old, and we were his caregivers for the last year of his life. We bonded on a very deep level as we shared the pain of losing him. For the past three weeks or so, I have had extreme soreness in my neck and shoulders. I am a runner and attributed this to needing a new pair of running shoes, though this pain seemed strange and different from aches and pains I’ve experienced in the past. When I called Scott’s mom tonight and asked her how she was doing, she told me that HER neck and shoulders have been aching and that she had just found out that she has a pinched nerve. I didn’t even tell her about MY neck and shoulder pain. I am now wondering if it is possible that I was picking up on her pain, and if so, what you would call this. This is not the only time we have had a strange connection like this. While I don’t believe in coincidences, I haven’t always had these experiences; there seems to be something special going on with Scott’s mom. Have you heard of anything like this before?

K.

Dear K.:

Your question reminded me of all sorts of amazing personal experiences and stories I have heard from others over the years. For example, a few months ago, I awoke early in the morning feeling strangely dizzy and queasy. As I was very groggy, I wondered if I was getting sick but then quickly drifted back to sleep. I then dreamed that my teenage daughter came into my bedroom and told me that she was feeling queasy and didn’t want to go to school. I woke up from that dream and drifted off again. About fifteen minutes later, my daughter actually came into my room and woke me up and told me that she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to go to school. I then realized that my own physical discomfort had disappeared, and that I had been picking up on what was happening with her.

This sort of telepathic connection is known to be especially strong in twins. I recently became acquainted with an amazing story of identical twins who not only regularly experience each other’s pain, but also have physical manifestations of what happens to the other twin. For example, one twin got accidentally socked in the eye while playing at a playground one day, which led to her developing a black eye. At the exact moment that the twin was injured, the other twin experienced pain in her eye and later developed a black eye even though her own eye hadn’t experienced any physical trauma.

There are all sorts of amazing stories of people who experience a telepathic connection to another person that leads to physical symptoms like those you describe. This tends to happen most often with people who are emotionally very close, such as mothers and their children. Since it sounds like you are closer to Scott’s mother than many daughters are to their own biological mothers, I don’t find it at all strange that you would share a strong psychic connection. It’s also possible that the two of you have shared other lifetimes in which you were biologically related, which would further strengthen your psychic connection this lifetime.

My sense is that you are a very physical person, and thus your strongest psychic sense may be clairsentience. This would tend to cause you to pick up telepathic information kinesthetically, by feeling it in your own body. I imagine that your intuition tends to speak to you through gut feelings, and that you tend to experience strong emotions in your body such as having butterflies in your stomach when you are nervous or getting a headache when you are stressed. Psychic mediums who are strongly clairsentient are those who tend to physically feel how a particular spirit passed, or feel other physical sensations as a form of metaphysical communication. To describe a spirit, they physically feel what it was like to BE that person. Thus they may say something like, “I feel like I am very tall but like I am bent over with roundedness in my upper back, and I feel like I have facial hair; it is tickling my lip.” By contrast, someone more clairvoyant might say, “I see a tall man who walks a bit hunched over who has a beard and mustache.” As you might imagine, being strongly clairsentient would encourage the sort of physical experience you describe.

While what you experienced was tangible in that you physically experienced her physical pain, you are also receiving other types of telepathic information without being conscious of it. Just as we all receive visual, auditory, kinesthetic and other information on a physical level, we all do the same on a metaphysical level, but when we are strongly skewed to one modality, we may not pay as much attention to the other information. I would bet that you are picking up on Scott’s mom’s thoughts and feelings without realizing that those thoughts and feelings are perhaps not your own, for this sort of exchange tends to be more subtle than physical sensations.

The closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to absorb their thoughts and feelings. Of course, the more sensitive we are, the more likely we are to be affected on this telepathic level as well. When you put two people who are very sensitive and very emotionally close together, all sorts of telepathic experiences tend to result.

If we have empathy for the person involved, it can be very difficult to separate our feelings from theirs even if we know that what we are feeling is not our own. For example, when my son was an adolescent, he went through a period during which he was angry, sullen and irritable. I would be perfectly happy but as soon as he got in the car, I would find my mood radically shifting. He didn’t even have to say a word for this to happen; it was like this dark, heavy cloud had invaded my aura. Even though I knew that he was the source of my suddenly dark thoughts and feelings, trying to avoid being affected by his bad mood was like having a passenger smoking a cigar in my car and trying to not inhale any of their smoke. It is fascinating to me that being in an enclosed space seems to be as powerful on a metaphysical level as it is on a physical level; if I were near my son in another setting besides the car, it was easier to separate my energy from his. While removing myself from his presence was most effective of all, in situations where someone we love is in great distress, we may pick up on how they feel even if they are thousands of miles away.

When we care about how other people feel, our auras are open to them. Instead of saying to ourselves, I don’t care how this person is feeling, I just want to feel good, we are constantly energetically checking on them much as we might do by phoning them to see how they are doing. It is this caring that bridges our energy fields. When we empathize with someone, we start to entrain to their energy and may be affected by their mood. To be invulnerable to the emotional or physical pain of someone we care about, we must become adept at setting our own tone and cultivate faith that everything happens for a good reason, so even if someone is struggling, we know that they are experiencing exactly what they need to experience in order to learn whatever they need to learn.

Soul Arcanum

She Always Wants What She Can’t Have


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have a very bad case of wanting what I can’t have, especially when it comes to relationships. I might have a crush on a guy until he becomes a real prospect, but then I begin to have doubts and get scared off. There are two men in my heart who were boyfriends in the past. I wasn’t serious about them when they pursued me and I easily let both of them go. When I thought about committing to them, I had all sorts of excuses for why they weren’t right for me. Years later, they are married fathers leading happy lives and I am single and going through tough times alone. I am now able to see how great they were and how my excuses for not getting serious about them were poor ones. I can’t tell you how hard I kick myself for letting them go. It’s truly eating me up, loving them deeply now and wanting them back and thinking how much more meaningful and fulfilling my life would be now had I been wiser before. I don’t want to be obsessive and stuck, which is how I feel, but I don’t want to stop loving them because even with all the painful regret, the love somehow feels better than indifference and the petty criticisms I had for them when I was dating them. I want to move on, stop the cycle of running from love, and be happy. Please help!

O.

Dear O:

Thank you for doing such a wonderful job of explaining your situation. What you describe is a common pattern; in fact, I know a number of people personally who do the same sort of thing. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term self-sabotage and the idea that many people unconsciously sabotage their efforts to create what they want in their lives. As a hypnotherapist, I see this a bit differently. While it’s true that people may do things that don’t appear to make sense, there is always a good reason why people do the things they do.

For example, Joann came to me at more than 200 pounds, deeply frustrated and desperate to find a way to lose weight. She had been on countless diets in her 47 years and had lost tens of pounds over and over again. Every time she got down to a size 8, she would start putting weight back on and regain all she had lost and more. In this way, she crept from around 145 pounds to over 200 despite years of dieting.

When I took her into a deep trance and asked her to go back to a significant event in her weight struggle, she at first relayed some upsetting but relatively minor experiences such as being embarrassed of her body as an adolescent and an incident in which she couldn’t fit into the jeans she was trying to borrow from a friend. These were just the outer layers of the onion, however. Eventually when asked to go back to the next significant event, she began to cry and hyperventilate. As I walked her through what she was experiencing, it came out that she had been raped at the age of 22; it was after this that she began to put on weight in an effort to feel less attractive and thus safer. She had been a size 8 at the time of the rape, and every time she became a size 8 again, she would grow very uncomfortable and immediately try to remedy what her subconscious perceived to be a problem by gaining weight again.

When I brought her out of trance, it was clear that a light bulb had come on: She now understood that she hadn’t been sabotaging herself – she had been trying to protect herself. The problem wasn’t a lack of self-love; it was the unfounded belief that if she didn’t carry extra weight, she would be hurt again. Once we healed and released the past trauma and put some empowering new beliefs in place, she found it relatively easy to lose the weight and keep it off.

Perhaps you’ve already figured out what this has to do with you. In case you haven’t, I’ll offer you a case that is a closer match to what you’re going through. Sarah came to me with a problem similar to yours: she was in her late thirties and had never been married because she too always wanted what she couldn’t have. She only wanted men who were unavailable for some reason. A couple of times, she did develop crushes on men who eventually returned her interest, but once she could have them, she didn’t want them anymore.

Regression therapy uncovered a number of possible causes for this pattern, such as her father abandoning the family when she was small, which led her mother into a depression from which she never recovered. From this she developed the belief that it’s never safe to give your heart completely to another human being.

More powerful, however, was the past life she relived in which her parents wanted her to marry a man of means but she chose to marry a penniless youth for love. Though he was handsome and romantic when he was courting her, her husband turned out to be a mean drunk who beat her and the children they had together. They lived in miserable destitution because he was too drunk to earn a living and would spend the money she was able to bring in on alcohol. She would sometimes see the man she had chosen NOT to marry with his wife, looking happy and prosperous, and think to herself that she had made a terrible choice. She died young in childbirth, and as she was dying, she was very worried about what would become of her young children with just their alcoholic father to depend upon. As she was dying, she was filled with regret and thoughts of how just one bad decision can ruin your life.

As a result of this traumatic past life experience, she was incredibly indecisive in this life: every time she was faced with a decision, she would get anxious and second-guess herself. She was also forever thinking that the grass must be greener on the other side. Though she consciously believed that she wanted to fall in love and get married, on a subconscious level, she did not believe this was a wise or safe thing to do. This led her to constantly chase after men she could never actually catch, and to run away from those who chased her. Within two years of resolving this past trauma and the limiting beliefs underlying her lack of fulfillment in love, she was happily married to the man of her dreams.

To resolve your pattern, first you must stop beating yourself up about it. Assume that your subconscious mind is trying to help you and that your job is to get your conscious and subconscious minds working in harmony. Imagine that your goal is to move a dresser: if your conscious mind is pushing forward on one side and your subconscious mind is pushing forward on the other side, you’re going to end up very frustrated. Now imagine that you can bring your subconscious mind over to your side to push WITH you: suddenly, things start to move forward with surprising ease.

I know of no faster way to totally transform your life than to begin to consciously work with your subconscious mind and higher self. Since every person’s story is unique, I encourage you to seek hypnotherapy so you can uncover and resolve whatever may be keeping you from a truly fulfilling experience in love.

Finally, it’s normal to continue to love people we’ve loved in the past, but that doesn’t mean we’re meant to be with them in the future. I think you’re hung up on these old boyfriends because they are symbols of the sort of man and relationship you want. Instead of lamenting the ones who got away, I encourage you to focus on the future and open your heart to meeting someone new.

Soul Arcanum