Tag Archive: soul family


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

 

Historical Portrait Sparks Strange Feelings


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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

 

Why We Feel a Magnetic Pull Toward Certain Individuals


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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am acquainted with a gentleman who evokes a strange reaction in me. Every time I see him, I feel a strong pull towards him but also a profound sense of grief. I know his energy is different from anyone else’s I have met; it’s very strong and magnetic. I don’t particularly like the way he looks, the way he dresses or even the sound of his voice. Since I don’t find him attractive, I’m baffled as to why I feel so drawn to him. After seeing him, I always end up in tears. I don’t really know what I am crying about but my soul seems to know something I don’t. I’m hoping you can explain why we feel magnetically drawn toward certain individuals and what we’re supposed to do with those feelings.

K.

Dear K.:

I know the feeling you describe well and am sure we have many readers who have had similar experiences. Though we tend to associate karmic reunions with the soul mate experience of “love at first sight,” in truth we may experience any number of different feelings upon meeting someone we’ve known in a past life.

I have experienced love at first sight a few times, and each time this happened, I wound up in a very powerful romantic relationship. I have also, however, met individuals and instantly felt inexplicable terror, unease, or simply a strange sense of familiarity. Experience has taught me to trust these feelings as meaningful. For example, the instant I first met a man who would one day end up stalking and attacking me, I felt inexplicably terrified. I am convinced that we had very intense karma between us, and that this is why he became obsessed with me. On a more positive note, when I interviewed for a job one summer in Chicago, I knew that I would both get a job offer and accept it because the woman who was to be my boss felt like someone I was going to be seeing a lot of.

It is possible to feel both drawn toward someone and unnerved by them. The relationships these connections foster usually prove to be powerful spiritual teachers. For example, when I was in college, I got involved with a <q>mean drunk</q> and went through a very painful time. When I first met this young man, I felt strongly drawn to him and at the same time profoundly uneasy around him. I believe I was intuitively sensing both the karma already between us and the challenges ahead.

The more psychically awake you are, the more you’ll tend to notice such feelings and be able to sense what they’re all about. However, even people who are psychically asleep may have such experiences when the karmic bond involved is very strong or important to their destined life plans. I believe these feelings arise from an inner spiritual compass; they help us to recognize the members of our soul family from one lifetime to the next, and they compel us to interact with the people we need to resolve karma with in order to fulfill our destined plans for each particular lifetime.

If before incarnating, two souls plan to meet and marry, they will carry this plan like a seed in their subconscious until the time comes for it to be set in motion. When they do meet, the seed comes to life and begins to grow. Their reunion awakens this memory on a more or less conscious level, which creates a sense of familiarity. The energy (karma) between them stirs up feelings that belie the nature of their existing connection. While karmic reunions tend to involve key relationships like romantic partnerships, they can involve all sorts of other bonds. Parents and children would experience strong feelings of familiarity if they were to meet for the first time as adult strangers do. In fact, adoptive parents often have strong feelings of connection when they first meet the children they are going to adopt. People who are highly psychic may recognize people they’ve known in past lives whether those people are going to be important characters in their futures or not.

It is always wise to trust our intuitive feelings and instincts. The first thing to do when these feelings arise is pay attention, for they are signs that something important is happening. When we feel frightened by someone for no apparent reason, we should take it as a sign that we should tread very carefully. When we feel drawn to someone, we should take it as a sign that we are meant to interact with them.

My feeling is that you loved this man deeply in a past life. This may have been a romantic relationship but it could just have easily been a different sort of relationship altogether. He could have been your son, your brother, your mother, your sister, your aunt, your friend or your teacher. Since you feel both strongly drawn toward him and at the same time experience profound feelings of grief whenever you see him, it is likely that when you loved him in a past life, he died before you did and you never fully healed from that loss. Just as we carry our strength and wisdom forward from past lives, we also carry old wounds that still need healing. When you see this man again, it reawakens the energy of the grief you have carried with you from the past. This grief is coming up in order to be healed and released. This will happen naturally if you simply allow those feelings to flow. Allow yourself to cry even if you don’t know why you’re crying. Allow yourself to feel what you really feel even if it seems crazy to care for someone you don’t really know well – this lifetime.

When you judge your feelings as nonsensical, you stop the flow of this energy. If instead, you surrender to your feelings with trust that they make sense on some level, you will allow those old feelings to flow through you, which will enable you to find peace in the present. You could also engage in past life therapy with a hypnotherapist to bring whatever is happening on a soul level up into your conscious awareness. This can lead to instant insights, healing and transformation.

I don’t know if it’s practical for you (my feeling is that it is not), but sometimes confessing our feelings is enough to initiate a profound shift. When we tell people we feel a strange sense of connection to them, the experience moves from an internal level to an external one, which relieves psychic tension. This makes sense because we feel strongly drawn toward someone because we are supposed to interact with them. Of course, the other person may not share our sense of connection, for they may not be as psychically awake and aware as we are. Someone who is psychically turned off may not feel anything, while someone keenly awake may both feel a sense of connection and know or intuit the reason behind it by remembering the past life experiences involved or the future destiny they are being drawn into.

It sounds like you are somewhere in the middle in that you are aware of feeling drawn toward him without knowing why. If you trust your feelings and allow them to come to the surface either of your awareness or your outer experience, you will naturally resolve any karmic tension involved and begin to fulfill your destiny as concerns this individual. Please do keep in mind that feeling strongly drawn toward someone does not mean that we are supposed to be in relationship to them forever, but rather that they are one important stop along an infinitely larger journey.

Soul Arcanum

Healing Ancestral Wounds


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Dear Soul Arcanum:

Through research, I have found that recurring patterns like addictions and limiting beliefs that get passed down through generations are due to ancestral wounds. How does one go about healing an ancestral wound in order to stop the recurring pattern once and for all?

M.

Dear M.:

Though the Bible does mention that the “sins of the fathers” may be visited upon future generations, I think most of us born and raised in the West are surprised by the idea that we may both be paying for the “sins” of our ancestors and able to heal our ancestor’s wounds. However, in many Eastern and tribal cultures, it is commonly believed that we not only have individual karma to work through but family karma as well.

We inherit far more from our ancestors than our hair and eye color and our tendency to develop diabetes or heart disease. Along with gifts like athletic and artistic ability, we may receive certain mental and emotional problems. Since there is no hard line between the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, from a metaphysical perspective, this makes sense. It’s possible to inherit all sorts of things from our ancestors, from a tendency toward violence, laziness, depression and despair to addictions, phobias, and emotional problems. If you step back and view the generations as a river of life, it’s easy to conceptualize how there is a never ending flow of energy from our ancestors down to us, which will continue on down to our descendants.

We all hold certain beliefs that we are not consciously aware of. In fact, we may think we believe one thing while our behavior tells an entirely different story. These beliefs are programmed into our subconscious minds and stored in our cellular memory. Some of these we picked up from early childhood; some were developed in past lives; some we absorbed as if by osmosis from what we sensed the people around us believed; some we inherited from our ancestors through our DNA. We have also inherited survival beliefs and instincts from our ancestors, so we may instinctively react to experiences in a way that would have been more appropriate in a different time and place. Since nearly everything we do and assume arises from the subconscious, it is very powerful to become conscious of what we really believe and work on cultivating the beliefs we truly desire to hold on this level. This is the power underlying hypnotherapy.

According to many cultures and shamanic traditions, we can not only inherit the unresolved wounds and issues of our ancestors, we can also heal them. This is because time is not actually linear. If we step outside of time to connect with those ancestors and help them to heal, we actually change our own present and future. (Since time is not linear, it is possible for those ancestors to be reincarnated and for us to connect with them anyway.) If we view moments as places, we can perhaps imagine that we have only to travel upstream to where the problem occurred to be able to work on addressing and resolving it, which will change what flows down the line to us.

Sometimes it is obvious that a family pattern is being repeated. For example, if you struggle with alcoholism and you come from a long line of alcoholics, you are clearly dealing with something you’ve inherited. Sometimes, however, we have no idea that we are playing out an unconscious program we’ve inherited. Often, it’s only when everything else has been tried that a person ends up in the hands of a healer who discovers an ancestral connection during the healing process. Of course, it is important not to assume that an ancestral pattern is the cause of a problem, for it may just as well be rooted in a past or past life experience. Spirit attachment could also be involved. Since we tend to reincarnate in the same family lines, we could even be the ancestor causing the problem!

If you suspect that you are dealing with family karma or ancestral wounds, it’s a good idea to find a healer who is experienced in such matters. A hypnotherapist will ask your own higher self/subconscious mind what’s going on and what you need in order to create what you want in your life. Some healers may use kinesiology testing or dowsing to determine the root problem. A good psychic may be able to pick up on what’s happening and what you need to do to resolve it.

As for how healers resolve such matters, it depends on who you see. A hypnotherapist will first guide you into a deep trance state. From there, she may dialog with your higher self or subconscious mind to ask what the root problem is and what needs to happen in order to resolve it. If it’s determined that you are acting out an undesirable pattern you’ve inherited from someone else, she will guide you in giving back or releasing that pattern. If it’s discovered that the belief or pattern causing you trouble is rooted in a past or past life experience, she will guide you in healing and releasing that experience and any limiting imprints and patterns you picked up as a result of it. Since every person and situation is unique, a good therapist has to know how to work intuitively with an individual in order to respond to their personal needs in the moment.

If you see a shaman and it’s determined that there are ancestral wounds that need healing, the shaman may lead you through a ritual designed to transcend space/time, connect with the ancestor, and facilitate healing. This may involve all sorts of wonderful elements such as incense, drumming, chanting, guided meditation, journeying, etc.

There are a few things you can do on your own. There are many cultures that build altars devoted to their ancestors. If you are feeling some tension or conflict with your family line, you might use regular prayer or meditation in front of a family altar as a ritual to help you begin to consciously work through your familial karmic inheritance. You can also send healing back to your ancestors much as you would send distant healing to a family member living now. I recommend meditating on whatever it is you are struggling with and sending healing to whatever comes to you, whether it’s ancestral in nature or not. Also, when we keep experiences secret, we actually give those experiences power over us. If there are any family secrets you’re holding close to your chest, you may want to unburden yourself of the power they hold over you by bringing them out into the open where you can face and deal with them.

Finally, it’s important to remember that what we inherit is a tendency, not a certainty. What we are unconscious of controls us; what we become conscious of, we can control. In my view, the most powerful way to free yourself of a negative outside influence, whether that influence comes from the people you’re descended from, the people you are living with now, or the circumstances you find yourself in, is to consciously choose to create what you want in your life. This is the power underlying personal and spiritual growth. It’s the power of working with the subconscious mind in order to cultivate positive beliefs. It’s the power of working with the law of attraction.

Biology is not destiny: you have the power and freedom to take whatever you’ve been given and mold it into whatever you desire. The key is to bring whatever is happening up into the light where you can see it clearly, for then you’ll have the power to transform it.

Soul Arcanum


Soul Work, Soul Contracts and Karma

 

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’m confused about the nature of soul work and soul contracts. I was involved with a man I know to be my soul mate. He wouldn’t commit and was seeing a younger woman. Through various experiences, I came to realize that I have shared a number of past lives with him. In the most recent past lives as well as in this life, a third soul has interfered with us establishing a relationship. (It is always this younger woman. Whenever we start to work things out, she interferes.) I know we have a deep soul connection, but I also know that he is afraid of doing the soul work to resolve the karma between us because it is painful. I need to know if it is possible to complete the soul work between us without him, since he is refusing to fulfill the soul contract between us. We were supposed to be together, but he is thinking of marrying the younger woman. I wish him the best but want to be free of all of this suffering.

Karan

Dear Karan:

I’m not crazy about the term soul contract; it could be misleading by causing some of us to feel like our loved ones somehow owe us something, and if they don’t do what we think they should do, then somehow they are failing us or reneging on some cosmic deal. When we talk about working on karma, we are wise to always focus on what we can do to make things right with others, not what we think they need to do to make things right with us.

Many people assume that finding a soul mate is the answer to their lifelong prayers for love, but this is often far from the truth. Soul mate relationships tend to be intense, passionate and often volatile because they are ripe with learning and growth opportunities. Further, many people view divorce or the end of long-term love affairs as the failure of those relationships, but in truth, those endings always propel us forward into new lessons and experiences, so they facilitate new growth and the potential for greater love.

I would keep an open mind about the deeper nature of your relationship, for no one can say for sure what the higher plan for you all may be. Even if your assumptions are valid, then the three of you all have strong soul connections to each other. It may be that your man has chosen to fulfill the contract he has with this younger woman and to tackle the lessons involved in that relationship instead of focusing on the lessons that your relationship may have to offer.

This brings us to the wisdom of remembering that we all have free will. Life puts before us an endless smorgasbord of learning paths and potentials, and we get to choose moment by moment what we will savor next. It’s entirely possible that your man is following his heart and in line with fulfilling his destiny, and is therefore not really avoiding anything. When we assume that we are right and others are wrong about deeper truths such as the soul nature of a relationship, we are almost always stuck in ego.

It’s also possible that you are caught up in a vow from a past life that is no longer valid or beneficial. When we make sacred vows, they can follow us from lifetime to lifetime until we consciously withdraw them and tell all levels of our being that we are free to move on. When we are caught up in an old vow, we often experience just what you describe: a tumultuous roller coaster of passion and conflict, union and separation, followed by reunion and another round of drama.

It’s clear to me that you have lessons to learn from the situation exactly as it is, and that it would be wise to smile upon all that happens with trust in a higher plan. It may be, for example, that your soul agreement was to come together in just the manner you describe: to return together lifetime after lifetime and feel that sense of connection, only to have him be pulled away or choose another path, and for you to learn to make peace with his decision and not having things go the way you think they should go.

Not even the greatest psychic can say for sure exactly what has been happening throughout your lifetimes together, and more importantly, WHY. One thing I do know is that any perspective that blames one party in a situation as wrong and the other as somehow unfairly victimized is very limited and distorted. On a soul level, you are agreeing to go through all of this too, so there must be a good reason for it. Given your inner conflict and turmoil about it all, it clearly holds powerful lessons for you personally.

All of this being said, I do understand how you feel. I had a similar experience with a woman I remembered having a very deep and troubled past life history with. I wanted us to do everything we could to make peace with each other and cultivate new love so that the next time we meet, we would have lots of good karma going in instead of repeating the same old patterns. She, however, demonstrated no interest whatsoever in working on our karma together. It became clear to me that I was far more troubled about the state of our relationship than she was, and perhaps there was great wisdom in simply letting it all go. Certainly it made no sense to insist on dancing with someone who clearly didn’t want to dance with me. To my great surprise, I eventually realized that I had learned and grown more from her refusal to “love me” as I wanted to be loved than I would have from working on the relationship with her.

What did I learn? I learned that I can’t always bend my spiritual path in the direction I think it should go. I learned to surrender with trust that everything happens for a good reason. I learned that I don’t need anyone else to do anything in particular for me to feel better – that I can reach for a high vibration and cultivate love and joy in my heart all on my own. I learned to trust even more in the law of attraction, and to keep in mind that when relationships go against nature or a higher plan, it’s like swimming upstream to try to keep them together. Perhaps most of all I learned that I don’t have to get a certain person’s love or approval to be happy and to love and approve of myself.

This is a really huge lesson to learn, for we all hunger for love, and we also tend to value the love of people who are hard to win over more than the love of the people who already adore us. We can thus spend lifetime after lifetime seeking the love of one particular individual obsessively, when deep down, what we really hunger for us a sense of wholeness and well-being in and of ourselves. All these relationships, soul agreements, soul contracts, karmic entanglements and the like are just dramas through which we work out the love within us and between us and the Divine, which means we can get what we need through an endless number of experiences. We don’t need any particular individual to soar free and clear of old issues, wounds and hang-ups, for everything is ultimately about us and our own journey to Divine Grace.

I recommend you let go of making this guy so special in your mind and heart, and begin to look at all of this in a more general, symbolic way. What does this man symbolize for you? What are the lessons and issues you’ve been working out through this relationship? If you focus on those deeper personal issues, you can set yourself free of this drama and move on to new lessons and more fulfilling connections. Your own heart and soul determine the quality of your experiences far more than your history does; if you are at peace and full of love, you can soar free of old patterns to cultivate much higher levels of experience.

– Soul Arcanum


Symptoms of Energy Cording


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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I read your article on promiscuity and how it affects the aura and creates energetic links. I have read this before from a Hindu saint. My question is: How does this astral tie affect the individual? I mean, let’s say I have been with many partners – how would I notice these astral connections? Are there observable mental, emotional or physical symptoms? Besides thinking of the person, I don’t notice anything else.

Ryan

Dear Ryan:

Since the influence of psychic cording is subtle/energetic, how much you notice would depend on how psychically sensitive you are. Of course, the stronger the bond, the more likely one is to notice these effects. For example, the strongest psychic bond is typically that between mother and child, so even mothers who aren’t especially psychic may have striking experiences of this connection. Similarly, someone who is highly psychic can pick up things about people they barely know. If you are highly psychic, you may have an acquaintance pop into your head only to have that person phone you just after this, or learn that this person was thinking of you at that time.

Please note that I’m talking about conscious effects: we are all influenced by the psychic cords we have with other people whether we know it or not. Further, the less conscious we are of these interactions, the more they tend to influence us.

The cords that are formed when we have sex with someone are never completely broken unless something is done to purposefully break them. They do tend to fade or diminish over time, however. The stronger they are at their foundation, the more they tend to endure. Thus a long, passionate, true love affair is like a castle: though we may leave it behind, it remains standing and will continue to exist even as it falls into ruins. Only if we purposefully disassemble it and re-appropriate its materials will it disappear from the landscape.

Along the same lines of this metaphor, when we sleep with someone in a casual way without forming a deep bond, it’s like throwing up a little hut in our psychic territory. If we sleep around a lot, soon we’ll have a little ghetto in our psychic back yard. These creations aren’t as strong and enduring as true love affairs, so they will fall apart faster. Since they aren’t enormous like castles, it’s much easier to ignore, dismiss or overlook them.

It’s interesting that I’m writing this column today, because just last night I had long, delightful dreams of a boy I loved decades ago. Our bond is a good example of the castle I describe above. Though we’ve only run into each other a handful of times since we broke up, we continue to have fond feelings for each other, and I continue to have him pop into my mind on a regular basis. I also tend to dream about him every now and again, which is a very clear indication that we continue to have a strong psychic bond.

Having frequent or striking dreams about someone is one sign that we have a psychic bond with them. Here are some others:

On a mental level, the most common sign is that these folks will tend to just pop into our heads for no apparent reason. Of course, it’s wise to ponder what may have caused them to come to mind. If there is a song playing on the radio that reminds us of them, it could be nothing more than a mental association. If we can think of no reason why that person may be popping into our heads, then odds are good that we’re psychically linked.

As for why they would come to mind at that time, all sorts of things are possible. If we are working on some particular issue in our current lives, and that issue is somehow tied to the experiences we had with that person, it’s natural for those energies to be reawakened. It’s also very common for our thoughts about someone to make them think about us. Therefore, when someone pops into our heads, it may be because they’ve been thinking about us for some reason. Having a psychic connection to someone is sort of like having an intercom system: when one party sends a signal through it, it starts something of a telepathic dialogue that can go on indefinitely. Of course, for most people, this is mainly happening at an unconscious level.

On a mental level we can also pick up thoughts and ideas from people we are psychically bonded to. For example, I often see images of desert mountains, and when I follow the line of these images, the face of an old lover comes up, so I assume I am seeing images from his life. This is very similar to the images I see when I purposefully connect with someone on a psychic level in order to do a reading for them. It’s also similar to how spirits show me images and memories from their lives. This is really helpful to know if you’re trying to develop your psychic abilities, for if you examine the random images and thoughts that pop into your head, you will have a sense of what it is like to pick up psychic impressions.

On an emotional level, we can be suddenly overtaken by moods and feelings that seem to come out of nowhere. While we tend to feel like our moods just come over us, our feelings aren’t random. When we choose to be in a certain mood, our feelings are coming from within us; when we don’t consciously set our own tone, our moods tend to entrain to the strongest signal around us. This is why being around someone who is depressed can really get us down, while being around someone who is in a great mood can lift our spirits.

Sometimes the strongest signal is the emotional wavelength of someone we have a psychic bond to. This is why we may sense that someone is in danger even though they are miles away, for being in danger sends a very strong signal. Since we are rarely conscious of this type of influence, it tends to be extra powerful. It’s relatively easy to notice the influence of someone who is depressed and make a conscious choice to set our own tone, but when the influence is psychic in nature, we may be baffled as to why we suddenly feel down.

On a physical level, we can pick up the aches, pains and problems of people we are strongly connected to. This is especially true when we empathize with someone and we are powerful creators. Through years of working with the law of attraction, I have gotten to the point where I can give something my attention and manifest it very quickly. When I’m not careful with my thoughts and vibration, this tends to yield undesirable results!

It’s tricky to keep my vibration high when someone I love is hurting. Recently my athletic daughter had a lower back injury, and my heart went out to her because she was so frustrated and disappointed at her inability to compete. Within two days, I had the exact same pain in the same spot in my lower back. Similarly, my husband has been struggling with a painful elbow, which we’ve learned is due to bone chips in the joint. Within about a month of him developing this problem in his left elbow (and me listening to him talk about it and watching him struggle with it every day), I had pain in my left elbow!

The key to resolving such matters is conscious awareness. Once I became conscious that I was empathizing with and thus entraining to these vibrations, I was able to quickly release those conditions. Given the endless ways that psychic bonds can influence us, we are wise to choose the people we bond to carefully, and to cultivate conscious awareness of the subtle energetic interactions constantly flowing through our lives.

Soul Arcanum

Why Do We Feel So Attracted to Some People?


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Dear Soul Arcanum:

Why do we fall in love with someone we hardly know? Why does this sort of thing happen? If we don’t really know them, how can we love them? I find myself in this situation and it’s just not right because it breaks all social rules and conventions. I feel a very strong, happy pull towards a particular gentleman. It’s like my heart recognizes him and is so happy to hear his name and see him, but my head is telling me to stop being silly. I think he has a soft spot for me as well. Is this just some fleeting fantasy, or is his energy pulling me toward him? Are there spiritual reasons for why we feel so drawn to some people from the moment we meet them?
K.R.

Dear K.R.:

The first thing that struck me about your question is your assumption that if something breaks social rules and conventions, it’s just ‘not right.’ I believe the only way to know what is truly right is to listen to our hearts, for there are all sorts of social conventions that are pretty crazy.

There is always a reason why we feel a certain way, but that doesn’t mean we should act on all our feelings. For example, we may feel like punching someone who makes us angry or like eating a huge bag of candy, but that doesn’t mean we’re wise to act on those impulses.

Often we distract ourselves with momentary obsessions in order to avoid facing feelings or issues that are overwhelming. Many people in unhappy marriages try to distract themselves by projecting their unfulfilled desires on a third party. This allows them to focus on something that feels good while avoiding upsetting or disturbing thoughts and feelings.

Repressed desires can also spark inexplicable attractions. Many crushes are simply the result of boredom. We all crave excitement and romance, and if we are repressing our desires by not pursuing our dreams, the passion burning within us will seek release in some other way.

I’m not suggesting that all strange attractions are somehow misguided or unfounded – far from it – but in order to determine if there are good soulful reasons behind a strange attraction, it’s important to eliminate some of the more mundane possibilities. This is sort of like ghost hunting: before we attribute phenomena to something otherworldly, we’re wise to rule out common explanations.

There are many spiritual reasons we may feel strangely attracted to someone. Usually this strong pull is karmic in nature, and suggests a positive past life relationship. Since there are many reasons we may feel as we do, however, we’re wise to consider other possibilities. For example, we may fall in love with someone we didn’t know in a past life simply because they remind us of someone we once loved deeply. In these cases, we may have that familiar feeling of recognizing someone from a past life, and old feelings of love and passion may be stirred up even though the person before us is not the soul we are “remembering.”

This can also happen with people we’ve known in the past in this life. Often we are attracted to someone because they remind us of someone else. This doesn’t have to be romantic: if we meet someone who reminds us of a beloved grandfather, we may feel strongly drawn to him, especially if we haven’t fully grieved Grandpa yet. Our subconscious is forever guiding us to finish old business and resolve personal issues, so if we meet someone who stirs up something in us that needs more attention, it’s normal to feel a sense of attraction.

Our souls are also guiding us to what we need to experience in order to learn whatever we need to learn next. I often counsel women who are looking for true love, and as I peek into the future, I may see a man coming in who is not going to be a life long partner, but who will prove to be essential to her journey to fulfillment. Somehow, this relationship will help her to learn whatever she needs to learn or heal whatever she needs to heal in order to move to a higher level of experience.

The forces behind attraction are like the force of gravity: like naturally attracts like, and holes in our beings are naturally the first things to be filled as the river of time and experience washes over us. We all have deep issues that we’re not conscious of as well as desires and questions burning in our hearts, and we naturally draw into our lives the people and experiences that can help us move toward peace and fulfillment.

Further, we often mistake the soulful things we need for the people who represent them. A good example of this is the experience of transference, when someone who is seeking something profound like inner peace, happiness or healing falls in love with his therapist. The therapist represents feeling better, but in essence is just one channel through which what is needed can flow.

Something similar happens when a person symbolizes or embodies some trait or aspect we are being called to develop further ourselves. If we are drawn to someone deeply spiritual, our own inner being may be trying to get us to lean in a more spiritual direction. If we’re out of balance, we may feel strongly drawn to someone who represents the other end of the spectrum – hence the saying that opposites attract.

Attraction is energetic. When someone’s energy harmonizes well with our own, we feel like we “click.” If someone has a higher vibration than we do, it’s natural to feel drawn to them, and if someone has a lower vibration, it’s natural to feel repelled. So if being in this man’s energy field makes you feel uplifted, it’s natural for you to want to be near him.

Often we feel deeply drawn to someone because they are a soul mate � someone we’ve loved deeply in another place and time. In such cases, it’s important to remember that what we do with our loving feelings is up to us. If acting on romantic attractions would compromise our own values somehow, we can still love that person without going in a romantic direction.

Romance is a human experience: there is never a soul reason to have physical sex with someone, except for when we are destined to have a child together in order to bring a particular soul into the world. At the same time, however, there is never a soul reason NOT to have sex with someone. As long as we don’t go against our own truths and values, we are free to follow our hearts. Of course, depending on our circumstances, we are only as free as we are brave enough to break with convention.

Often this sort of situation arises as a spiritual test: Will we find the courage to honor the truth in our own hearts? Sometimes doing the right thing means one course of action, and at other times, it means something totally different. Here social rules and conventions prove to be great spiritual tools, for what we’re really doing is learning to trust our own judgment so much that we don’t need social convention to tell us what’s right anymore.

To figure out what this attraction means for you, you must first trust that there is a good reason for it. Then ask yourself what this person represents or symbolizes to you, and how he makes you feel. If this attraction was not about this individual, what might it be about for you on a deeper soul level?

I believe we’re placed in situations where we feel drawn to people and experiences that are somehow forbidden because we’re supposed to learn how to listen to and trust our own hearts. Choosing love is always the answer, but since what that means is unique to each situation, we must ask within and trust our inner knowing to guide us.

– Soul Arcanum


Startling Parallels in Karmic Soul Connections

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

It has been a very long road since my husband John’s death, and now that I’ve moved on and found new love, I’ve been trying to figure out how my husband John and boyfriend Michael are connected, for they have many similarities in terms of their likes, expressions and even some aspects of the way they look. I didn’t see any of this upon first meeting Michael, but I did feel an instant sense of recognition. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out the connection, and after reading some of your articles, it dawned on me that the three of us may have been one soul before, and now we’ve divided into different bodies. Do you think that’s possible? Thanks for sharing your light!
– T.

Dear T.

You’ve reminded me of something strange that happened to me a long time ago. I haven’t told anyone about this before because it’s pretty far out.

My first love, Todd, was on the short side and very stocky/muscular. He had a strong jaw and an unusual scar on his right shoulder. It’s called a keloid scar, and it looked like a raised, reddish bubble about the size of a grape. He was very into rock and roll, and was in a rock band. Though he hid it from everyone (including me), he also had a major problem with drug and alcohol addiction. He was born on January 16, 1967.

Todd died very unexpectedly at the age of 18, and it was due to the incredible experiences I had around the time of his death that I began to question the nature of reality and ponder some big spiritual questions.

I left for college about 18 months after he died, and was placed in a dorm room right next door to that of a young man named Dan. I felt a very strong karmic connection to Dan right away. Here’s where things bend so far beyond the scope of coincidence that any sane, reasonable person has to wonder what the heck is going on.

Dan had the same stocky build Todd had had, the same strong jaw, and he was also into rock and roll. In fact, he played a mean electric guitar, which was really unusual at the very conservative university we were attending. I was soon to learn that Dan also had a serious alcohol addiction.

As I mentioned, I felt a very strong connection to him and he seemed to feel an equally strong attraction to me. We soon became lovers, and that’s when I discovered that he had a scar on his right shoulder that was identical to the one Todd had had in the same place. I could feel something strange rippling beneath the surface here, and without consciously thinking about it, I found myself asking him when he was born.

When he told me he was born on January 16, 1967 – the exact same day that Todd was born – my mind was just totally blown. As I tried to wrap my head around all these amazing parallels, I remembered something that Todd’s mother had told me the first time I met her. At that time it had been a subject of mild interest, but now it was like a flashing neon sign in my mind. She’d told me that Todd was her “miracle baby” because he’d had a twin who had died in the womb.

While I knew this was a really far out idea, I naturally began to wonder if Dan could be Todd’s twin somehow. Perhaps they had intended to be born to the same mother, but then Dan decided that a different body and family situation would better serve his soul’s needs.

I’ve since studied a lot of past life regression research and learned that people who are regressed to the period between lives consistently report that we have a choice about the bodies and families we’ll be born into. However, there are only so many bodies available, so we have to try to find the best fit for us given various factors. If something went wrong with the body of the twin, Dan may have had to find an alternative. Of course, it’s possible that he changed his mind first and when he withdrew his life force energy, the body of the twin stopped growing.

I certainly felt a very strong sense of connection to both of these young men the instant I met them, though at that time, I didn’t know what that strange feeling was. I now believe that our deep karmic connection naturally drew us into each other’s experience again.

As for how all of this may work, when I ponder the idea of reincarnation, I keep returning to a model of the incarnating soul that mirrors biological cellular division. We know that living cells divide into new “incarnations,” which divide into further incarnations, so it makes sense to me to assume that the metaphysical mirrors the physical, and that the same dynamic happens on a spiritual level.

This model resonates with me for many reasons. In fact, it explains all sorts of phenomena. For example:

  • It’s in harmony with the notion that “God” is both our Source and is everywhere and in everything.
  •  It explains the universal spiritual teaching that we are all ultimately One: all from one Source and all connected on some level. Just as the cells in our bodies have all grown from the same fertilized egg, our souls have all grown from the same Divine spirit.
  •  It explains how more than one person could remember living the same past life, that incarnation having occurred before that spirit divided into more spirits. It also illuminates the dynamic behind the notion of spiritual families, the members of which would be more directly or recently descended from the same ancestor spirits.
  •  It explains the keen sense of connection and recognition we feel with some people, these being those we were more recently at one with.
  •  It explains how reincarnation could be true despite the fact that the population of the planet is increasing, for there are ever more souls to incarnate than there used to be.
  •  It jibes with our awareness that on a spiritual level, we are immortal, for we are forever expanding into new experiences, world without end. It is our nature to go forth and multiply. It also mirrors our awareness that the Universe is ever expanding.

If your mind can handle a bit more stretching, try this on for size: perhaps to each cell in our bodies, the whole of who we are is “God,” and similarly, what we consider to be God is a living entity of which we are a tiny aspect. The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm.

I don’t know that this is how it works, of course – no one can say for sure. It’s just a mental model that may explain some of the strange things we experience in karmic relationships.

– Soul Arcanum


When We Bump Into People We’ve Known in Past Lives

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I had a striking experience in a shop last Saturday. Someone quietly asked my husband and me if we were assistants in the shop. We turned around to answer “No, we’re just waiting for our son,” and when I saw this man, I was just transfixed. I had an overwhelming feeling that I can’t really put into words. He was a Frenchman, and while he was handsome and had a soft voice, that wasn’t the source of this overwhelming feeling. The best way I can explain my feeling is to say it was one of deep love – the kind you might feel for a child or someone very dear and special. While this was happening, I was partly conscious of my reaction and how I must appear to others, but I just couldn’t pull myself out of it, it was so warm and peaceful. He too had an obvious reaction, for he sort of shook himself after a moment like he was coming out of a daydream. Since this experience, I’ve had a feeling like I said goodbye to someone I should have embraced. I have never felt anything like this in my life. Is there an explanation for it?
– Jaki

Dear Jaki:

I love this question, for I have had a similar experience. My children and I attend two karate classes every Monday night, which makes it tough to cook dinner, so on our way home those evenings, I started to take them to a sandwich shop. The first night we went in there was a tall handsome man working the counter. Something electric happened the minute we made eye contact that was strange and special. I could feel that he could feel it too, and because I am shy (and also very happily married), I quickly placed our orders and left the shop.

Every Monday we would return, and over the weeks, I began to relax a little bit more, though I was still quite nervous around him. (I am accustomed to being the only one who can sense such things, and therefore I don’t speak of them. I often know it when I’m meeting a “future friend,” for example. It was very clear that he sensed it too, however, though I wasn’t sure how he was interpreting all that energy).

Over the nine months of Mondays that followed, we would talk bit as he was preparing our orders. He had a strong accent, and when I asked, I learned that he was from Hungary. He told me his name was “Gabor – like Ava Gabor.” As I make a habit of using people’s names often, I kept repeating “Gabor” to myself all the way home. I kept mixing it up with “Garbo” (as in Greta Garbo), and I was afraid I’d make that mistake in addressing him someday. All that night I was going around in my head, telling myself that there was a very strange connection between us, and then telling myself that I was being ridiculous, that he was just handsome, kind and flattering, etc.

Well, the day after I learned his name, I got a story submission here at Soul Arcanum. The subject of the story was the author’s phenomenal connection with Ava Gabor. (I kid you not!) That was a message from Spirit, telling me to trust my feelings and quit second-guessing myself. After that I would go into the shop planning on speaking to Gabor, but I didn’t know what to say. (“Do you know we’re spiritually connected? Can you feel this energy?”) One day my husband visited the shop with me, and I could feel that HE could feel the energy too. In fact, he went outside to wait for me, he was so uncomfortable. That’s when I knew I should not encourage whatever this connection was.

Not long after that my kids and I visited the shop, and Gabor seemed very sad. He just kept staring at me like he wished he could say something, but in my anxiety about not encouraging him, I hurried out. I learned later that this was his last day there – that he had returned to Hungary, and would not be coming back. I felt this profound sense of sorrow, like I’d found an old friend and been given the chance to reconnect, but I’d blown it.

So, what is my explanation for these strange feelings? Just try for a moment to estimate how many people you have had some kind of relationship with in this lifetime alone. Go way back to childhood, to the children you played with and attended school with, the teachers you spent your days with, the neighbors who were friendly to you, or whom you helped in various ways. Scroll forward through all the years of your life, including not just friends and relatives and lovers, but also coaches, teammates, coworkers, doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, bosses, ministers, mentors, etc. Now let’s say that you’ve had a hundred or so past lives here on Earth, and multiply all those relationships accordingly. Then try to imagine that you’ve also had other “lives” in other dimensions, relationships while in the non-physical, etc. to try to get some concept of how many other souls you have connected with at some point, somewhere, sometime.

I’m trying to illustrate that the odds that we will run into people we’ve known “before” in our current lives is very high. The experiences that you and I had are very similar to what one experiences when they meet a “soul mate” or new best friend. It’s like “love at first sight,” but without the subsequent relationship. So if nothing more comes of them, why do these encounters happen?

Sometimes I think they’re quasi “accidental.” If someone we’ve had a strong tie to in some other time is in the vicinity (and the odds of this happening are very high, remember, given how many people we’ve been in relationship to before), then I believe that natural spiritual law creates sort of a gravitational force that draws us together. The stronger our bond is with someone, the stronger the gravity will be that draws us back together again. (This is how we “find” soul mates again in future incarnations).

This is what I think is happening in the two stories mentioned here. That Frenchman gravitated toward you because it was natural to do so. Perhaps I chose that sandwich shop because I was drawn there by the unconscious gravity of my connection to Gabor. Sometimes these are past life connections, but there is an even deeper resonance when we meet up with someone from our soul family.

When we are between incarnations, we review and assimilate our experiences much as one might in school here, and we do that in groups. The souls in each such family form profound bonds, and share a very distinct vibration. We also continue to work with these soul families while we’re incarnate via dreams and unconscious interactions. We might compare the intimacy of these spiritual relationships to what might develop if we were in “group therapy” with the same people for hundreds of years. These are indescribably powerful connections. When we meet up with those souls, we recognize each other at a very deep level.

So given the sum of our experiences throughout our existence, we are connected to a vast number people. When we “bump into” someone who inexplicably touches our souls, we may pick up the relationship where we left off in some other time and place. When we don’t, however, we are at least reminded of how magical a place the Universe can be, and how we never know when serendipity will place a special soul in our paths.

If I ever have an experience like this one again (and I expect to), I’ve learned that I’d rather seem a little weird than let an old friend slip through my fingers. I won’t let myself be so shy next time. Those strange feelings exist for a reason. They’re our inner homing device telling us that we’re in the presence of a kindred spirit, that something special is taking place – and that should be honored.

So, dear reader, if you’re ever in the throes of an undeniable, unexplainable connection to an apparent stranger, I hope you will be wiser than I was and do something about it!

– Soul Arcanum