Capítulo 2. La Regresión: un paso adelante.

CAPÍTULO 2. LA REGRESIÓN: UN PASO ADELANTE 

Regression: A Step Forward

 Allow yourself to see what you don’t allow yourself to see. MILTON H. ERICKSON, MASTER HYPNOTHERAPIST

 Regression is a specific form of hypnosis. Sigmund Freud coined the term ‘regression’ when he observed clients spontaneously age-regressing to an infantile state. Since then, many therapists have deliberately used age regression to help their clients heal childhood traumas.

 To ‘regress’ literally means to return to a previous, less developed state.

Therapeutic regression is a complex process. Using hypnosis, the therapist inducts the client into a trance state. The therapist then guides the client back to the source of the stated problem, enabling any repressed, traumatic memories to surface. Usually, these memories include images and impressions of the incident, as well as the emotions connected with the trauma. The therapist helps the client release the associated emotions. By exploring various novel viewpoints, the therapist then helps the client gain a more complete perspective of the traumatic episode. Finally, the therapist encourages the client to integrate this new perspective into his or her life. Integration involves learning lessons from the traumatic incident and acting on this new information.

 Many hypnotherapists who use age regression techniques stumble upon past life regression. Like Brian Weiss and Michael Newton two pioneers in the field of past life regression, I unwittingly regressed a client into a past life.

My client had been compulsively helping other people to the detriment of her own family. She couldn’t say no to her daughter’s school, to friends or any others who needed help. She is a very capable woman, so needy people naturally gravitated to her. I guided her into a trance, and suggested that she go to the source of the problem.

 As she goes back in time, I watch her become agitated and fearful. I expect her to go back to an event in her childhood. To my surprise she describes a setting that correlates with life in a peasant village hundreds of years ago. The villagers have been warned that barbaric tribesmen are marauding in the district and heading towards them. My client is an elder in the village and encourages everyone to conceal themselves. She suggests they hide under straw in lofts in the barn.

Her prescience is to no avail. The barbarians discover their hiding places and kill them all. My client is distraught. She cries deeply for several minutes. She eventually calms down when I suggest that her actions surely made no difference. All of them would have been found and killed, no matter where she hid them.

 Soon after this session, the client reported that her behavior had changed significantly. She was more relaxed and more able to say no to requests for assistance.

As a result of this unusual regression, I found myself drawn into the world of past lives. Like other hypnotherapists who have discovered past life regression this way, I was hooked. The therapeutic results were so fast and effective that I could not ignore them. I read many books about past life therapy and eventually trained in past life regression.

 During my research, I came across the books and work of Dr. Michael Newton. Before he developed life between lives regression, Dr. Newton practised past life therapy. During a past life regression, a client started describing a place that turned out to be her life between lives. Being a clinical psychologist with a respect for scientific research, Dr. Newton began investigating this phenomenon and documenting his cases. Eventually he wrote two groundbreaking books, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls.

   Michael Newton conducted over seven thousand regressions. At one time he had people waiting three years to see him. He eventually founded The Newton Institute and developed the protocols, programs and ethics needed to pass on his knowledge to others. I feel privileged to have been trained by The Newton Institute. As a current member, I’m listed on the Institute’s web-site.

 Michael Newton developed a process that allowed people to be safely guided to their life between lives. This process uses deep hypnotherapy and should only be conducted by qualified hypnotherapists.

 As part of the process, we guide clients to a past life. They experience death in that past life and then move naturally into their life between lives. Discarding the body is the usual entry into the life between lives state, and Michael Newton recommends this route, even when the death is metaphoric. He also recommends conducting a past life regression before the life between lives regression. This gives us two past lives to work with, and is especially important if the client has never been regressed before.

 Whether the client has experienced hypnosis or not, we have found this prior past life regression enriches the experience and instills confidence in the client. Understanding the process pays off during the life between lives regression.

To appreciate the richness and variety of the realms that one can visit in the life between lives, it may help if you visualise a palace. Its many rooms are filled with a variety of different people. When you arrive, you will meet your spiritual guide who has been assigned exclusively to you, and who watches over you at all times.

He or she will lead you through the palace, beginning at the gateway. You might then visit the rest home, where you will be emotionally restored after an exhausting life. You may be taken to the library, where you may access information about the different lives you have led. There are realms where you can review your life, meet with others to plan your next life, or select the body in which you will incarnate.

 You will be given opportunities to meet with soul groups, relatives, friends and loved ones who have passed. You may ask for advice from wise beings such as your spiritual guide or the Council of Elders. The Council of Elders includes a number of wise non-physical beings, usually five to seven. Some clients report that they meet the same wise elders after each life. Others say the Council membership changes. The Council is interested in your spiritual path and makes suggestions to help you meet your goals.

 The real power of past life and life between lives regressions is experiential. Experience is the great teacher. Lessons are learned first-hand, and new understandings and perspectives arise spontaneously. Profound transformations can take place. 

A life between lives regression is much like a near-death experience but without the trauma. Near-death experiences have been well researched. Kenneth Ring, formerly Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and the author of five books on near-death experiences, identified five stages that are commonly reported: peace, body separation, entering darkness, seeing the light and entering the light. Other researchers include a tunnel experience, an intense feeling of unconditional love and acceptance, meeting beings of light, receiving a life review, and receiving knowledge about one’s life and the nature of the universe. These experiences are often present in life between lives regressions.

   Kenneth Ring also observed positive changes in the people who underwent a near-death experience, including an increased regard for life, more compassion for others, a greater sense of purpose and self-understanding, a desire to learn, elevated spirituality, and heightened levels of intuition.

 Most of my clients who have visited their life between lives report sensations and encounters similar to those on Kenneth Ring’s list. Nearly all the benefits of a near-death experience can be gained from life between lives regressions.

One difference is clear: at the end of a life between lives regression, there is no need to decide whether you will stay in the afterlife, or return to your present life. At the end of a life between lives regression, you safely return to your current life.

There is another, more subtle difference between a life between lives regression and a near-death experience. In a regression, there is no sense of complete separation from the body as there is in a near-death experience. However, because you are relaxing in a comfortable chair in a secure room, your focus can turn away from the material world. Even though you are in a trance, you can verbally report your participation in the events that unfold. It is like being immersed in a compelling movie while pausing now and then to report what is happening. Your body and your immediate environment are forgotten. Your focus is absorbed with the journey you are undertaking.

Hypnotic regression is a marvelous tool that creates an opportunity to visit other lives and other realms. When conducted by a skilled therapist, the regression is safe and informative. Here perhaps is the new frontier, navigated not by ships or rockets, but by hypnotic regression.