Tuesday, June 7, 2016

The Past Life Perspective {+ Giveaway}


It’s a pleasure to welcome author Ann C. Barham to Thoughts today to talk about her just released book, THE PAST LIFE PERSPECTIVE: Discovering Your True Nature Across Multiple Lifetimes.

Ann’s book, published this month by a division of Simon & Schuster, is quite unique. To celebrate the release, I have a print copy to giveaway. Please see the end of the post for more details.

Ann is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified regression therapist (with training in transpersonal psychology, hypnosis, therapeutic imagery, and trauma). She's truly original and so is this book. It blends psychology and spirituality in a way that speaks to the many people today craving alternative therapies that have a foundation in traditional psychology and psychotherapy but that draw upon the possibility of past lives. She is passionate about the way her work in the spiritual realm transcends individual religions and instead focuses on the universality of spiritually, faith, rehabilitation and ultimately happiness.

Here's a synopsis of THE PAST LIFE PERSPECTIVE:

A unique, insightful, and practical look into the enormous power of past life regression therapy to unlock a healing pathway that can help you resolve enduring personal issues, enrich your life, and answer burning spiritual questions about your purpose on this earth.

          In this rare and fascinating intimate glimpse at past life regression therapy, licensed therapist Ann Barham invites us into her office as she helps her clients mine their unconscious memories for the key past life experiences that can provide specific guidance for their current situations. No longer simply the stuff of new age practitioners, past life regression therapy is a powerful tool that can improve your understanding of your personal challenges and deepen your connection with the world around you. Barham demystifies this intriguing phenomenon, sharing her client’s astounding stories, each a clue to the profound influence the personalities of the past have on our thoughts and actions today.
As modern science and technology advance at overwhelming rates, many of us crave the healing insights and feelings of eternal love that survivors of near death experiences frequently report. Through past life therapy, everyday people are able to experience prior lifetimes all the way through their deaths, tapping into abiding spiritual truths and answering essential questions about human existence.

Ann has graciously answered some questions about her writing and book. Please join me in giving Ann a warm welcome. Ann, welcome.

What is past life regression therapy?

Ann:

Past life regression is a therapeutic approach that helps people to recall and work through their unconscious memories from their prior lifetimes. (To regress simply means to go back in time.) Often these past life experiences are impinging on emotional, physical and relationship aspects of our current life without our knowing it. By uncovering, working through, and integrating our past life experiences into our current consciousness, we can often resolve issues and dynamics that are troubling us and that have been resistant to other approaches. 

In addition to helping in problem solving, past life work allows us to access an amazing degree of individualized spiritual guidance that can help us on many levels. We can plug into strengths and life lessons from the past that can be very applicable to our present lives. And by bringing an awareness of past lifetimes into mainstream consciousness, we can help people realize that our outward differences are only an illusion, helping us to heal the divisiveness that challenges our planet.

Why are so many people seeking it out?

Ann:

Despite the amazing advances of modern science and technology, there is a growing hunger to know the mystery of life, the divine energies, the deeper purpose of our human existence.  Increasingly, people are calling themselves “spiritual, but not religious,” part of an emerging consciousness based on personal experiences of a spiritual nature rather than religious doctrine. The popularity of books describing near-death experiences (NDEs), such as Anita Moorjani’s Dying to be Me, speaks to this burning desire. 
Past-life therapy is a window into these other realities – in a way that is much less traumatic than going through an actual NDE. In addition, we are able to help people resolve a myriad of issues in rather quick order, as compared to sometimes years of traditional counseling. Given the fast pace and desire for quick results in our modern society, it is an approach that appeals to more and more people.

The types of issues that have been addressed with past life work include:

·        difficult relationship dynamics with family, lovers, or co-workers, or intense new attractions

·        enduring emotional challenges like depression, low self-esteem or guilt

·        some physical challenges that have defied the medical community, for example clients have looked into insomnia, infertility, back pain, irritable bowel, and birthmarks

·        unreasonable fears and phobias

·        reconnecting with loved ones who have passed by seeking prior lifetimes together, which can greatly ease grieving and also helps us lose the fear of death


There are many people who seek past life work for help in discovering their life purpose or adjusting career direction. And many others seek to expand their spiritual exploration. The possibilities offered by past life work are seemingly endless.   


What are some of the most life-changing experiences you’ve seen using past life therapy?
         
Ann:

The client stories that really stick out for me are the ones where the regression experience was very dramatic as the story unfolded. One that comes to mind is a young woman who ran into severe writers block when trying to complete college papers. She actually would exhibit signs of a panic attack. She went to a lifetime some centuries back where her prior personality – also a young woman – had her hands cut off for writing a love letter to another woman. It was a very intense session. After we worked through the trauma of that memory, the client found that she could now approach writing her college papers without the panic.

As far as really turning someone’s life around, one client came to me after working in conventional therapy for years on her unexplained feelings of terror and dread. They still persisted, and were really getting in the way of a functional life. We worked through a number of lifetimes where she lived in terror: as a young Jewish girl taken by the Nazis and forced to bury bodies in mass graves in the prison camp; as an English sailor who was captured by pirates and forced into slavery; as a young girl who was strangled to death by an abusive, alcoholic father – to name a few! By clearing these experiences and releasing the fear, abuse, pain and sadness from those lives, this client found immense relief in her current life.



On the lighter side, a male client who was working as an attorney made a significant career adjustment and international relocation after exploring a lifetime as a significant figure in the Italian Renaissance. He received considerable spiritual guidance in session regarding all the strengths he was carrying forward from that lifetime, and he was pointed toward new directions in his current life.

Ann, thanks so much for joining us today and giving us this insight into past life regression therapy. It does make one stop and think.

Author Ann C. Barham
Now here’s a bit of background on Ann, an MA, LMFT, Certified Past Life Therapist.

Although raised in a conventional Catholic home, Ann had always been fascinated with reincarnation and the stories of prior lifetimes that people recalled under regression. However, she really questioned whether she could have such an experience herself. Then, when pursuing her mid-life career change from business management to counseling, she had an unusual experience in graduate school. You can read more about it and Ann HERE.

For more on Ann, you can also visit her website.


This giveaway is for one print copy of THE PAST LIFE PERSPECTIVE: Discovering Your True Nature Across Multiple Lifetimes by Ann C. Barham. The giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. only and will end at 12 a.m. (EST) on Wednesday, June 15.

To enter the giveaway, just click on the Rafflecopter widget below and follow the instructions. The widget may take a few seconds to load so please be patient. A winner will be selected by the Rafflecopter widget and I’ll send an email with the subject line “Thoughts in Progress Giveaway.” The winner will have 72 hours to reply to the email or another winner will be selected. PLEASE be sure to check your spam folder from time to time after the giveaway ends to make sure the notification email doesn’t end up there. If you win and you’ve already won the book somewhere else or you just decided for whatever reason you don’t want to win (which is fine), once again PLEASE let me know.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. What are your thoughts on past life regression therapy? Do you sometimes feel you have lived another life or wonder if you have?

11 comments:

  1. HI Mason - what an interesting author and it's been fascinating to read about the book she's written and the various experiences ... I'm sure past-life perspectives will help people who can feel those pulls ... and I expect we all could if we went that route. I enjoyed the read and Ann's thoughtful ideas ... cheers to you both - Hilary

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  2. What a fascinating subject. And a very new approach to past-life perspectives. Thank you and Ann.

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  3. that is such a well done cover!

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  4. Very interesting. I'd enjoy reading this book of exploration.

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  5. I'm open to all things...and this is fascinating to me. My husband always jokes that when people talk about their past lives, they were always royalty or some famous figure...nobody was ever some nobody! I'm sure that isn't the case in the many situations this author sees, though.

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  6. What an interesting perspective on thinking and on therapy, Mason. Thanks for sharing this.

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  7. I've always been fascinated by this concept too. I'm not sure I'd ever want to try regression therapy though. I worry that I might have done something terrible in a previous life... :D

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  8. This post is captivating and fascinating, Love the subject and the book sounds so interesting. Thanks.

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  9. Such an unusual alternative therapy. It sound like the author has helped a lot of people with this approach. I'd be interested in learning more about it. Thanks

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  10. I find books on past lives fascinating. I was a psychology major, so I'm also a fan of books in that field.

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  11. Thank you for writing this book to inform people about this topic. I am facinated. Heard you on Coast to Coast AM the other night and I stayed awake the whole show!

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I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's post. Thanks for dropping by.