here is an account given by an attendee of a group past life regression.

Shared with permission.

Hello Kaya!

Thank you so much for offering past life regressions in group settings. I had a very rich and detailed experience this past Tuesday that I felt I needed to process and fully recall before I could share. If you're interested to know about my experience, I'll recount it below:

My regression took me to a past life in Amsterdam, circa 1529. The first thing I saw was the top floor of a row of stone houses, through a window, over a kitchen sink, where I was washing dishes. I was a woman, not young, not old, feeling perhaps slightly older than I was, although I was well enough fed and strong in my body. I wore a black dress and a white apron, both heavily mended, as those were the only clothes I had. My shoes squished my feet, as so many women's shoes do. I looked around the house and discovered that I was in the kitchen of an aristocratic household, where I worked as a maid. The house had two children, a boy and a girl, whom I liked and who liked me in return, but we were not allowed to play with or even speak to each other. The house was full of toys for the children and beautiful, expensive furnishings: sideboards, dishes, paintings. In the last moment of this scene I leaned against the wood banister in the grand foyer and gazed up the stairs, to the level of the house where the children were sleeping or bathing or playing. I had a distinct wistfulness, or nostalgia, or minor envy--knowing that I got to live in this beautiful house and appreciate its fine details, but neither the house nor any of its contents were mine. 

Cut to the next scene: I am a baby, not more than one year old, being given up for adoption by my birth mother, who is under duress and crying. I have no idea what's happening, except that I know she is crying and I can sense a lot of social chaos just outside of the bubble she and I have formed together. She passes me, also crying, into the hands of a huddle of nuns, who all curl around me and coo gently, like pigeons. They wear black dresses and white hats and gold crosses around their necks. Even in this lifetime, on my yoga mat, I could physically feel the horrible wrenching pain of being separated from my mother. The nuns swaddled me and placed me in a bassinet in a large, empty room, directly in front of a huge arched window, which the sun poured through. It was morning. The sun thoroughly warmed me, I calmed down from my crying, and I could hear, in another room, the sound of hymns being chanted. 

In the next scene, I am about ten or twelve years old. I have been raised by the nuns who received me as a baby, in the church where they live and serve God. I am in the sanctuary with them, chanting hymns, gazing at a life size statue of the Virgin Mary, who has many lit candles at her feet. The sanctuary is lit only by candle light and the warm orange glow of the air and the warm orange glow of the nuns' voices lull me into a deep comfort. I swaddle myself in the folds of their habits as we stand together, singing. It's my communion day, and someone is coming to take me away. Because I have been a good child--obedient, well mannered, pious--I am being sent to live with a good family, of high class and morals. 

Next, I am back in the house of aristocrats, in my maid's quarters. I am older than I was in the first scene, maybe 40. I am kneeling beside my bed, praying to a small painting on my wall of the Virgin Mary. I have a rosary in my right hand. First I am asking the Virgin Mary for something more than this life has offered me, and then I am giving thanks for all that this life has offered me (I am acutely aware as I pray that my fate could have been much worse). 

When I go to the scene of my last day on earth, I am in a cot, in front of a huge arched window, in a large, empty room. The morning sun pours onto me and I can hear, in another room, the sound of hymns being chanted. I have a fever, but no discernible illness like the plague or the Black Death. I don't feel any discomfort. I am just having a lot of visions and am not sure what is vision and what is "reality". I contemplate with some amusement and satisfaction that to die, I have returned to the exact place where I was brought at the beginning of my life. I note that when I was a baby the nuns who cared for me all seemed so old, and now that I am in relative old age, the nuns who care for me, different now, all seem so young. They have all cared for me as part of their service to God. When it comes time for me to take my last breath, my field of vision is encompassed by a sacred Vision of the Virgin Mary, high up, in the place of the arched window. Her aura glows a warm orange, like a lit candle. Her hands are folded at her lap, but one starts moving, gently beckoning me toward her. I exhale for the last time and release my body to the earth while I, light as that yellow balloon at the beginning of our meditation, floated up toward the Virgin Mary, who received me with both hands. I was weightless. It was effortless. I died. All things considered, it was an extremely pleasurable experience. 

When I arrive to the Other Side, I am greeted by a very old Chinese scholar who, despite his baldness, has an extremely long moustache and beard. When I ask him what the lesson of this past life was, he says: "To accept your position. And to recognize that to serve others is to serve God." And when I ask him what wisdom this life could bring to my current incarnation, his answer is the same: "To accept your position. And to recognize that to serve others is to serve God." The significance of this is not lost on me--in my current life I am socially and materially in a better position than I was in this Amsterdam life and I often feel I do not deserve what I have, that it's too much, that I should have less. Yet, I also sometimes struggle to complete the mundane tasks of life that I know are helpful and in service to the people around me because I resent "feeling like a servant." I think it is funny that in this life, I somehow wind up hand washing a lot of dishes. 

When I turn to my ancestors, I can't see anyone clearly. I can only make out a large number of bubbles of warm orange light, some glowing brighter than others. But their voices are clear. They say they are so proud of me. They say they all want me to have what I have now, in this life: the material security and relative ease that I have now are what I need to be the painter that I am and show everyone through my paintings about the nature of God; that my paintings are a service to God and everyone around me. 

At the time when we were guided, from the Other Side, to look at the incarnations we could have taken in this life but didn't, I saw, in passing, only one, which would have taken me into a life of extreme wealth, wealth that would give me an enormous house, many servants, a private education, more of everything than I could possibly need. I would never need to work or do any mundane task, what to speak of washing dishes. This life was maybe in Persia or India, somewhere hot. I decided not to choose this incarnation both because I was not ready for that level of wealth and because I wanted to incarnate into a family for whom I could lead by example: that there is a God (whatever we may like to call it), and that we serve God through our service to others. This incarnation furthermore offers me an opportunity to distinguish being of service as different from being in the social class of servants, as part of the lesson to "accept my position". I transitioned out of the regression with the revelation that our prayers do get answered; if not in our current lives, then in our future ones. 

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Thank you again, Kaya, for facilitating this experience! I look forward to doing more past life work together in the future :) 

Sincerely,

Chelsea