Unexpected Benefits

This Sunday I attended the monthly Paranormal Pub, put on by MUFON and McMenamins. Admission is free and I find it’s a great way to spend a Sunday evening. And it’s only a short walk to several great pubs, if you don’t want to go home afterwards. The speaker this month was Susan Pease Banitt clinical social worker and author, talking about past life regression and it’s role in healing trauma. McMenamins serves a variety of adult beverages and I suspect that my partaking may have had a role to play in later events.

I like to show up early, so I can get my drink and get settled into my favorite spot before the crowd shows up. I struck up a conversation with the woman next to me, and then, as luck would have it, some people I’d met a few times before, at other events, showed up and joined us. The person who sat next to me was someone I thought was pretty cool, but that may be because I’m pretty sure this aint our first BBQ. I generally don’t say anything in these cases, it seems best to let sleeping dogs lie unless it comes up for some other reason.

At the end of her talk, Susan offered a group past life regression for anyone who wanted to stay. Of course, we all stayed.

My regression didn’t seem all the remarkable. I saw three scenes, all three were dominated by the big round eyes of a young girl, about six or so. I couldn’t see much else about her except a dress that tagged her as native american. For myself, I saw dirty, knobby, bare feet and extremely ragged pants. I got the impression that I was European, maybe mid thirties, and very dirty, ragged and in really bad shape. My impression is that I was the girl’s father, but I never knew about her, or I abandoned her mother before she was born. I saw nothing about the mother, so perhaps she was dead. It seems that, somehow, I’d found my way back to the tribe in this terrible state. The first scene seemed to take place in the late afternoon on a rainy, overcast day. The light had that particular flavor to it. The girl and I were standing outside. I think there might have been other people around. Nothing else happened.

In the second scene, it was night, and I was sitting with the girl, in front of a big fire, outside, with many other people. In this scene I had the impression of teepees in the background. Again, it was just a snapshot with no action.

In the last scene, I was lying on the ground, in the dirt, it was day again, morning perhaps, and the girl was standing next to me. I was dying. I was inside the camp, for there were a few people and teepees around, but no one was paying any attention to us. I soon raised up floated away, watching the scene grow smaller and smaller below me. The girl was watching me the whole time. The little girl was the person sitting next to me.

Afterwards, I felt...off. And the feeling got worse and worse as time went on. It only took a few minutes before I was fighting to hold it together against fear, shame and indecision. I just wanted to get out of there. Part of me was yelling at me to talk to someone and get some sort of help, but fear of “being a bother” took control and I fled without saying anything to anyone. I drove home, doing all I could to hold it together under an onslaught of fear, guilt and shame. I apologize to everyone there for being so rude as vanish without a word.

After a miserable night, I dragged myself up to see that nasty shadow was still there. I know I had to do something about it, I had an unusually busy day with clients and other appointments, and the last thing I needed was to have this cloud hanging over me, interfering.

Finally, my rational mind kicked in and the obvious dawned on me: I’d picked up a hitchhiker during the regression. That’s a new one on me, I’ve never even heard of even the possibility of that before! Fortunately I had time before my first appointment, so I had a conversation with my new tenant. I can’t remember his name now, but he actually was from that time. He and a girl had tried to run off together, but the men of the tribe had caught them and killed him. Somehow he managed to latch onto me and I pulled him into the present. It only took a few minutes to send him on. It felt do good, after all that turmoil, to be so relaxed and peaceful again. I couldn’t enjoy it long, though, places to go, people to see, and all that.

I can’t be sure of this, but I suspect that having some alcohol in my system made it easier for him to latch on to me. Maybe this was all meant to be, so it would have made no difference but, who knows? Another insight I’ve had about this is that I think that my reaction was so strong because his feelings hooked into and amplified latent feelings of my own. That could be another reason why and how he was able to effect me so strongly, his deep resonance with my emotions, on a subconscious level, that allowed him to slip past my normal defenses.

I’m sure he is gone, but an echo of his feelings still remain. So here’s another aspect of this whole incident: Perhaps his purpose was to help me to bring up and deal with emotions that I’d allowed to slide out of sight, where I could ignore them. This, and other events, are making it pretty clear that I’ll be confronting some uncomfortable issues pretty soon.