How Past-Life Regressions & Breathwork Changed My Life
Warning: themes of depression and suicide are mentioned below.
I have struggled with severe depression for most of my life. It began at 11 years old when my best friend died suddenly, and continued throughout my teenage years and young adulthood.
Depression always came in waves. There would be periods of my life where I felt I didn't fit in, where I wasn't good at anything, or that I didn't have a strong reason to live or be excited about life. I would see people around me finding passion or excitement in their hobbies, sports, or finding fulfillment in their relationships or career, and I couldn't relate. I would hear people talk about how they loved their life, or felt so invigorated to try new things and had hope for their future, and I would look at them like they were aliens from another planet. What is this experience that they're having? Why don't I feel this way? Why do I feel the opposite of this all the time?? What's wrong with me?
In my 20s and early 30s, I often struggled with finding my place in the world. I moved from place to place and job to job, never really finding my "thing".
Depression for me felt like a huge black cloud that rolled in and surrounded me, suffocating my energy. Feelings of hopelessness were incredibly pervasive. I would try to imagine things that might make me happy, or that life could and would change for the better, but my imagination would always fail me. I could only see darkness.
In 2016, I moved to Dallas, Texas with my first husband. I didn't know anyone there, I didn't have a job lined up, and shortly after arriving, my marriage quickly unraveled. Thousands of miles away from friends and family, in a new place where I knew no one and had nothing to keep me going, I rapidly spiraled into the darkest moment of my life. I started to really fantasize about the ways I could end my life, and the thought of dying brought immense feelings of peace and relief. I knew when I got to this point that I was in deep trouble. I knew that I had to reach out and tell someone I wanted to die, otherwise I was going to do it, and fast. I called a loved one, and fortunately made it through the night with their help and the support of a suicide hotline.
I got on antidepressants, and started to feel better...for a little while. A year and a half later, in 2018 I left my marriage and moved to St. Pete for a fresh start. Yet again, I was starting all over from scratch, didn't know anyone, and didn't have any meaningful work that I loved to keep me going. Without purpose or connections, I spiraled again. Exhausted and frustrated by this repeating pattern, I sought answers.
Two Powerful Past-Life Regressions
"Woman and her child", circa 1930. House of Photography of Marrakech.
I decided to do a past-life regression. I had already experienced a couple regressions, one with Dr. Brian Weiss at a group event in Miami, and found them interesting but wasn't wholly convinced they were real or even helpful in providing meaningful change or insights, but I wanted to try again.
This time, during my hypnotherapy regression, I traveled to a life in Morocco. The time was around the 1930s or 40s. My partner and I ran a spice stall at the busy local street market, and we had a young infant child. We lived in a small run-down apartment, and we were blissfully happy. We were soulmates, and we loved each other deeply. Not long after our son was born, my husband received the summons to serve in the military abroad. He was gone for months, and I struggled with navigating life and motherhood alone with a small child. One day, I received a knock on the door, and opened it to find two soldiers in traditional Moroccan uniform, who informed me that my husband had been killed. The level of shock and grief I felt at losing my partner and soulmate is impossible to describe. (Even though I was experiencing this in hypnosis, I felt the pain, and started sobbing). In this past memory, days and weeks of painful grief went by, and I lost all will to live. I couldn't live alone without my partner. Moroccan culture and customs at that time were very harsh for unmarried women with children. I looked into the future in my mind for any hope that I could provide a good life for my son, and could see nothing but pain, suffering, and darkness. One day I went to the riverbank with my child who was barely a year old. I held him in my arms as I stepped into the river, and let the river current submerge us and carry us away. (This will come up again later.)
A Grandassa model photographed during a Marcus Garvey Day celebration in Harlem, around 1968. Shot By Kwame Brathwaite. Image via Medium.com
Shortly after retrieving this life, I did another past-life regression. This time it was the 60s, and I was a young black girl living somewhere in the poor suburbs of New York or New Jersey. My father in this life was violently abusive both physically and sexually. My mother did nothing to stop him, being a victim of his violence herself. In this life, I grew up fearing and hating men. As a young woman, I found my comfort and romantic fulfillment through other women, and met my first real love in my 20s. She was beautiful, with freckles and strawberry blonde hair. We were happy together, yet life was incredibly difficult. Being black, a woman, and a lesbian made it difficult to feel safe in the world due to all the hatred and prejudice. One day, we found a group of people that preached love, tolerance, and acceptance. My girlfriend and I went to more and more of their meetings. They were a diverse group of people, from different races, backgrounds, and sexual orientations, and for the first time in my life I felt seen, and safe. Their leader was charismatic, and it felt inspiring to be a part of this peace and love revolution they were spreading. I knew I had found my home. Which is why, one day at a group meeting, when they passed around small cups of mysterious liquid and talked about joining together in peace and love and going to a better place together, I did not hesitate to want to join them. The world outside of this group was scary and hateful. Being with this group of loving beings was the only place I wanted to be. My girlfriend and I, and everyone else in the room, drank the liquid together. Lying down, holding hands with my love and gazing into her green eyes, we died together in what would be a mass cult suicide.
Processing these two past-life regressions, everything clicked into place and made sense. I had ended my life in my two most recent lifetimes. This was the reason I had this black cloud of depression following me throughout this life. Those past choices were still resonating in my spirit's energy field. When faced with intense grief, pain, or adversity, I chose to leave, to quit, to give up on hope. I knew then, at that moment, what this life was about. A big part of my purpose in this life is to overcome those thoughts of darkness and feelings of hopelessness, and to choose to live, no matter the obstacles. My task is not only to choose to live, but to thrive, to see the gifts and opportunities of life, and to not fixate on the suffering. I could also see how the death of my best friend in this life, who I loved very much, was a karmic recreation of the pattern of death and loss from previous lives. It set the foundation for the continued challenge to navigate and overcome grief and loss in this life.
Most importantly, these past-life regressions helped me to understand that I can't run from my lessons. There is no easy out. Whatever lessons I was working on in the past carried over into the this life. I realized that I can't quit, because if I do, I'll have to start all over again in a new life, beginning from infancy, and growing up with similar challenges until I learn and choose differently. Since recovering these lifetimes over 6 years ago, I have not had another instance of deep depression, and not a single instance of suicidal ideation. Any time I start to feel down or hopeless, I remember that my task is to overcome it, to seek out reasons for hope, to see obstacles and challenges as opportunities for my soul to grow. By recovering these lifetimes, I was able to clear the blackness in my energy field, and reframe my perspective on life and why I am here. These regressions literally saved my life, and they have been profoundly healing.
Although, it turns out there was still one last lesson I needed to learn and clear from my Moroccan lifetime in order to finally release it. Continued below...
The Power of The Breath - Breathwork for Breakthroughs
My trip to Taos, New Mexico, October 2020, where I first met my now fiancé, Forest.
Even though I greatly relieved my depression in 2018 due to my past-life regression therapy, I still struggled with self-sabotaging patterns. Whenever I would start to grow, or have opportunties to be deeply seen by others, or to create something really meaningful, I would find a way to sabotage it. I couldn't figure out why, and it felt like there was a big block somehow preventing me from expanding. So this year I decided to do a hypnotherapeutic breathwork session with my hypnosis teacher to get to the root of this block. This type of breathwork, which I am now certified to facilitate, involves 30 to 60 minutes of deep, rhythmic breathing for 10-minute cycles at a time. The breath moves a lot of energy, and can take you to the root of your issue in an extremely powerful and effective way, leading to emotional release, breakthroughs, and transformation.
With my teacher facilitating, I began breathing to the root of this block, this self-sabotage that I couldn't figure out. The first cycle felt really uncomfortable, my body felt restless. During my second breathwork cycle, a memory bubbled to the surface of a time in my early 20s when my father and I were on a cruise and we were taking a scuba diving certification course in the ship's large pool. On the very first day of entering the water with the tanks on, we were encouraged to sit at the bottom of the pool and get used to breathing in and out with the tank. We were at the bottom for less than 10 minutes before my father and I both panicked, exited the pool, and decided scuba diving wasn't for us.
After another 10 minutes, I started breathing into my third cycle. This is when the breakthrough happened. I started sobbing. My breath had taken me to the afterlife, to the moment I met my spirit guide after ending my life in the river in Morocco. I was crying, and my guide was trying to console me. Now that I remembered who I was as a divine being, I was furious and disappointed with myself that I made the choice to end my life and the life of my young child. I swore that I would never create again. Never have another child, never take risks, never put myself out there. I wanted to punish myself for what I had done, and protect other people from my own darkness. Turns out that in this moment, those strong words created a soul contract with myself that resulted in the "block" I've been experiencing in this life. Words are incredibly powerful, and we create our reality with them---now and in the future---until we change them and choose differently. Through the breathwork and subsequent hypnotherapy, I worked with my spirit guide to heal and forgive this event, to see it as a step in my learning as a soul. I was reassured that my young child was perfectly fine, and was in fact my father in this life. This explained the memory of my father and I panicking underwater in the cruise ship's pool. We were reliving the trauma of drowning together in the river.
This breathwork session released the block---the soul contract I had made with myself---and healed the trauma from the ending of that life. I was able to forgive myself, and reframe my lifetimes and my choices once again as opportunities to grow, remembering that ultimately, even though we may struggle with the choices we make in life, we are all okay. We will be okay because we are eternal beings, and no true harm can ever come to us. Furthermore, I felt comforted to know that loving, compassionate, and nonjudgmental guidance---through our Creator, spirit guides, and departed loved ones---is always available to us.
This breathwork session, which was the first I ever experienced and was part of my training as a hypnotherapist, absolutely blew me away. The breath is so powerful. Breathwork is by far my favorite modality, and it is such a sacred experience for me that I am now able, as a breathwork facilitator, to witness and hold space for the breath of another human being, and guide them towards breakthroughs and revelations.
This is why I believe wholeheartedly in the work that I do. I have seen how hypnotherapy has changed my life, and has helped release decades-old patterns that I've struggled with. My hope in sharing my story is that you know that hope is available to you. You can heal, grow, and improve your life for the better.
If you are ready to transform your life, and have questions about hypnotherapy or how I can help you with your goals or challenges, book a free consultation call with me and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
