New Eyes

We heal in circles, through time

This is the first in a series of essays titled “Stories Can Heal Us” inspired by my experiences in and observations about the healing arts. Names have been changed to protect privacy. Parts of this essay are fictional.

It is hard to be blind once you have seen the truth. After waking up from her Past Life Regression session, Meena felt a peace that weighed like a warm, cozy blanket on her chest. She sat still, her eyes open but still able to see the dream like vision of the life that held the key to her present struggles.

Have you ever felt like you are meeting the same person in different bodies? She did. Throughout her life, Meena struggled with highly critical individuals. They were family. They were friends. Some were more than friends. It all started well. But ended in the same way. "You think too much." "Your expectations are unreal." "You don't have to be so honest." "Don't lose yourself." The phrases came as orders and she took them without batting an eyelid. Eventually, these daggers of words reached the soft tissue of her heart and punctured it in a thousand cuts. Meena prayed to end this misery.

She knew something was wrong. "Could I really be what these people were saying?", she wondered. "Was I really so messed up? Who isn't? Not everyone cares about getting better. Then why is it such a crime to be me? And, was that really me? Was I who the world perceived me to be and relayed back to me?"

Memories flashed of moments when she was betrayed. Was she someone that deserved lies, scolding and censure? When did she become such a person? What in her warranted such a response?

As she tried to find answers to these questions, Meena found herself meditating to a voice guiding her into a place that she had to access through her imagination. But it felt more real than reality itself.

Meena saw a baby girl being born. Her skin was flawless like porcelain. But she was blind. From birth itself she had no vision. So she depended on those around her to tell her who she was and what the world was like. She felt the world was kind, looking after her, guiding her, the voice of many becoming her eyes. But those voices often lied to her. They told her what they wanted her to hear and believe. Even about herself. The colour of her hair. Her height. Her skin. Her hands and her feet. Her face. Her belongings. Her home. Her family. And then, her friends and enemies. She believed it all, because she trusted everyone. Not once did she feel that she could be lied to. But she was. Her lover ran away with someone else, taking all her jewelry with him. Her family blamed her for her naivety. She couldn't believe that she had been tricked. The pain stayed with her, well beyond her death. It waited to be felt again so that it could be healed.

The soul returned carrying the pain but the body and the brain had forgotten the story. The people who tricked her also returned, to play their parts again. The stage was set and the gods above watched with bated breath as history began to repeat itself, wondering if there would be a new ending this time.

As Meena saw the blind woman crying in despair, she began to cry too. Her pain at believing others, seeing herself through their eyes, looking to them for validation and sometimes not being able to see their true colors, felt the same across her lifetimes. The blindness of the woman in the vision was literal. Meena's was metaphorical, but just as debilitating.

At this point, the facilitator guided Meena to release this pattern of being blind to the truth. As she allowed herself to ease into the process, she prayed to be able to see, in all clarity, her own self and others.

***

I am often asked if past lives are real. My answer to that question cannot be a simple yes or no. People have experienced visions that seem like they belong to another time. When one goes into this state of seeing through the mind's eye, one not only sees, one feels too. And the feeling is similar to what the person is currently experiencing, sometimes pronounced. It is as if the feeling had been crying for attention through the external world and when finally witnessed, unleashed itself upon the subject. For me, the bigger question is, does access to a supposed past life give us perspective to understand our present life better. To that, I can confidently say, yes.

Was Meena really that blind girl in a past life? I don't know. But the entire experience and the story she saw in that meditative state, gave her a reason, a cause, an explanation for what was unfolding in the present. It was a convincing "why" and it helped her find an answer to her questions.

It is similar to reading a story and identifying with a character in it. We begin to root for this character, hoping for them to win. The only difference between reading a story and seeing a past life is that you are an active participant, with one leg in the past and another in the present. You as the audience, the witness are also the writer who can change the ending and the impact of that change is felt in ripples across time.