LIFE IN THE WOMB

LIFE CYCLES

        

       IN A DECADE OF WORK WITH PAST LIVES THERAPY, I HAVE been able to form few generalizations.  Each patient is unique, each problem individual.  Every life has its crucial events, the isolated moments when controlling patterns are introduced.  One general rule holds true:  The bulk of therapy is concentrated in three special phases of the life cycle – the prenatal period, birth, and death.  The great majority of past-life incidents I encounter are set in one of these three areas.  In this section I have devoted a chapter to each experience.  Each invites a particular kind of trauma, each has a particular significance in the complete life cycle. 

        

       The concluding chapter deals with an area I have chosen to set apart from my other casework, the space between lives.  This “void,” where the unconscious mind waits to choose a new body, can be seen as the end of the life cycle or as the beginning.  It has a powerful lure to many people.  Sadly, I have found it less useful in therapy than I might have hoped.  I will explore the reasons for its limited value, and a case where its exploration  has been productive, in the final chapter of “Life Cycles.” 

                    

  LIFE IN THE WOMB

        IF REINCARNATION TAKES PLACE, EACH LIFE IS NO MORE THAN a single cycle in an endless pattern.  Our lives are like a series of journeys, and each journey begins in the womb.  Any mother who has ever been awakened by a kicking fetus can confirm that there is physical life before birth.  In Past Lives Therapy we discover that the fetus is capable of unconscious perception as well – an awareness of everything that is happening around it. 

        This life inside the womb is shrouded in mystery, as if a veil had been drawn over our prenatal awareness at birth.  Inside the uterus there is no conscious mind present, and the entrance of the conscious mind, at birth, seems to close off access to the unconscious.  In Past Lives Therapy we reach back to this crucial nine months, and there we find the roots of every patient’s behavior. 

       Among the many things that make this prenatal period unique to the life cycle, perhaps the foremost is this:  It is the only prolonged time when the unconscious mind functions alone, unaided by consciousness.  Earlier I compared the unconsciousness to a tape recorder, indiscriminately recording everything, and storing the information without interpreting it.  In effect, the fetus records all of the mother’s thoughts, everything said to the mother, by her, and in her presence, as if it applied to him. 

        The unborn child, awaiting the beginning of conscious life, is profoundly affected by this prenatal awareness.  With no conscious mind to discern or interpret, the unconscious plays back any past-life incidents triggered by events in the mother’s life.  These incidents shape the behavior patterns of the child.  

       At birth the infant will begin a life of trying to resolve those past-life events without ever knowing what they are. 

       Because the life patterns are determined in the womb, it is essential for a patient to cover the events of his conception and fetal development in detail.  

       Any past life he encounters  must be related to an incident in his prenatal period of this present life.  We cannot detach a patient from the past life without also detaching him from the fetal incident that “triggered” his unconscious memory of it.  Because of this, almost every therapy session includes work in the prenatal. 

        There are four separate, distinct phases of the prenatal period:  the moment of conception, the period of time when the mother begins to suspect she is pregnant, the moment of confirmation, and the remaining time before birth.  Each phase is subject to its own particular type of trauma and stress.  A patient will rarely deal with them in that order, however.  Generally speaking, I will allow a patient to go through the sequence of past-life incidents that seem to be linked by a similar trauma, and then ask him to move into the prenatal and find the event or phrase that triggered those past-life memories.  I am never sure where the patient will lead me, but usually, by the time therapy is complete, we will have encountered trauma in all four phases of fetal development. 

       From time to time I find myself involved with a patient who is extremely reluctant to move into the prenatal period.  This reticence usually indicates that something out of the ordinary lurks there.  When this occurs it is doubly important that we uncover what seeks to remain well hidden. 

       For Janice Hallister there was an immediate block.  She came to me complaining of a variety of problems – headaches, spastic colon, insomnia – but all of her difficulties seemed to culminate in violent temper tantrums.  These periods of irrational anger seemed to imply more than simple dissatisfaction with her life; they were followed by the feeling of a complete void closing in on Janice.  Sometimes she stayed in bed with the shades drawn for as long as two days following a tantrum. 

       The tantrums were brought on by different events, and Janice admitted that at times she lashed out at garage mechanics, salespersons, and other people of no importance to her.  But her outbursts were most frequently directed at the men in her life.  As a result, she could not maintain a relationship for any length of time.  She found her boyfriends either too dependent on her or too demanding that she be dependent on them.  These situations invariably led to open hostility for Janice; one after another, her romantic attachments exploded. 

       Several things Janice said in her initial interview indicated heavy identification with her mother in the prenatal period.  She described her involvement in psychoanalysis as “a long, hard road.”  She also told me that after her mother’s death she had elected to travel the three thousand miles home by bus, even though she could easily have afforded the plane fare.  Again she had chosen the long, arduous path.  I felt that the nine months in the womb were probably the first long, hard road in this life, and when she flatly refused to explore this area of her life, I knew I was right. 

       We found several past lives in which Janice was a twin; in one she was a Siamese twin, battling for dominant position in the womb.  In each of these past lives there was an identity struggle, but no sign of tantrums.  Janice replayed these struggles in her current relationships with men, but since she would not explore the prenatal, it was impossible to fully erase the past-life memory.  Our first attempts to reach the prenatal covered her conception, but she was unwilling to move forward.  She had described a death in battle.  We had identified World War II as the time period, and I knew that the conception following this death would be conception into the present life.           

       JANICE HALLISTER:  I hear screaming, and the sounds of artillery.  Explosions, people yelling.  I’m not there anymore, though, I’m moving someplace, someplace where I hear similar sounds. 

       DR. NETHERTON: What are you aware of as you move into that?  What do you hear that’s familiar? 

       JANICE: It’s all black, wet.....my parents’ voices.  But I don’t want to tell you anything.  I won’t go in there.  Don’t push me. There’s nothing here to talk about.  Don’t make me go in the uterus. 

        From this I knew only that Janice was conceived in circumstances somehow related to battle.  We tried several other ways of entering the uterus, but could not get by her block.  Each time we approached, I was greeted with the same phrases, quoted above.  I realized that these phrases must themselves be part of the prenatal trauma.  I decided to look for the phrases in infancy or early childhood, hoping to back-track into the prenatal period. 

       DR. NETHERTON:  All right.  Go to a time in this life, somewhere in your childhood, and see if you can find the phrase, “I don’t want to go in there, don’t make me” or “Don’t push me, I won’t      go in there.”  Where are you? 

       JANICE: I’m two years old.  My parents are talking.  My mother’s saying, “Goddamnit, go without me.  I’ll keep the baby, and you go!”  But my father’s taunting her.  “I want you to go, too, it’s more fun that way.  It’s only a fun house.”  She says, “Don’t give me that, the last time I went I had a horrible time.  I won’t go in that place.  Fun house!  It’s a horrible, scary place.  I’m warning you, don’t push me.” 

       DR. NETHERTON: Now, what comes to mind when you think of those same phrases in the prenatal?  Inside mother, when she’s saying, “I won’t go in there, don’t push me.” 

       JANICE: There’s lots of noise.  She’s shaking, looking in the opening of a fun house, and that’s just what she’s saying – “Don’t push me.”  She’s thinking about it.  I can feel the walls around me tensing.  She’s screaming.  Father’s saying, “You love it, you know you love it!”  She’s hit him.  She’s really scared, that’s all I know. 

       Once we’d broken the barrier into the prenatal, Janice had no difficulty returning there.  The phrase “I won’t go in there” acted as a shut-off command.  

       It effectively blocked access to the womb.  This is a prime example of the tape recorder quality I have described. 

       Janice’s past lives paled in comparison to the trauma of the prenatal period.  We went back to the World War II battlefield (where Janice had been male) and again covered her conception. 

       It’s all black and wet.  I’m not inside yet.  I don’t know where I am.  They’re making love, but they’re fighting.....he’s cursing at her:  “Lie still, you filthy slut.”  It’s like language you never hear, like language out of a book.  She’s shouting at him, “Take that thing out of me, you bastard, get away from me.”  I don’t understand this.  She’s biting him, and.....Oh, my God, I’m here.  

       I’m inside.  In the womb.  It’s quivering.  She’s shouting, “I can’t help it, I can’t help it.  Goddamn you, I hate you.  I hate you, I hate you!” 

       Everything’s gone back.  I can’t.....I seem to be lost.  Completely lost.  She’s not there anymore.  I feel like we died.  I can hear my father saying, “Come back, come back here with me.  Are you all right?  Are you crazy or something?”  Now we’re coming back.  I can feel her moving.  She’s in the john, on the toilet.  

       Thinking..... “I wish I could get it all out.  Flush it all away.  I don’t know what happens to me.”  There’s this terrible feeling of shame with her.  She’s mortified that she responds to sex this way.  I guess.....I guess that’s how it was. 

       Janice had left one battle situation and was born into another.  (The evidence for this kind of movement from life to life is further explored in Chapter 16, “The Space Between Lives.”  For the purposes of examining the prenatal period, it is sufficient to report that this is what Janice recalled.)  Her parents, it developed, lived in a sadomasochistic relationship, in which they constantly punished each other.  Time and time again we encountered these “make-believe” fights, which climaxed in sexual intercourse.  Janice’s mother        was obviously powerless to control her instincts in this direction, but the aftermath of such sessions left her with a feeling of low self-esteem and loneliness.  As for the “blackout period” immediately following orgasm, that was not explained until a later incident – the moment when the pregnancy was confirmed.       

       In a doctor’s office – the walls are rigid.  I know something’s wrong.  The doctor’s yelling at my mother.  There’s been a lot of yelling.  He’s saying, “There’s nothing you can do about it,” and she’s screaming at him, “Don’t tell me that!  I don’t want to hear it!  I don’t need that from you!”  She’s out of control.  Just like me.  This is how I get.  He’s just as angry, though.  He says, 

       “Look.  You’re going to have a baby.  There’s nothing you can do about it, so just sit down, shut up, and cool off.  I hear a door slamming.  Now she’s picked up something and she’s throwing it.  There’s a crash.  She’s thrown something against the wall.  

       Now she’s going away again.  I feel it.....that disappearance.  

       Like we’re dying.  I’m terrified, like spinning in circles.  

       Dizzy.....I can hear the doctor’s voice.....He’s saying, “my God, she’s an epileptic into the bargain.”  We’re out.  Blackness. 

       With this session I felt we had reached an explanation of the long “dead” periods Janice felt after her own tantrums – the days in bed with the phone off the hook and the shades drawn.  The rejection voiced by her mother was reinforced by the mother’s “disappearance” as the seizure took effect.  All of this was tied to violent temper.  Each time Janice found herself in a situation where dependence was an issue, where behavior as a couple became an important topic, she went into physical fits.  Despite the fact that she was not an epileptic, her behavior followed epileptic patterns.   

       A final event loomed large in Janice’s prenatal period – an argument between her mother and her grandmother sometime in the seventh month of pregnancy. 

       I can feel Mother’s frustration.  She’s taking it out on me.....I mean, I’m feeling the cramps, the tightness, that terror that comes over me when I know I’ll explode.  I guess it’s  her feelings that I’m experiencing.....I can’t tell.  It seems like she’s playing the child to her own mother here.....I’m sorry.....I’m very confused.  

       I’m a child, and she’s my mother, but she’s a child yelling at her own mother.  She’s saying, “You’ll just have to accept it.  You can talk to the doctor if you don’t believe me.”  Grandma’s shouting at her, “I won’t accept it.  I don’t accept it.  You never tell me anything except what’ll hurt me most.  You’re making this up.  I know it.  I know your ways.....”  and Mother’s shouting, “I do have fits, I do have fits!  God-damn it, listen to me.”  She’s pounding on the table.  Now Grandma’s screaming at the same time.  “Don’t have your temper fits with me.  You little bitch, go scream at that lousy man of yours.” 

       With this sentence we hit squarely on Janice’s problem.  Unconsciously, she was taking her grandmother’s advice to her mother.  We still had a traumatic birth to cover, but I knew that the prenatal period, with its fits, tantrums, violent sex, and finally this infuriated suggestion that venting anger at men, or at a mate, was somehow the proper solution to things, was the crux of Janice’s anger at men, or at a mate, was somehow the proper solution to things, was the crux of Janice’s problem.  This is not to say that Janice’s therapy was without reference to her past lives.  We arrived at almost every prenatal incident from some point in the past.  But invariably the events in the prenatal period had a more direct bearing on Janice’s present life than did her past-life traumas.  

       While this is not common, it illustrates the essential importance of the prenatal period in every case.  It is the longest time period in our lives when the unconscious mind reigns supreme, without a conscious mind to analyze or act as a filter.  In this embryonic space the rules of the game, so to speak, are set up for us.  The issues that will confront us throughout conscious life are introduced, and the “memory” of certain past-life traumas is locked into position.  Then, just as this preamble is fully assembled, it is made inaccessible by the entrance of the conscious mind, at birth. 

Excerpt taken from Past Life Therapy By Dr. Morris Netherton  1978

#pastliferegression, #regressiontherapy. #plrtsalem, #regressiontherapysalem
For your scheduled appointments call 9952106467 or mail to ramhomeo@gmail.com