Hypnosis for past life regression: Should you do it?

Many people are interested in past life regression. Many of us would like to understand if we've lived before, and we'd love to know what our lives were like.

Of course, this is something fascinating. Can you really go back to memories of a previous life? And if you can remember what happened in an earlier life, what do you hope to achieve in doing this?

How does RTT® work?

As an experienced rapid transformational therapist (RTT®), I nearly always use ‘present life’ regression in my therapy sessions. For me, regression to earlier memories is an essential tool that allows my clients to understand the root cause of their issues. Without doing regression, the therapist is simply making assumptions about the root cause of the issue. It may be a well-informed guess, but it is a guess, nevertheless.

When I understand the root cause of clients' issues, it becomes much easier to help them let go of the unhelpful thoughts or beliefs they have. I can then replace these old unhelpful thoughts with the thoughts my clients want and need to make those desired changes.

When I do the regression with clients, they typically return to early childhood events; this is usually when their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours become a programme of thought that influence their adult life. I often get people returning to very early memories of being in the womb.

I have had clients whose mothers had eating disorders, and they go back to being a baby that remembers feeling hungry while in the womb. In my experience, it is common for clients with anxiety to remember being in the womb. Before they were born, they sensed the fear and anxiety of their stressed mother who was transmitting those emotions and hormones to them as a baby.

You can therefore see how these early life memories help clients make sense of what is happening to them now. Real change quickly becomes possible when they get these ‘ah-ha’ moments during regression because everything now makes sense.

So, regression is a potent and helpful tool for a hypnotherapist. In my experience, most people can regress, and the memories they revert to allow them to accept that they can let go of the past.

My client, who remembered being hungry in the womb, now understands that he doesn’t have to get in a rage when anyone touches his food. He is no longer dependent upon his pregnant mother. He can eat what he wants when he wants. He is now very happy to share his chips from his plate with his wife when they go out to eat!

Much of our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about ourselves, including who we are, what we can achieve, and what is available to us, are ingrained in us from our early years. When we are born, we have two innate fears. These are the fear of falling from a height and the fear of sudden loud noises. These are instinctive fears that we are born with and exist for a good reason. They don’t come from a past life. They come from evolution.

The other fears we develop in childhood are based on what we see, hear and experience in the world around us. If we attract bad relationships, we were likely surrounded by bad relationships as a child. If we have anxiety about money, we probably grew up in an environment where there was always worry about money.

So, what does this mean for past-life regression?

I am incredibly open-minded to many possibilities. Hypnotherapy and RTT® are based on solid scientific principles and evidence. Therapy is not magic; it is a technique and process that leverage our understanding of neuroscience.

When I use regression to take people back to early life experiences, these are real experiences, but the mind goes back to it because I asked it to tell us the root cause of what my client is suffering from. These experiences can be very vivid; the client sees they are valid and were real-life events or circumstances. Their conscious mind buys into these proof points. This confirmation of the validity of these subconscious memories then gives your mind the proof that it needs to let go of the past and move on. I am enabling your mind to recognise that you no longer need to be controlled by these early life experiences.

So, can our experiences in a past life dictate what happens in this life? The simple answer is, who knows? Who can really know if we had a past life? So how can our mind take on board as proof the memories that may come up in a past life regression of an earlier life? They might seem vivid and real, but will your mind really believe it after the event? Will it give your mind the proof it really needs to let go? Do you see where I am going?

I am open-minded to the fact that we may have lived before. I am open-minded to the idea that experiences in a previous life could affect how we think about this life. However, it is my professional opinion that most issues people struggle with are a result of our experiences in this life.

While there may potentially be benefits in being regressed to past lives, it is far more helpful to focus on dealing with the issues resulting from what has happened in our childhood and early years. If you have done the work to understand and deal with your issues that have arisen from experiences in this life and still feel your issues are buried further back, by all means, go and try past life regression. However, in my view, this is not where you should start with serious therapy.

If you do choose to try out past life regression, it's essential to do this with a qualified therapist. This should be someone you trust and who understands that past life regression should not be done in isolation from understanding and dealing with the issues that exist from your experiences in this life.

If you want to do past life regression just for fun and time, I'm sure it will be an exciting experience. But it should be done in safe hands, and past life regressions should be avoided for people with serious psychological issues. This is not a good idea for vulnerable people. Past life regression passes into spiritualism, and many people who work in this area advocate for concepts, such as clairvoyance. People practising in these areas will naturally believe in their work and believe in past lives. This potentially risks the client being led by suggestions to believe in events that can never be validated.

Past life regression is certainly a fascinating subject that requires more research. It can be fun and exciting to do. But looking to past lives to explain your problems without dealing with what may have caused your challenges in this life is, in my opinion, a mistake. I would only entertain doing past life regression with people who had first addressed the challenges from this life.

Regression is a fantastic tool and should be used appropriately by an experienced hypnotherapist. Returning to past lives can be exciting; it could be fun, but it may not be something you want to make significant decisions based upon.

My mission is to raise the public perception of hypnotherapy as a powerful and serious therapy. Many of the fears that people have about hypnotherapy have arisen from what they have seen with stage hypnotists and Hollywood movies. Regression is a powerful technique, and it best serves our clients and the reputation of hypnotherapy to be used as a tool for dealing with the root cause of our issues in this life.

If you would like to learn how hypnotic regression can help you to understand the root cause of your issues and allow you to let go of the past, visit my website.

I am a clinical hypnotherapist and an experienced RTT® therapist, specialising in helping people with anxiety, stress and physical issues, such as IBS, pain and skin conditions. I have successfully overcome these conditions in my own life using RTT® hypnotherapy and have helped thousands of clients get the same great results.