by Sylvia Browne

There are many phobias, everyday fears, and incessant worries that don’t relate to this lifetime. Many times I’ve worked with people who were baffled by anxieties that seems to have no basis �?in other words, they couldn’t be tracked through therapy or by their own investigation into their past. In these types of situations, we’ve had to go back even further and do what I call a “deep search�?into a person’s overall chart, because the cause of the uneasiness resides somewhere in the cells of his or her mind and body.

Uncovering Past-Life Traumas

I once had a client who drove under the same overpass every day for 20 years on her way to work. One day as she was approaching it, she broke out in a sweat and felt as if she couldn’t breathe �?she was sure she was having a heart attack. She turned around and headed for the emergency room, where she was told she was “just having an anxiety attack.�?(Those words, “just…an anxiety attack,�?just make me crazy. If you’ve ever had one �?and very few people haven’t had a form of this at one time or another �?then you know that it can be the most frightening and debilitating experience you’ll ever go through. Usually it comes out of the blue, unbidden and without warning. You can’t “cause�?one, it just happens, But back to my client�?

When this woman came to see me, I directed her via meditation to return to another time. When she did, she remembered being trapped under an old bridge in Pennsylvania back in the early 1800s. She was buried under heavy beams and rubble, and she died there. The amazing thing was that in her previous life, she passed away at the same age she’d now reached in this life �?which explained why the phobia hit when it did. After we did the guided meditation, she lost her fear and could go under the overpass again.

Life is like a record with different grooves, and sometimes the needle slips. What we have to do to keep the soul safe from a negative fear that’s no longer relevant is release it. This is called “pulling the plug�?on a negative past-life implant. When my own children had night terrors, I did the same thing I instructed the woman with the three-year-old to do: I just went in and told them that they were in this time, and what they were afraid of was in the past, long ago. When you do this, it isn’t necessary to go through gruesome details. The soul mind knows exactly what you’re talking about, and it will surrender the offending fear that blocks it from being free.


Resolving the Past, Healing the Present

You can and should explore your memories �?both from this life and any past lives �?and be investigative to see what you learn from them. But analyzing isn’t enough �?you also have to neutralize any challenge by asking for release. By doing so, you may even discover how you can turn negative events into opportunities for positive growth. (Let me also say here that I’m the first one to recommend that you seek therapy if needed.)

Let’s say that you’re dealing with physical or mental abuse. In fact, I’ll use my own life as an example. It’s no secret that my mother was a master at insidious emotional battery. I had a choice: I could have adopted her behavior, but instead I went 180 degrees so I’d be different from her. I often thank her �?and I even did so when she was alive �?because without this negative example, I might have not been the caring mother I am today. I never told my mother why I was thankful for her, because it was enough that God and I knew.

The hurts we carry in life can’t be covered up with Band-Aids. Like physical wounds, these sore spots can only heal when the air hits them. Yet while it’s important to acknowledge and let out the pain so that it doesn’t fester, it’s equally imperative that we adjust our behavior to release the past and move on.

Don’t get me wrong �?there isn’t anything easy about mulling over the painful parts of your life, but you do have to ask yourself: “Do I want to be enslaved by my memories, or do I want to simply see them as episodes that, painful as they are, have helped me gain strength and become who I am today?�?If you do the latter, you’ll be able to gaze into the mirror and know that you’ve survived the good and the bad, and you’ll be freer and ever stronger for it.