Leave your past behind with NLP

Sometimes moving on from the past can be difficult for all of us.

The subconscious mind is very impressionable, particularly as young children and teenagers. It can only take one, seemingly innocuous event to embed a phobia.

Imagine, then, the damage that can be inflicted by more serious events such as bullying, trauma, or problematic relationships with our parents.

Similarly, in adult life, while our conscious minds may have developed a more protective filter, we can still be vulnerable to negative events such difficult relationships – long after they have finished.

So how do you move on from these events? Conventional psychotherapy has its uses in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, or for people suffering from mental illness.

But for those simply seeking to 'move on', conventional psychotherapy can lock the individual into a seemingly endless cycle of going through past events over and over again in a bid to achieve emotional release.

Sadly all it often does is ingrain those events still further in your memory and leave you even more 'stuck'.

Then, every time you meet a similar situation, you are pulled back by that negative anchor, and relive those events all over again – impacting your current situation or relationship.

This is where NLP, or neuro-linguistic programming, has a vital role to play. Using audio-visual and sensory cues, an NLP practitioner can effectively 're-write' your memories, allowing you to move forward in life without the burden of those negative past events.

Let me explain what I mean – and don't mean – by 'rewrite'! Firstly, I don't mean erasing those memories. That would be completely unethical.

What we can do, however, is remove the emotional impact of those memories, and prevent them from having any further effect on your life.

Because that's what you want, isn't it – to be able to move on and leave the past behind? You don't need, or want, to go over it endlessly.

Sometimes the root cause is obvious, and can be treated quickly using the Fast Phobia Cure or the NLP Trauma Process.

These rapid treatments are incredibly effective in clearing up phobias and traumatic events – including things such as messy relationship break-ups.

At other times, a more in-depth approach is required, and this is where regression therapy has its part to play.

Using Timeline, I will ask your subconscious mind to take you back to the point in life where your challenge first manifested itself, and deal with this, and any other incidents you feel to be important.

Seeing traumatic events in your early life from your current perspective can be very liberating in itself. Combined with the Trauma Process, the impact on your subconscious mind is effectively cauterised, clearing those negative anchors and allowing you to move on without the ghosts of the past continuing to haunt you.

It is a truly liberating experience, and I have many happy clients who, after just four or five sessions, have been able to make a fresh start and move on in their lives with confidence and conviction.

So just what is
past-life regression?

Talk of 'past lives' often produces an understandably sceptical reaction from people.

It's something that traditional practitioners such as myself are wary of discussing lest we be branded as 'new age'. Hypnosis is, after all, a scientifically proven process – and is sometimes used by leading psychiatrists and psychotherapists.

In fact, it was one such eminent US physician, Dr Brian Weiss, who in 1980 stumbled across the phenomenon while treating a young woman called Catherine.

When 18 months of traditional psychotherapy had failed to help her, he turned to hypnosis.

He asked her to "Go back to the time from which the symptoms arise", and was astonished when she went back to a life as a peasant girl in 1800 BC – a life that she was able to describe in vivid detail, including her death in a tidal wave that destroyed her village.

Dr Weiss went on to conduct several regressions with Catherine, revealing numerous past lives.

She had experienced traumas that seemed to have a direct link to her issues in this life, and after the process she seemed completely cured.

His book, Many Lives, Many Masters, became a world-wide publishing sensation, and so the therapy of past-life regression was born.

Since that time, Dr Weiss has regressed more than 4,000 clients, and is convinced there is often a causal effect between trauma, both physical and emotional, suffered in one life, and issues affecting a current life.

Of course, this wouldn't come as a surprise to the hundreds of millions of Buddhists and Hindus around the world who believe in reincarnation.

But what if you are a Christian – or an atheist? Firstly, a number of early Christian sects, such as the Cathars in southern France, believed in reincarnation, Many of the Gnostics did, too.

I have conducted numerous regression sessions at the request of clients, and there is no doubt in my mind that the phenomenon exists.

One alternative explanation is that the apparent past-life experience is a construct of the sub-conscious mind, using symbolism from information we are exposed to in our daily lives in films and TV, to create a parable for our problems.

I will leave you to make up your own mind, but either way, there is plenty of evidence that past-life regression can help people to recover from debilitating issues.

Many people also choose to explore past-life regression out of curiosity, to see where they have been and what they have done, perhaps as part of a spiritual quest. And contrary to popular myth, they don't all claim to have been Cleopatra or Julius Caesar!

So if it's something you would like to explore, I am happy to help you on this journey – and I can record the experience for you so that you have a permanent record.