Review: Many Lives, Many Masters

Through a few synchronicities, I found myself picking up a copy of Dr. Brian Weiss’ classic Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives. In fact, mine is a Japanese translation – it is worldwide famous classic.

Scientist meets reincarnation

Dr. Brian Weiss was the head of the psychiatry department at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach when, in 1980, he met a patient who would change his life. He is also the graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School. Because of his background, he was only interested in things that can be proven scientifically. Not the type who would subscribe to New Age stuffs, you know.

He used conventional psychiatric therapy on this patient for 18 months and saw no real progress. Then he tried hypnotherapy.

What happened was something he found hard to accept as a doctor and scientist: His patient started recalling her past lives during the hypnotherapy. She also pointed out critical facts about his personal life that she had no way to know. Further, she channeled messages from the “masters” that she could connect in the time between physical incarnations.

I am emphasizing his educational and professional background because I know so many people are skeptical about New Age stuff like reincarnation, thinking it is not scientific. While it is not scientifically proven yet, it has been observed by many sane and well-educated scientists like Dr. Weiss.

Why the New Age is not a New Age at all

Dr. Weiss also addresses the issues many people with Christian or Jewish faith have about reincarnation. He explains the historical manipulation to the Bible by Roman Emperor Constantine. According to him, there were descriptions in the Bible until then that support the idea of reincarnation.

I’m glad I read this part because I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who told me that, as a Catholic, she was taught not to believe in reincarnation. Just like churches use to teach not to believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution. (What, they still do?) Until then, I thought many people are skeptical about reincarnation because it is not proven in modern science – I didn’t know there was religious restrictions.

The so-called New Age is not new at all. It is millennium old. It just has been covered up by certain authorities for a long time. We are now rediscovering what our wise ancestors knew both in the eastern and western worlds. (Reincarnation is a basic idea in Buddhism.)

Masters, angels, spirit guides

This book is not only great introduction to past life regression therapy and the idea of reincarnation, but also contains fascinating messages from the “Masters”. Some people may call them angels or spirit guides. These are truly wise messages for life.

Guided by these Masters, Dr. Weiss comes to the realization that each soul chooses the birth setting (time, place, the parents) and the life lessons for the upcoming lifetime. When it completes the lessons, it can leave. Souls need to incarnate as physical beings because there are certain lessons that can only be learned as physical beings.

The meaning of life from the soul’s perspective

This is deep. We usually think of life from the live already-born person’s perspective. Few of us stop and think why we came to be born. We are born already, and before we notice, we are caught up with what’s called life. Most of the time, we are buried in the superficial aspects of life – what to wear to work today, what’s for dinner, what to do this weekend, whether we have enough money, etc. etc.

Even when we have enough resources to realize the importance of setting goals and improving our life and ourselves, we think from the same current perspective – for example, I want to grow my business to certain level so that I can enjoy some material wealth, I want to travel more to see the world firsthand, I want to enrich my social life more, I want to eat healthy and stay fit, etc. etc.

But have we thought about the deeper meaning of life from the soul’s perspective? Why did your soul choose to incarnate this time? What lessons did your soul want to learn in this lifetime? Why did you choose your specific birth setting? How did your birth setting help you learn the lessons you intended to learn? How are you progressing in your lessons? What lessons are left to be learned in this lifetime?

The issue of life and death

Dr. Weiss says the biggest fear of humans is the fear of death, and this understanding – that souls incarnate many times – can alleviate this fear. Maybe. To me, however, I’m more afraid of failing to learn the lessons I have placed on myself before birth. Does that mean I have to live on and on or come back to go through the lessons again in my next lifetime? Like a failed student? (No way!)

I’m seriously reviewing my life progress from the soul’s perspective. This book was like a wakeup call for me. It’s not like I’ve been living lazily without goals – I consider myself to be conscious and awake. But still I feel the need to review the goals themselves from the soul’s perspective.

What Is Spiritual Healing?

So Yes to Me has a new tagline: Spiritual Healing and Growth for Greater Success. But what is spiritual healing anyway? This post explores the fundamental concepts of spiritual healing and its underlining premise, the soul. (Photo by Bemep)

Definition of spiritual healing

Here is my understanding:

Spiritual healing

1. Healing of physical, mental, and emotional conditions and patterns by the power of spirituality or spirits.
   This includes faith healing and energy healing.
2. Healing of the spirit, or the soul, of the client, which is the basis of the aforementioned healing. The soul is restored to its full potential, resulting in the optimal health of physical, mental, and emotional bodies.

This is an old and at the same time new field. Wikipedia doesn’t yet have “spiritual healing” and redirects searches to faith healing, which I think is only the subgroup of spiritual healing. Just as we can be spiritual but not religious (a growing group of population who do not affiliate with any organized religions but believe in the existence of higher power), healing can be spiritual but not faith-based.

I also like to think of spiritual healing in the bigger scope than the conventional healthcare – by that I mean you realize you have negative physical or mental conditions and try to get rid of them. No, spiritual healing is a lot more than that. People who are “healthy” can benefit from spiritual healing – our potential is a lot more than the passing grade level of “health”.

What is the spirit and the soul?

To understand spiritual healing, we need to think about the spirit and the soul. And this is right where most people get bogged down because most people identify themselves with their body and mind. Many people think they only have body and mind, and whatever that is not the physical body, they throw them into the category of mind. “Oh, it’s all in your mind.” Wrong.

You have soul. More accurately, the soul is the true you. Your soul came from the Divine Source, and on this planet Earth, it takes physical body to incarnate. The mental and emotional bodies (the mind) develop on the physical body. So we can say your body and mind are the manifestation of your soul.

It is only natural, then, that the wellbeing of your soul affects your physical, mental, and emotional health. By bringing your soul to its fullness, your physical and mental health can improve.

The word “spirit” has several meanings. Sometimes it means the soul. It also means entities or beings in the spiritual plane. They don’t have physical bodies, so most people don’t see them, but being invisible is no proof of their non-existence.

Everything we do and experience in life is our souls’ way of healing and growing

Even the negative symptoms we so hate are the soul’s signs to get your attention so that you can make appropriate adjustments to get back to its fullness. Sometimes you heal your soul by doing spiritual work such as meditation. Sometimes you heal your soul by interacting with certain people. And sometimes you heal your soul taking challenges and experiencing new things.

I have experienced spiritual healing myself and also have witnessed some spiritual healing in others. I consider my major healing to be the courage that has led me to start my own business (which I have discussed many times in this Yes to Me blog). This courage continues to grow within me. Another healing was my persistent shoulder pain.

I’m expanding the scope of this Yes to Me blog from entrepreneurship / personal development to the spiritual foundation of entrepreneurship and various other manifestations of success. I keep sharing my stories as a new entrepreneur and spiritual consultant, and I keep the doors wide open. Whether you are consciously doing spiritual work already or you are rather skeptical or afraid about spirituality, or if you just want to do some personal development to be successful, you are welcome.

What do you think about spirituality and spiritual healing? Are you skeptical, or afraid? Let me know by leaving your comments!

Coaching The Freedom Of Self-Employment: Tom Volkar

We continue to interview inspiring and successful entrepreneurs here at Yes to Me, and this time, I didn’t have to look far for the perfect interview guest. Tom Volkar, Career Coach from CoreU Coaching and Delightful Work has been a steady commenter at Yes to Me. Just like myself, he helps new and aspiring entrepreneurs to have the business of their dreams. He recently made a community call, which attracted many bloggers. (Photo by leefotos)

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

I began my career as a soloprenuer in 1998, first as an inspirational speaker and corporate vision consultant. This was soon after closing an earlier entrepreneurial, entertainment business that resulted in me losing everything, including my home. My marriage of 19 years ended then when I refused to go back to a 23-year career in sales.

Once again, on the trail of pursuing work that I loved, a guy came out of the audience, after a talk I’d given and asked if I’d ever done any coaching. I coached his wife on discovering career fulfillment and found it far more satisfying than speaking; thus my coaching business was born.

I started the speaking business because I valued doing what I loved more than anything. Yet if I hadn’t walked down the corridor of speaking, the coaching door may not have serendipitously opened.

CoreU Coaching was initially a life coaching business where I delivered every kind of coaching imaginable, including: corporate executives, relationship coaching and coaching for supervisors in manufacturing plants. But the clients, who always gave me the greatest thrills, were budding entrepreneurs who were preparing to make the leap to self-employment. So In September 07, I began writing my Delightful Work blog, which is dedicated to that community. I coach, write and create courses and programs to support those who want to be their own boss.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

My first entrepreneurial enterprise in 1992 was for a brick and mortar business. The challenges were different than for my coaching business. I successfully raised 2.5 million dollars, so it was necessary to get dozens of lenders, investors and vendors to buy into in my vision, since it was never done before. My biggest challenge in that business was in finding and presenting existing business models that gave these supporters confidence.

In my coaching business the challenges were more internal and consisted of trusting myself and working through the underlying fears that developed around the lack of time and money. In chronological order here were my biggest challenges.

1. Not completely following my core values, allowed me to be lured by projects that looked financially promising but were not authentically aligned with who I was.
2. I fought prevailing wisdom to niche myself for far too long because I thought it would limit the work I’d receive and cause me to earn less.
3. I allowed my fear of learning technology to get in the way of my business growth.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

Values Un-aligned Projects – I worked through this one the hard way, by continuing to say yes to opportunities that looked good but did not turn out well for me. If we beat our heads against the same wall long enough, the pain awakens us. Lesson learned: Not everything works for everyone in the same way. If you have to fight it to work it, the resistance will stop the money from flowing.

Committing to a Niche – After yet another misguided decision in challenge one, I finally said the hell with it and made a sacred vow to commit to marketing myself as an expert only in the area that brings me most alive. That is inspiring and encouraging the leap to the freedom of self-employment. Lesson learned: Committing to one niche does not limit the work we receive. I am still presented with opportunities to coach in other areas. But commitment allows us to approach mastery in the area we care about the most. And mastery leads to greater propsperity in fulfillment and in finances.

Fear of Technology – I worked through this fear using Emotional Freedom Technique and a decision-making technique that I learned in Eckhart Tolle’s, The Power of Now. Essentially I had to release limiting beliefs about my ability to learn technology, while at the same time accepting that the Internet had become an essential component of business building. Lesson Learned: Even though we are more naturally suited to learning some concepts than others. Our resistance is unnaturally created by fear not by original makeup.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

Total autonomy is the best part of being an entrepreneur. I view employment as mental and emotional slavery. Each of us holds the key to remove our own shackles. Having the total freedom to decide what I work on, the projects I create, the self-determination to work when I feel like working and to work in service to who I most want to serve: that is the liberty of entrepreneurship that I hold most dear.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

There are four essential realizations that are required understanding.

1). No one can build your unique business like you can. Your best guess about what that is, is far better than any outside expert’s opinion. Tap the expertise of those who have actually been in the arena, for their encouragement, methods and tools. But look to yourself in matters of decision-making.

2). Quit dreaming and thinking – instead act. Find a way to get into action, even if it’s part time. You cannot see what doors may open (like the doorway to my coaching) until you walk down the corridor. Get out of your own head and into action. You can always adapt on the fly. It may not seem comforting but no one ever figures it all out first. That’s a myth.

3). Carefully choose your sources of support. Advice from others, even from those who love you, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They can’t see things from your perspective. They aren’t aware of your desires and strengths. No one else can intuitively understand what you know about yourself. For support, find a community of budding entrepreneurs who are feeling what you’re feeling.

4). Don’t let the search for the perfect pre-existing career slow you down. You may not find perfect, pre-existing, authentic work created by another. You may need to blend all of your special strengths, peculiarities and values together, to build your own empire.

My Takeaway

I totally agree with the importance of authenticity! I also like his advice on how to choose the supports and advice with care. The moral encouragement from friends and family is nice, but if they are not entrepreneurs themselves, do take it with a grain of salt. That kind of free advice can cost you a lot in terms of your time or missed opportunities. So thank them with grace, and find other entrepreneurs and real pros for advice.

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