In this post, I’d like to share one of my past life (again, the one before my Ascension soul shift) in which I died at the tender age of four. Perhaps it sheds some light about this sensitive issue about dealing with death, especially death of a young person.  (Photo by sugarmonster)  

Choosing birth setting in the cycle of reincarnation

I don’t remember exactly how I died. The point is I opted out early from that life because it wasn’t what I, as spirit, expected.

What went wrong? Was I abused and couldn’t take it any longer? Was I so ill that I chose to end life earlier than expected? Was I poor and starved, or was there a war?

Nope. On the contrary, I was born to a loving and affluent family. I was their precious only child. They wanted to shower me with all the love and care, and whatever money could buy. I think, by the time I was a four-year-old girl, they were dreaming up of my big wedding.

And that was the problem.

There was hardly any challenge.

We all choose our birth setting prior to life. Often, we dare to choose difficult situation to be born to because we believe it offers better learning opportunities for our life lessons. This is not always the case, however. Spirits honor our free will, so if we insist on being born to a certain setting, they let us do so. They may say something like, “Honey, you may not like that situation. It doesn’t align with your learning process.” but if you insist, they will let you do that. We have the right to learn by trial and error.

So evidently I chose this rich and loving family. I guess I was tired of tough life like the one that ended up with cruel persecution.

. . . and I quickly found out the advice of the counseling spirits was right. Again, this life as the only child of an affluent family was . . . boring. Perhaps the only way I could learn something in that setting was to run off with a guy from a different race and social status. But I didn’t like spending more than ten years growing up just to get to the point of potentially doing something like that. So I opted out. Sorry my mom and dad of that lifetime . . .

Is Lamborghini for everyone?

Let me explain by analogy. Do you want Lamborghini? It’s a nice sports car, isn’t it? Would you like to drive that if it was up to your choice?

Me choosing that rich family to be born to was like me choosing to drive a Lamborghini. The spirits told me I may not like it, but I insisted because it looked nice. And my friend Hunter told me it’s nice. So I wanted to try.

Now in real life at the car dealership, something would happen that would prevent me to actually buy a Lamborghini. Perhaps I’d notice it makes horrible engine noise as I test drive. Plus I’d notice I was getting unwanted attention. (I don’t like getting attention for the car I drive. I want attention to myself). So I’d walk off without buying it. Good grief.

In reincarnation, however, there is no test drive. So I dived into that experience. And quickly realized I messed up. Again, my mistake. No one did anything wrong.

The lesson

Does this mean all the children who die are choosing their own destiny to opt out? No. Does it mean it’s no good to give love and material gifts to children? No.

What I’m getting at with this story is that there may be a hidden meaning. Again, I know losing a loved one is tough. It’s essential we take good care of ourselves in such times. And, when you start feeling better, maybe you can regain the trust that things are working fine.

Here is another story I heard from a friend. Her friend gave birth to a baby who had birth defect. Doctors told her to institutionalize the baby because he wasn’t going to do anything and would die soon anyway. She was determined to take care of the baby herself and to prove them wrong.

The baby did achieve some development and surprised the doctors. Then, one winter morning, she was driving her kids to somewhere, and another car slipped and hit her car. The other car hit right to the side where that baby was seated, and he died instantly. Magically, she and her other (normal) kids didn’t get hurt at all.

After grieving, she realized that the baby caused the accident himself to leave this world. It was time for him to go — he appreciated his mother’s love and care, but he also knew he wasn’t going to be much more than he already was, and wanted to leave so that he could have another fresh start at some point of time later. The mother was sad, but she came to accept this.

I hope this article offer some help and release for those who suffer from the loss of their children and those who are perplexed with the issue of children’s deaths. If you know such person, please email them the link to this article.

We have discussed life purpose on Yes to Me, but the “soul purpose” discussed in this book REMEMBERING YOUR SOUL PURPOSE: A Part of Ascension – SECOND EDITION is a bit different.  Karen Bishop, perhaps the best known authority on Ascension, helps us excavate our special role in Ascension, the Shift of the Ages we are going through.  She maintains we are born on Earth at this time to make a unique contribution to this transition.

Earth is ascending and so are us as individuals

Ascension is a process. More and more people are coming to my Akashic Record Reading service because they read about the Ascension soul shift and recognize they are experiencing the same changes.  As I wrote in that article, the soul shifts are happening partly because each of us have done our spiritual development and reached a certain point of spiritual growth, and partly because of the planetary shift that is affecting all of us.

(Just to be clear – Karen Bishop does not write about soul shifts.  What I have to say about Ascension soul shift is entirely based on my personal experience and my observation at my practice.  She does writes about significant changes a person goes through in Ascension in her another book The Ascension Primer, which I think are symptoms of Ascension soul shifts, but she does not use this term.  And I strongly recommend this book along with REMEMBERING YOUR SOUL PURPOSE: A Part of Ascension.)

Ascension may also be a big fundamental change waiting for us. Perhaps when the individual changes reach the critical mass, something wonderful happens to Earth and to us.  Maybe that is expected to happen in 2012.  I don’t know for sure, but I’m hopeful.

What is your unique contribution to Ascension?

After we complete our learning of our own life lessons, life becomes about being.  Your purpose is to be the authentic YOU and to express your natural spiritual gifts you have.  This is immediately the best service you can ever make to humanity.

Karen Bishop’s book helps you narrow down exactly what this gift is and how it helps Ascension.

The book contains a lot of writing assignments and I did them all.  I didn’t like her application of numerology (I mean, when I can read the Akashic Records into details, why would I need to categorize stuffs into 9 groups?), but I like everything else.

Your geographical home on Earth

One of the assignment I found interesting is about the geographical area we are drawn to. As I often write on this blog, I packed up and moved myself from Nashville, Tennessee to Portland, Oregon one and a half years ago after hearing the message in my meditation.  At that time, I had never visited the Northwest.  And the message was clear – it’s not Seattle, it’s not San Francisco, it’s Portland, Oregon.  And while I love living here, I didn’t know why I had to come here.

Karen Bishop says each geographic area has its unique energy, much like each person has unique energy.  And we are drawn to the area that resonates with our own energy.  This accelerates our own spiritual evolution.

The mild, moist, and rather cool climate here is so nurturing to me.  I just couldn’t handle the heat in Tennessee.  And the cedar trees, so abundant in this area, remind me of integrity and solid growth with their straight vertical growth pointing to the sky.  I love the hills around here that provide perspective, but not with too sharp harsh angles.

Does where you live resonate with who you are?

The New World after Ascension

I love the part where she talks about “Your One Hat”.  She says that, in the New World after Ascension, each one of us will be wearing one hat, doing the one thing that we love to do and do so well naturally.  There will be no obligation to do what is not ours to do – that will be done by someone who loves to do it.  She writes:

“But for this particular time of creating the New World, you came with one gift and talent that was bigger and brighter than the others.  Although you are capable of many things, this time that is now arriving will support you in contributing one very special thing, or in other words, wearing one very special hat.  It is the hat that is left when you find yourself tired of wearing so many.  It is the hat that you continually wear and come back to and the hat that fits the best and gives you the most comfort.   It is the hat that you CANNOT not wear.  It always seems to fall out of the closet and land on your head, time after time.”

That is your soul’s purpose in the New World.

My purpose in Ascension

My role and contribution is to raise the awareness through my writing.  My Akashic Record Reading is helpful, too, but my real ambition is to reach a wider audience through my writing so that I can assist more people.  I want to be published on the issue of Ascension and Akashic Records.

This is how I see the progress of Ascension:  The very first runners have passed.  However, not many people even noticed them.  In a TV broadcast of a marathon, we know who is running first, but in a real life, the very first runners were so far off, hardly anyone noticed.  They probably looked like they were straying.  Let’s call these first wavers Group A, although they are so spread out they don’t look like a group.

Then Group B is coming.  Even though it’s still a small fraction of the whole population, now it’s starting to look like a group, and we are becoming increasingly aware that there is a change going on.  I’m in Group B, hopefully leading Group B.

My role is to pick the pieces of road signs Group A has left and make sense of them so that the rest of us can utilize them.  I let the rest of Group B runners that we are on the right track and we want to keep going.  I write and talk about these road signs and our progress.

My Akashic Record Reading service in Ascension

Sometimes members of Group B comes to me personally for assistance.  Remember, although I call it Group B, it’s still a small group spread out pretty thin here and there.  Members often wonder what the heck is going on around them and to themselves – why are they running, while most others they know seem to be sitting where they are?

This is my Akashic Record Reading service.  While I still do plenty of past life readings, more and more readings these days are about Ascension soul shift.  Clients need to know what happened to them and need help for complete transition.

Who are in Group C?  It’s the broader population that are waking up.  The line between Group B and C is fuzzy and fluid.  When I have the honor to assist a person with my Akashic Record Reading, I consider Group B to be those who have had the Ascension soul shift and Group C to be those who are heading toward it.

Group C are those who are interested in personal and spiritual development, starting to run the marathon, but not quite up to the speed yet.  The leading part of Group C can see Group B and wonder how they can speed up like them.  Then they notice they may be carrying invisible baggage – like from their past lives.  So they seek out my service of Akashic Record Reading to clear the baggage and jump start.

We all win when we join the Ascension movement

Now although I’m using the analogy of marathon runners for visual image, please note this is NOT a race.  The objective is not about being the first, or to be in the first group.  The objective is to run, to join the movement of Ascension, in your own way.  Further, we all win when we reach a critical mass and usher in the New World.

There are a lot of people who haven’t started running yet.  We want to inspire them to join.  Because it’s actually so much fun to run.  And the more people join the running, the better – we increase our momentum as lightworkers.

What are darkworkers doing?  Some are discouraging people from joining the marathon.  Some are hanging around thinking they can jump onto someone’s back.  I don’t know what happens to them.  That is outside my area.

Why it’s critical to raise the awareness

Most of us didn’t recognize the Group A runners as runners when they were passing.  Because we didn’t have the awareness of the marathon going on.  This is why I keep writing about Ascension.  To raise the awareness.  Experiencing something without awareness is like not experiencing.

Raising the awareness is about increasing Light.  When Light increases, we notice the old non-working part of the existing system, both in the outwardly environment and in our own thinking and beliefs. So raising the awareness involves washing away this old part, such as the limiting beliefs and related fear.  Just like real rain, this “let it rain and wash it away” process can be inconvenient and painful at the time.  But just like the rain, it is actually refreshing and nurturing.  It is an aspect of Love.

What comes so natural to you?

Writing is so natural to me.  It doesn’t matter English is my second language.  (Yeah, I keep making singular / plural errors, please correct them.  I can’t let my fear of grammatical errors stop me.  I need to go ahead and say what I have to say before I miss my meal again.)  I’m writing when I have a bit of spare time.  And then I look at the clock and wonder how several hours have passed.  I never run out of material – I just can’t keep up with all the ideas that need to be written.  They just well up in me.

Some say I am channeling when I write.  I don’t know.  This is how I always wrote.  How do I know the difference between my own idea and the channeled idea?  All I know is there are more and more to write.

As Karen Bishop says, we make out best and biggest contribution when we do this one thing that is so natural to us.  I know this is true, and I also know this would feel paradoxical in this effort and action oriented world.  Less effort.  No pushing hard.  Just be yourself – doing feels hardly doing because it’s so natural.  It’s a natural extension of your being.

You have something that is natural to you.  What is it?  Are you letting yourself do it?

My vision

And here is my personal vision – when I complete this mission to raise awareness, to increase the vibration of many individuals and therefore contribute to the increasing vibration of Earth, I will be leaving for a new Universe, my new frontier, as the bird of Light.

Learning the life lessons through experiences in the physical world has been the big part of our souls’ purpose for millenniums of years.  While some souls are graduating from this learning process recently, I know there are many souls who are still working on this level, and I want to help.   (Photo by FreeWine)

How our souls choose to learn our life lessons

When a soul is ready to incarnate, it determines a set of life lessons, and then choose the appropriate birth setting for the best learning opportunities.  Let’s say the soul wants to learn Abundance.  Now which of the following two settings do you think would provide the best learning opportunities?

1. To be born to a wealthy family and just accept the abundance there
2. To be born to a poor family and build his or her abundance, from rugs to riches

Yes, #2 is more challenging but rewarding.  So the courageous soul takes up the challenge.

The trouble is that we forget it when we come to this side of the world.  So now you don’t understand why you were born to poverty while plenty of others are born to reasonably wealthy families.  As you work your way working full time and taking evening classes, and every time you see other kids buying nice stuffs while you worry about paying the rent this month, you wonder, “Why?  Why is life so hard on me?”

The truth is you are right on track.

Let me give you another example of learning Love or Compassion.  For the same reason with Abundance, the soul may prefer to be born to a loveless family so they know firsthand what it is like not to have Love and Compassion.  So that they can grow up to be the Love to the world.

I don’t think we ever choose to learn something negative like Poverty.  We are evolving toward Light.

The pitfall of this “learning by contrast” process

Quite obviously, there is a problem about this learning by contrast process.  Because we are so shortsighted in this physical world and because we don’t clearly remember the life lessons we ourselves chose prior to birth, we may grow bitter and give up the learning altogether.

This is very sad.  Learning the life lessons is one of the purpose of life.  (Life is also about just experiencing this beautiful physical world and expressing our wonderful energy.)  There is no point in sulking and wasting our time.

The awareness of one’s own life lessons is probably one of the best gift of my Akashic Record Reading.  But you can also find your own life lessons through your life challenges.

5 steps to find your life lesson(s)

You need: a few pieces of paper and a few colored pens, a box of tissues, and some quiet time for yourself.

1. On a piece of paper, write down the major challenges in your life. List as many as you want.  Some examples may include (but by no ways limited to):
   • Were you born to an abusive parent?
   • Did your parent die when you were young?
   • Were you born with physical limitations?
   • Were you born to an average middle class family but somehow had trouble connecting to others?
   • Did you repeatedly have trouble with authoritative figures?
   • Did you become a parent at very early age?
   • Did you want children but somehow could not have one?
   • Have you been in abusive relationships?
   • Have you been unhappy with your career?
2. When you are done with step 1, review your list. Now go deeper.  For each challenges, find the quality you have been seeking in each negative situation and write it down in a different color. Connect to your own feeling rather than just jotting down typical answers. This is about YOU.  And try to come up with one or up to three words for each challenge.

   For example, if you were born to an abusive family, did you want Love? Acceptance?  Or maybe it prompted you to seek Autonomy?  Did it lead you to Compassion with people, animals, to nature?  Or maybe in your special case, it helped you to develop a sense of humor with Lightheartedness?

3. Now review again.  Does a few word appear repeatedly?  Do you see a certain “quality”, a theme that runs through all or most of your challenges? On a second sheet of paper, write down what you think is the main theme, or the life lessons you have been working on.
4. Examine the first list of your challenges with this new awareness of your life theme, or life lessons. Do you see how each “negative” situations contribute to the learning of your life lessons?  Take your time. This is a critical step that can change the way you see your whole life.
5. If you notice a new theme or life lessons emerge from your worksheet, write it down on the second sheet of paper. Repeat step 4 and 5 until you get the “Aha!  This is it.  This is what my life is about!”

Pay attention to your emotional cues

The bigger the emotional hang-ups are, the more likely it is tied to your life lesson.  Is there someone in your life that you feel you can’t forgive?  Forgiveness or the quality that person lacked so much may be one of your life lessons.  Is there something you accused “God” for?  Trust or Openness may be your life lesson as well as the quality that improves that something.

180 degree change in how you see life

When you take the time – and more importantly, the courage – to do this exercise to find your life lessons, something magical happens.   Things that bothered you so much stop having the emotional grip on you. You stop going down the roller coaster that is so familiar to you.

Because now you see what you thought to be a horrible drawback in your life is not that at all.  They were learning opportunities!  And you see it so clearly, not like someone telling you “Well, what did you learn from it?” (Don’t we hate that question.)

People may keep saying unkind words.  They may point out you are disabled or been to jail or single or whatever.  That may annoy you but heck, you know the truth.  (Annoying is annoying.  A mosquito is annoying.  They don’t send you off the emotional shoot.)  You know those people are only talking about their own fear.

Learning the life lessons through positive learning experiences

Further, with the awareness of what your life lessons are, you can attract more positive learning experiences.  You don’t have to go through poverty to realize abundance.  If that is the case, you have to go bankrupt every few years to learn the life lesson of Abundance.  No.  You can learn abundance in a more expansive way.  In this example, how about expanding abundance beyond the monetary sense?  How about doing charity?

By becoming fully aware of your life lessons, you attract more positive learning experiences, which speeds up your learning process.  As a group, we humans are finishing up this “learning by contrast” process and becoming more about being.  So do work on your lessons and graduate the school of life!

With the recent realization of what life is like once you reach a certain point of your spiritual development, I’d like to amend my article on life purpose.

As I explained in the aforementioned post, once you reach this point of spiritual growth, you are in a whole different ball game.  Using the same analogy I used in that article, you are now sailing on the big wild ocean, fast and free.  The rules and principles that applied to you while you were pushing your boat on the beach simply do not work any longer.  The concept of life lessons is one of them.

At this point, this post is relevant to only a handful of people.  Like the post on soul shifting, please feel free to skip if it doesn’t appeal to you.  I’m writing this for these very special individuals and the people who are heading this way soon.  (Photo by Vardhana)

Life as school to learn our life lessons

Previously, we were to learn a set of life lessons through various life experiences.  We chose these life lessons ourselves prior to incarnation, so it wasn’t like someone was pushing their agenda to us.  Yet the learning was often challenging.  Many of us inadvertently chose negative learning experiences and progressed ever so slowly.    Life was just like a school.

I remember how it was because it wasn’t so long ago I worked hard on this whole life lesson thing.  I was so fervent – nothing was more important for me than learning and completing my life lessons.  The way I saw it – and still do for those who are at this stage of development – is that, if I fail to learn my life lessons in this lifetime, I would have to come back to work on them again, like repeating the same grade in a school.  That surely sucks.  So do whatever to learn them.

My primary life lesson was integration.  I had learned much in my many past lives, and in this life as well, and I was to put everything in coherent context.  Like “Spiritual Healing and Growth for Greater Success”, connecting spirituality and worldly success that many people see as completely separate and even incompatible.  I was to bring the value of unification.  (I don’t know why my spirit guides used this business-like word “unification” rather than more nicey words like “accord” or “harmony”, but that is what they said.)  If you check my posts in December to early January, you can see this learning trend and my passion.

And then it happened. I still don’t know exactly how it happened – evidently I completed my life lessons and reached a point of my spiritual growth, plus there was a grace of the higher “tide”, the planetary change that is benefiting quite a few of us.  I got a new soul.

What it is like once you reach this point of spiritual development

Again, it is a completely different game after this point of spiritual growth.  By now, I have read the Akashic Records of eight individuals who have had this shift, and all confirm the same pattern.  And one of the characteristic of it is that there are no more life lessons.

We have completed the life lessons and graduated from the school of life.  From here, we are completely free and our life purpose is simply to be who we are. No pre-determined life lessons.  Life is not a school any more, but more like a playground.

Since there is no more learning needs, there is no point in trying.  Many people talk about the importance of doing rather than trying, but they only try really hard not to try.  Too complicated.  Once the life lessons drop, however, there is indeed no trying.  We just are.  And we do whatever comes to us naturally and joyously, and this is how we grow even further spiritually.

If you think that kind of “selfish” acts would bring all kinds of havocs and disorders to this world, you are not at the level of spiritual development I am talking about.  It’s okay, take your time.

Another notable characteristic after the shift is there is no more need for healing.  All the new souls I’ve observed are brand-new souls with no past, so there are no energetic blocks and restrictions from the past.  So no need for healing.  All you do is to keep it clean.  Stay away from negativity.  You are not interested in it anyway.

Let me summarize what the new game is like:

• No “learning” of life lessons
• No seeking
• No trying
• No healing, fixing, repairing of the past
• Just be.  Do what delights you and manifest spontaneously.

A few suggestions for those who reached this point of spiritual development

You are probably feeling a significant internal change.  The sudden loss (or more like an evaporation) of your sense of direction, which was so clear and strong before, may feel awkward.  You may also find it difficult to relate to many of your former interests and your friends you were connected through these interests.  Because you are not in the learning of your former life lessons any longer.

My advice is to take it easy.  You are perfectly okay.  And:

1. Feel free NOT to read the kind of books and blogs that don’t hold your interest.  Most personal development books are written for those who are pushing their boat on the beach and so they are not for you any longer.
2. Purge unnecessary stuffs (like those books) from your living environment and simplify your life.
3. Same with interpersonal relationships.  You don’t have to actively break your existing relationships – when you just let things go, only the relationships that are still relevant to the new you will stay and others will fall off on their own.
4. Keep moving forward in your spiritual development.  But know that the way you move forward from here on will be very different from the way you have been “working on” it.  From here on, it’s truly about being.  Enjoy your being.  Be confident in putting your unique wonderful self first.

A few suggestions for those who are not there yet

Don’t despair.  This is not exactly a race.  You are evolving in your own way at your own pace.  And some people are paving your way – nice and kind, right?

Having said this, may I suggest:

1. Have some quiet time alone.  Daily.  This helps you to focus your energy on yourself rather than continuously comparing yourself to others.  Meditation, in the big sense, is a good idea.
2. Learn to be honest to yourself.  Don’t second guess and resist change when you know deep inside you want it.  Whatever that change may be.
3. Do work on your life lessons.  This is about achieving the energetic quality within you.  It’s more about internal work than external work of doing although some doing is perhaps helpful to recognize who you are on the inside.
4. Whatever you do, don’t pretend that you are already “there”.  This is not about “psyching up”.  It has little to do with the thinking mind anyway.

Some commented they are afraid of this soul shift.  There is really nothing to be afraid about it (as long as the first soul moves on properly and the shift is complete.  I have to report this may be quite difficult because all the cases I’ve seen had this problem of the previous soul getting stuck and causing discomfort).

If you are afraid, that is your ego talking.  The ego is the part of our thinking mind who makes judgments based on existing knowledge and experiences.  So of course, the ego is afraid of everything new.  The ego wants to hold onto everything it has now.  But you are not your ego.

I must say it feels really good out here.  It’s like all (or at least most) of the clouds are magically gone.  Love and freedom have new meanings for me.  So come join me ^_^