Past Lives: From Light to Shadow
When guiding clients into past life explorations, I often use a technique involving doorways combined with emotional feeling. This approach allows clients to connect deeply with their feelings and intuitively sense the type of past life they’re about to encounter—whether it’s a shadow life, a light life, or something neutral.
The Three Types of Lives
The Shadow Life:
Shadow lives are often the most challenging yet transformative experiences in past life exploration. These lifetimes carry unresolved emotions, painful events, or darker traits that manifest in our current lives as fears, phobias, or limiting beliefs. Whether we were victims, oppressors, or endured overwhelming hardship, these shadow lives often hold the key to deep healing and growth.
One story that stands out to me is the second regression I ever conducted when I was 17 years old. My neighbor, who was my age at the time, was a jovial and kind person. During the session, he entered a lifetime where he was cold, detached, and filled with darkness. In that life, he drowned his wife and children—an act so far removed from his current personality. He cried deeply during the session as he connected with the emotions and lessons of that lifetime. By confronting and understanding this shadow life, he realized that his lesson was to embody the opposite traits in his current life—to be warm, loving, and connected. This realization not only helped him heal but also gave him clarity about the person he wanted to be.
Shadow lives can include experiences of brutality, oppression, or extreme sadness, often ending in tragic ways. At the conclusion of these lifetimes, I guide the client through a process of release. The spirit of the lifetime steps forward to remove any lingering energy or trauma, often symbolized as an object—sludge, a knife, a rope, or something else tangible. This act of pulling out and releasing these symbolic burdens is incredibly cathartic, allowing clients to let go of pain they may have carried for lifetimes.
Personally, I’ve encountered some deeply difficult shadow lives in my own journey. Facing them head-on has been challenging, but the healing and transformation that followed were profound. Clients often experience a similar sense of freedom and growth. By acknowledging, understanding, forgiving, and ultimately releasing these lifetimes, they create space for a brighter present and future.
Shadow lives remind us that even our darkest moments hold the potential for light. They teach us lessons about compassion, growth, and the power of healing. These journeys show that the process of facing and releasing our shadows can bring us closer to the person we’re meant to be.
The Light Life:
These are lifetimes where things went well—where challenges were met with resilience, and the soul grew through wisdom, love, and fulfillment. Light lives often reveal personas or qualities we admire and can integrate into our current life.
For instance, one client connected with a Native American man who lived simply yet carried immense wisdom. He made furniture and lived a peaceful life close to nature. This persona became a guide for her, offering grounding and insight that she carried into her current life.
Another client explored a life in 1500s England, where he lived with his family above a bar. They worked together running the bar downstairs and lived modestly upstairs. Despite the simplicity of this life, the man radiated happiness and joy, creating a warm atmosphere for everyone around him. This attitude was the opposite of my client’s current outlook, yet it inspired him to see how a shift in perspective could bring lightness to even the simplest life.
Light lives offer us qualities worth cherishing and integrating—joy, resilience, and wisdom that can become allies in our present lives.
The Neutral Life:
Neutral lives carry an element of the unknown. They don’t immediately feel positive or negative but often hold surprises. These lifetimes can reveal unexpected insights, offering lessons or connections that weren’t immediately obvious. Neutral doors are an invitation to explore without preconceived notions, leading to lifetimes that challenge us in unique ways.
The Doorway Technique:
I ask clients to visualize themselves in a place where multiple doors surround them. Each door represents a pathway to a past life. The key is not to overthink but to tune into how they feel about each door—positive, neutral, or negative. Often, the emotional connection to a door provides insight into the type of life it leads to.
For example:
A Shadow Door may evoke feelings of heaviness, fear, or unease.
A Light Door might feel warm, inviting, or uplifting.
A Neutral Door could carry a sense of curiosity or the unknown.
To deepen this process, we might focus on a specific emotion or sensation the client has carried for a long time—something unresolved, like a phobia, fear, or unexplained heaviness. By locating where this feeling resides in their body, they can breathe it out and visualize it forming into a door. This shadow door often leads to a lifetime that holds the root of this unresolved emotion, offering an opportunity for healing and release.
Similarly, clients can connect to positive emotions they feel in their body—like joy, peace, or confidence—and breathe them out to create a door to a light life. Alternatively, they can simply explore the doors around them and sense which one feels like it’s drawing them in.
The Power of Emotion
One of the most fascinating aspects of past life work is how deeply emotion acts as a bridge to these memories. Through the doorway technique, we can focus on a specific feeling—perhaps a fear that’s lingered for years or a sense of joy that feels familiar yet untraceable. That emotional thread becomes the key to unlocking a past life connected to it.
For me, this process is personal. I’ve seen how narrowing in on an emotion can lead clients to lifetimes that hold answers to their current struggles or gifts they’ve carried through time. Shadow lives, for instance, help us confront and release the energies that no longer serve us—pain, fear, or old wounds that weigh us down. Light lives, on the other hand, reconnect us with the beauty and wisdom we hold, reminding us of the strength and joy woven into our being. Then there are neutral lives—those unexpected glimpses that broaden our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, offering lessons we didn’t know we needed.
Each journey, whether shadow, light, or neutral, adds another piece to the puzzle of who we are. By embracing these experiences, we illuminate the rich tapestry of our soul’s journey, allowing for healing, growth, and a deeper sense of connection.
If you’ve explored past lives yourself or worked with clients on this path, I’d love to hear how emotion has guided you. What doors has it opened? What insights have you gained?
