The Parts We Leave Behind

One of the things I find interesting about doing this work is how a second session can sometimes pick up exactly where the first one left off, even though the imagery and story may be completely different.

That happened recently with a client I’ll call Steve.

His first session centered around fear, powerlessness and abandonment. His second session seemed to go underneath that fear into something deeper: unworthiness, rejection and the belief that maybe he didn't deserve happiness or success.

What interested me wasn't whether every scene was literally a past life. It was the pattern that developed between the two sessions.

In both journeys, Steve found a part of himself that had essentially been left behind.

And in both journeys, he went back for it.

The Boy Who Was Left Behind

In Steve's first session, he experienced himself as an eleven-year-old boy living through what appeared to be some kind of catastrophic event thousands of years ago. The world around him had broken down, and he was traveling with a group of survivors.

The boy was becoming weak and couldn't keep up. Eventually the group decided they had to leave him behind.

They took his clothing because they needed it to survive. What struck me was that the boy willingly gave it to them. He knew what was happening. He knew he was probably going to die.

When I asked Steve what that moment felt like, he described it as “total self-abandonment.”

The boy was left alone, naked and freezing. Eventually he gave up. His final thought was, “I don't want to die this way.”

After his death, Steve sensed that the boy's spirit never really left that emotional moment. He was frozen there, isolated and carrying this feeling of, “What's the point?”

So we went back for him.

Steve eventually brought the boy into the peaceful inner temple we had created earlier in the session. There, the boy entered the water and dissolved into light. Steve described the experience as a completion—something that had been frozen was finally able to move again.

Months later, Steve came back for another session.

This time we went somewhere completely different.

Or at least it seemed completely different at first.

The Woman Who Couldn't Forgive Herself

Steve entered another experience where he found himself as a young woman who seemed to be living in medieval France. She was a healer, part of a lineage passed from grandmother to mother to daughter.

She helped people connect with something deeper within themselves. Steve described seeing their eyes almost light up during these healings.

But the religious authorities around her told her that what she was doing was evil.

Eventually she watched members of her community being burned at the stake. Terrified, she confessed and betrayed others, believing she might save herself.

Instead, she was imprisoned too.

Steve experienced her spending seven years in that prison. By the end she was starving, physically deteriorating and mentally confused. But the deepest prison wasn't really the dungeon anymore.

It was what she had decided about herself.

She believed she had betrayed her gift and her people. Because of that, she decided she didn't deserve freedom, happiness or success. She didn't even deserve another life.

Eventually she died carrying that belief.

And just like the boy from Steve's first session, some part of her seemed to remain there.

That was when the connection between the two sessions really caught my attention.

The boy had been abandoned by others.

The woman had abandoned herself.

So Steve went back for her too.

He found her curled up in what appeared to be an underground location. She didn't want his help. She told him to go away and said, “You can't help me.”

Eventually she broke down and told him, “I gave away my faith. And I can never get it back.”

Earlier in the journey, a guide named Faith had given Steve a pen and told him it represented “the word.” He hadn't known what that meant.

Now he did.

He wrote one word on the woman's hand:

AGAPE.

Unconditional love.

The woman couldn't understand how Steve could possibly love her after what she had done. She asked him, “How can you love me? You saw what I did.”

Steve answered:

“Because that is what I am. I am love. I can do no less.”

For me, that was the central moment of the session.

You Don't Have to Destroy the Parts You Don't Like

Later, the session shifted away from the past-life imagery and into Steve's present-day inner landscape.

I asked him to encounter the shadow part of himself connected to what we had been exploring. He called it his material self—the part concerned with survival, physical life and material things.

It looked at him with a little smirk and said, “I almost had you.”

Steve told it that wasn't going to happen again.

But he didn't destroy it.

He didn't banish it.

He told it, “I love you.”

Then he gave it a different job. The material part of Steve could help him navigate the physical world. It could even be one of his guides.

It just wasn't going to run the show anymore.

I really liked that.

We often approach personal growth as if there are parts of ourselves we need to eliminate. Get rid of the anxiety. Get rid of the insecurity. Get rid of the ego. Get rid of the need for approval.

But those parts usually developed for a reason.

The anxious part may be trying to protect you. The material part may be trying to create security. The part seeking approval may be terrified of rejection.

Maybe the goal isn't always to destroy those parts.

Maybe they need a new job.

When Rejection Became Confidence

Toward the end of the session, I asked Steve to allow the feeling of rejection to become an obstacle in front of him.

A giant Holy Bible appeared.

Considering everything that had happened with the healer, the symbolism wasn't exactly subtle.

But what happened next was interesting.

Steve pushed it with one finger.

It fell over and disintegrated into dust.

His reaction was basically, “Wow, I've been afraid of you.”

Whether you interpret that spiritually or psychologically doesn't really matter to me. It could represent religious conditioning, judgment, rejection or simply an old belief system that Steve had given tremendous authority.

I think most of us have something like that.

Something a parent told us. Something religion taught us. Something an ex said. Something we decided about ourselves when we were young.

It becomes enormous inside our minds.

Until one day we actually look at it and realize: Why am I still letting this run my life?

Once the obstacle disappeared, I asked Steve what he wanted rejection to become.

His answer was confidence.

Not arrogance. Confidence.

The landscape immediately became alive with streams, lakes, fruit trees, animals, birds, bees and butterflies.

Then I asked what confidence actually meant to him.

His answer wasn't about status or being impressive.

It was about completion.

Completing projects. Completing ideas. Following through on relationships. Loving. Healing. Expressing what he had to offer.

I think there's something very practical in that.

Confidence isn't always walking into a room believing you're the most impressive person there.

Sometimes confidence is simply finishing the thing you said you were going to finish.

Sending the email. Making the phone call. Having the conversation. Creating something. Letting yourself be seen.

And then doing it again tomorrow.

Maybe You Don't Need to Keep Fighting Yourself

Looking at Steve's two sessions together, the progression was pretty clear.

The first journey was largely about fear and abandonment. The second went deeper into unworthiness and rejection.

In the first, Steve went back for the boy who had been abandoned by everyone else.

In the second, he went back for the woman who had abandoned herself.

I don't know whether these were literal past lives. Maybe they were. Maybe Steve's subconscious created incredibly detailed symbolic stories around fear, guilt and rejection. Maybe consciousness works in ways we don't fully understand.

I'm comfortable leaving that question open.

What interests me is what Steve did with the experiences.

He went back for the frightened boy.

He went back for the woman who believed she didn't deserve love.

He stopped trying to destroy his shadow and gave it a better role.

He confronted something that seemed enormous and discovered it could fall with the touch of one finger.

And ultimately, rejection became confidence.

His first session gave him a message:

You no longer need to hide.

His second gave him another:

I am love.

Maybe that's the bigger takeaway.

A lot of personal growth becomes another form of self-rejection. We're constantly trying to become a better version of ourselves while quietly disliking the person who's here right now.

Maybe we don't always need to become someone else.

Sometimes we need to go back for the parts of ourselves we've left behind, bring them with us, and finally start living.