I think there are just some people that want to feel connected to the people that came before them. From a really young age, I wanted to understand my family tree and wanted to know about the people that were gone, but were a part in raising the people that raised me – if that makes sense.

I would ask my Mom and Dad about their childhoods, and I loved to hear about the lives that my Nana, Grandma and Grandad had before having their families. I was even more fascinated with my Poppa and what his life was like because, according to my Dad, aunts, uncles and Nana, no one really knew anything about his Dad; honestly though, I was pretty interested in my Poppa because I’m convinced that he would visit me from the other side when I was really little.

My Poppa passed away when he was 58, about 5 years before I was born. He was such an important person to my whole family, and we often talked about him like he was there. He was a presence in my life from a very, very young age where the man that would be described to me, also came to have little visits in spirit form.

My Mom has told me that as a baby I would look up into the corners of the room saying “Poppa”, when I only had 10-20 words. I have felt a genuine connection to him even though he wasn’t physically with us. I knew he was right there, with every milestone. I think that because he was an important part of my life, when I lost my Dad at 27, I felt comfort in knowing that there was life beyond death because I had first-hand experience with it already.

Ok so all this death in my life has had an impact on me and it’s reared a little bit of an obsession. I was raised Catholic and I have family and friends with strong Christian beliefs that may read this and cringe. But honestly- I have become a little “obsessed” with connecting to the other side with people who possess these gifts. No, don’t get the wrong idea, I would never use a Ouija board-I can barely watch a scary movie for goodness sake! I honestly think that I am scared of scary movies and these Ouija boards because I have always known them to be possible and nothing to mess around with.

Since losing my Dad, I have gone to several psychic mediums where I have learned a little something and made fantastic connections. There have been some “crooks” and there have been some legitimate people that have given me a lot of reassurance about the presence that my family still has from the other side. With my last reading, a psychic gave me so much information and shared things that hadn’t happened yet, that I was a little freaked out (because it has all come true since then) that I decided that I would take a little break….

Fast forward to this past Wednesday. I decided that I would dip my toes in the world of “the other-side” and well… it has been replaying in my brain over and over again. I decided that I didn’t want a full reading because I didn’t want to know about anything in my current life, so I decided that I wanted to ease myself in, and do a past-life regression. It sounded cool and it sounded like something that I would be interested in (learning about what my soul experienced in past lives is pretty intriguing).

I went into it skeptically optimistic, not really sure how much I believed in something like this.  Let me tell you though, I was a little freaked out 22 seconds into the meeting with the psychic medium. She did her initial introduction (that most mediums do) and then proceeded to say “once you have been hypnotized I’m going to take your soul to the other side”- UMMM excuse me?? I freaked out! Here I was thinking that I was easing my way into connecting with the other side and instead, I was about to make my way TO THE OTHER SIDE??? It scared the crap out of me!

I was greeted by my ‘higher-self’ and, weirdly, it was comforting. Believe me, I know it sounds insane! I will save you from all the details, but I was taken to the light, to a field, up a hill, through the mist and into my past life where I was about 40 years old, in what felt like a jail cell. I got the feeling of being imprisoned or held captive. I had intense feelings of being duped, or maybe that I had duped someone, but that’s what ultimately landed me there!

Then, the psychic medium led me to my death where I had visions of being buried alive in a mass grave! It wasn’t scary, it felt more like the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in “The Christmas Carol” and I didn’t feel anything physically, it was more feelings and symbols that I experienced that just resonated with me. As I was guided by the psychic medium back to the light, I saw my Dad, clear as day! This was the greatest gift in this. It brought me to some of the most intense tears that I have ever shed. It was just so powerful and the connection that I felt was so incredibly weird. Ok… so I sound like a lunatic and I accept that. It actually sounds insane to me too! Even after sharing this with a couple of people, as I heard myself say it out loud, I felt as though I sounded like I needed adult supervision.

Since Wednesday, I have been thinking about this on repeat. I can’t seem to shake it! In the day, I’m thinking about this over and over again. At night, I’m having dreams about going to jail or someone being locked away. I keep replaying it in my thoughts because I think my psyche is trying to make sense of what I saw on Wednesday. Since then, I have also been thinking about how much more I want to know about my past and the lessons that I believe I am meant to experience in my lifetime; past and present.

This has also made me start to think about other possibilities. Philosopher John Locke came up with the concept of “tabula rasa” or “blank slate” where it is the belief that we are born as a blank slate and our life experiences mould us into who we are, but after experiencing what I did the other day, I’m wondering if we are blank slates, or do we come with imprints of our past lives? I’m also wondering, do other people have connections to fears or beliefs without having experienced it in their lives? Or, did they come from their soul from a life time before now? How many times in my life have I wondered why I am a certain way or have a certain fear, but I have no recollection of it even happening to me in my current life? I am also extremely freaked out about the jail thing, is this a repeated event in my lives throughout my soul’s journey?

I’m rambling, I know, but I think this experience has forced me to think about things even bigger than I have before. I would say I’m an open-minded person, but this just opened me up one thousand times more! It has also made me realize that if this is true (that our current soul has been here before in a different time and body) that people are so much more complex than I could even fathom. If we enter our current life with an imprint from a life-time before, should we all try and access this to have a better understanding of our soul, or should we leave well enough alone and let it go?

I have so many questions and I want a discussion about this! I can’t be the only one who has experienced this and wishes they could share, without feeling crazy!!!