Her Father’s Childhood Friend

I grew up up in China. And I still have memories of Sino-Vietnamese War. I was in my early teens. It was a huge event at the time. Short-lived as it was (It officially lasted for one month in 1979, though the armed conflict lasted for the next ten years), the war was brutal. We heard news everyday from the radio. Back in China, we called that Defensive Counterattack against Vietnam.

Eventually the collective memory of the war went into the file of forgiving. I visited Vietnam three times in my adulthood. My impression of the country was peacefulness with beautiful land and water, even though one could feel past memories still weighed heavy there.

Eileen is 26 years old. With the background of Chinese-Vietnamese, she was born and raised in California. When she decided to spend a few vacation days in Vancouver, she decided to take the opportunity and gave herself another journey – into a Past Life. She came in with four bulletin points on a piece of paper. Here’s what she wanted to explore:

• Why do I have the greyish blue birthmark in the right palm?
• Why do I have troubled relationship with the family especially my father?
• What is my life purpose?
• What’s my drug and smoking addiction about?

As we discussed further, Eileen explained she understood the troubled relationship with her father was mostly due to her lack of trust. That lack of trust has been extended to the entire family. “I don’t know why. I can’t help it.” Eileen said.

Eileen is a schoolteacher. Even though she likes kids, she feels there are more she can do in her life.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like massage therapy or something. I am drawn to healing.”

“What stops you from going for it then?”

“I’m not sure if that’s the right path. Teaching seems to be more stable.”

A year ago, Eileen wen to see a psychic, and was told the palm birthmark was from a past life in a war.

On the first session I normally use finger spreading eye gazing induction. This was even better. I had Eileen gaze on her right hand, spread fingers and go into hypnosis, so the hand will start to tell the story of a past life. Eileen dropped into deep hypnosis by just doing a pre-induction exercise, and I didn’t even need her to raise her hand and fingers.

A scene came up to Eileen. It was a scene that she dreamed about many times in her younger years, a war scene – the Vietnamese war, to be precise – running, trying to escape, with another friend.

“You are running in the forest now with your friend. “ I repeated it back to her.

“It’s like a village forest.”

“Yes. A village forest. Is he a good friend you are running together with?”

“Yeah. I hope so.” That was an interesting answer. I was thinking about my next question, when Eileen spoke again, “I can’t move further beyond this scene.”

“That is alright. This is a familiar scene, because you have dreamed about it many times. But the running cannot happen without the story. Simply allow yourself to drop into the forest. You will know.”

“But my father told me he lost his friend in the war.” I realized this was now Eileen’s conscious mind speaking. “Once I wanted to join the army. My father didn’t want me to. He told me he lost his friend in a war. Ever since then I started to dream about this scene. Maybe I used what my father told me to imagine the scene that keeps coming up.”

It often happens. Things come up in a past life regression. The analytical mind wants to rationalize it: I wanted to join the army. Father didn’t allow me to. He told me how he lost a friend in the war. I started to have recurring dreams as if I started to imagine how father lost his friend. Now this past life regression is just triggering my old dream also known as my imagination.

As a hypnotherapist, all I know is that everything happens for a reason. So I instructed Eileen, “Just allow yourself to go deeper into the scene now. It’s a familiar scene, but you can go deeper into it, and explore more details. Allow the story to continue from there. You are running…”

“I can’t go further. It stops.”

“But the story doesn’t stop, does it?” I took it for granted that since this was a war scene, the running friends must be soldiers. “So you are running. The soldiers were chasing you?”

“No. I’m not a soldier.” After all, she did know more than what she thought she knew. “I’m more like a villager.”

“That’s right. You are a villager. Are you a male or a female?”

“Male.”

“That’s right. If you know the answer, do you eventually make it, escaping?”

“I was caught.” The voice of Eileen whispered.

“You were caught, both of you?”

“No. Just me.” Then the tone changed again, Eileen’s conscious mind’s voice came through again, “I just seem to be stuck on this scene only.”

“And you think even this scene is that you imagined, according to what your father told you. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you can imagine this scene, you can easily imagine the rest of the story, and also the beginning of the story. You can freely move backward and forward. You cannot be stuck, since this scene is imagined anyway.” I decided to hijack her rationale.

“Okay. From knowing what my dad told me before, it’s during the Vietnamese – Chinese war. I feel like being a Chinese living in Vietnam. They don’t want us there. That’s why we are running.”

“Those behind you, are they armed?”

“I can’t say for sure.” At this point, suddenly Eileen became very upset. She started to sob.

I guided Eileen to rise above the scene, in a detached manner, and tell me what she saw from above.

“The first thing that came to my mind was a stab.”

“Stab. Where?”

“My hand! Maybe it was because I was trying to run and they grabbed my hand. The hand feels very warm.”

“As warmth comes to your awareness on your hand, allow yourself to know: Do you know those people?”

“No I don’t. They don’t know us either. They just identified us as Chinese and they started to chase us.” Eileen was crying.

“What happens next?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. My hand is burning. That’s all.”

“What about your friend?”

“It seems he got away. They got me.”

“What do they do with you?”

“They left me there.”

“They left you there, with your hand burning. Can you move?”

At the moment, Eileen said she needed to use the bathroom. I gave her suggestion to re-enter hypnosis before I instructed her to come back to the room from the past life scene. She opened her eyes, got up and and went to use the bathroom,

When Eileen came back, while lying back down onto the couch, she said, “I don’t think I have more information.”

“That’s right. You don’t THINK you have more information, because the mind thinks, and the body knows. Only your body can have more information and memories. Your thinking mind doesn’t know, does it? Because if it did, you wouldn’t need to be here, would you?”

This session has not been very easy, even though we had a very easy beginning. Part of it was the traumatic event in that life. Part of it was because the conscious analytically mind was too busy rationalizing everything. Yet no matter how Eileen thought, she was able to pull out more information and emotions bit by bit.

I guided Eileen back into the scene of that lifetime. That was when Eileen started to give more information, “I’m just a kid.”

“How old are you?”

“Maybe 12.”

“Your friend, is he the same age?”

“Yes. And those people too, those who chased us, they are kids too.”

“Do you know them?”

“No. We were just walking. They outnumbered us, and they started chasing us.”

“How long do you stay there, where you got caught?”

“Two hours. I don’t know what happened to my friend. I don’t know if he was caught. I had to wait for him, I don’t want to get lost even more, but maybe he ran away, and he didn’t care.” As she was saying, tears rolled down the face again.

“How do you feel at this point?”

“Betrayed. I’m waiting for him, but he never comes back.”

Two hours later, the boy floated up, with the last thought, “I am alone.”

That thought opened another floodgate of tears.

As the spirit drifted away from the body, Eileen found out that the friend escaped, he kept moving around and eventually lived a full life to an old age.

Eileen then shared with me that every time any school shooting news came out, she had the urge to go and save the innocent children, even that meant she had to take the bullets.

“Wasn’t it that because they had caught you, they let your friend go. In that sense, didn’t you save your friend’s life? You took the stab.”

“That’s right.”

“That friend, is this person in any way shape or form in this life as Eileen?”

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know! I feel… not angry, but… I am resentful and mad. I don’t even know if he knew that I died, or what happened to me. I don’t feel appreciated for.”

“This feeling of betrayal and resentment holds the key to ‘trust’, which means as long as you hold on to these feelings and grudge, you won’t trust. Do you know that?”

“Yeah. “

I guided Eileen to the light, where she was met with her spirit guide, Will, who told us that it was meant to be that way, to take the stab to save the friend’s life. Forgiveness was the lesson. And eventually Eileen could get on to her path of being a healer.

“What was the point of having a birthmark on her right palm?”

“Like any marks,” Will came through and said to me, “it is to remember, remember in this life to use her healing abilities. The boy died with great pain in his hand, and Eileen could remember her healing ability in managing pain. It was also to remember the lesson of forgiveness. She has chosen that person who she needed to forgive to be her father in this life.”

All of a sudden, it made sense. I flabbergasted.

Eileen is (or should I say “was”) her father’s childhood friend!

Will continued to say that drug and smoking were used by Eileen to mask the pain. As she started to remember, she’ll let the grudge go and will not need to experience the pain therefore she’ll not need anything to mask.

The last part of the session, I instructed Eileen, knowing what she knew now, to go back, across time and space, to ease the pain from the hand of the boy, who was lying there, stabbed, stuck, fearful, regretful, alone, and resentful, and bring healing.

Just like a healer would do.