What We Learn from a Past Life Suicide

It was not until four years after I started doing Past Life Regression that I had the first case of suicide.

A female client of mine was regressed to a past life of Isabelle, a woman full of life. In that regression session, we first landed at a harbour where she just arrived, after a long journey on a steamship. She was 25, very excited for this solo journey. She used the expression “I am drinking in every moment” to describe how exuberant she felt. Further conversation we realized she just arrived in Paris from the state of Nebraska. “It’s my first time here. Finally I’m here!”

It was fall 1867. Isabelle Cointreau’s father was originally from France. He had moved to the States many years ago, and made a fortune in a trading business. Isabelle wanted to come to Paris for a long time, to stay here for at least a year, but her father only gave her one-month time.

As our regression session unfolded, it seemed Isabelle really enjoyed her freedom. She traveled around, visited museums, went to the zoos, saw artworks, and did a lot of shopping. Like a little girl in a candy store, there were so many things to do all at once.

Paris was eye opening for Isabelle. She stayed in Hotel Dieu, which fascinated Isabelle from grandiose lobby to beautiful balcony to window-filled dining room and deliciousness of croissant, which she had only heard from her father.

Back home, Isabelle had wanted to be a schoolteacher, the only profession available for women at the time. But her father was too rich to allow her to do that. His plan for her was to marry her off. At the age of 25, Isabelle was becoming “an old maid” and her father was concerned. Isabelle knew what was waiting for her so she negotiated with her father that she’d do what he wanted for her only if she could visit Paris.

Asked if she ever loved somebody, Isabelle told me at 15, she fell in love with Samuel, who went to school with her. When Isabelle was 17, Samuel proposed, and Isabelle accepted, only to be denied by her father, who ripped off the ring from Isabelle’s finger and threw it out after Samuel – “If you don’t walk away from my daughter, I’ll make sure that you will never walk again.” He told Samuel, who was supposedly poor therefore not good enough to marry his daughter.

Isabelle was sent away to her grandmother thereafter, without a proper goodbye to Samuel. Since then, Isabelle never saw Samuel again.

In Paris, Isabelle thought about Samuel. This was the city they had talked about having honeymoon.

One month in paradise Paris, and it was time for Isabelle to go home. The pace of life at home was so very different from Paris. Not much to do but taking walks and getting together with her friends. Father got busy on the mission of marrying her. Isabelle was not allowed to ride horses, or move out of house. She had money but nothing else. She felt trapped.

According to our previous past life regression work, this is the same soul with reincarnations of Joan of Arc and Queen Elisabeth I. They all impressed me as being stubborn, not wanting to give in, and not wanting to settle for less, yet in this lifetime as Isabelle, she blinded herself with the sense of powerlessness and allowed the conditions to control her, therefore she couldn’t see opportunities.

Isabelle felt very conflicted as she realized she was very different from her mother, who seemed to willingly accept what was supposed for women. Isabelle didn’t want to be staying home waiting for love to bestow upon her. She wanted to be free, to be able to do what she wanted to do.

But father wouldn’t give permission for her to teach “little dirty young poor kids”.

At the age of 28, Isabelle married a rich man whom she didn’t love, but that was the only perceived opportunity to get out of her father’s house. They had a big house, in which Isabelle felt as empty as inside herself. A business deal was made over this marriage between her father and her husband, who didn’t love her either.

The marriage did not produce any children. The husband was physically abusive, and controlling. Isabelle became more and more depressed.

At 35, Isabelle’s brother one day brought her news of Samuel, who was married with five children, 3 girls and 2 boys. It triggered a lot of deep-rooted sadness in Isabelle. That was when the idea of killing herself first formed.

Isabelle couldn’t even do housework as they had servants. Feeling hopeless, alone, depressed and resented for many years, at the age of 40, Isabelle made the decision. As the decision didn’t need anyone else’s permission, Isabelle already had a sense of empowerment.

So one morning, having a rope in her hands, Isabelle walked to the well without looking back. She attached the rope to a bucket at the well, and another end to the neck. The plan was if the rope didn’t kill her, the water would drown her.

Isabelle had put on an outfit of a servant, a message to husband and father that “you may treat me as a servant, but I can set myself free”.

After death, getting out of the body, the spirit paid a quick visit to Samuel, who was happy with his children. In an expanded awareness, the spirit was able to identify some of the past life personalities in the client’s current life. Archangel Gabrielle came through. I gave the spirit a moment of silence communicating with him. Suddenly there came a realization, “I shouldn’t have killed myself!”

“You shouldn’t have killed yourself. What else could you have done?”

“I had the freedom to run away. But for some reason, I just didn’t think I did. “

“It just didn’t occur to you. “

“Now I see… It’s kind of like an animal at the zoo, being chained for so long, you take them to the natural environment, they have a hard time understanding and realizing the freedom. “

“You have made a statement of freedom as you could choose what clothes to wear and how to kill yourself. But you could have demonstrated freedom without being destructive. Is that what you are saying?“

“Exactly. I felt trapped and conflicted because I thought I needed men’s permission to be independent, but that’s not true independence. True independence does not require other’s permission.”

From that realization, I asked the spirit to know, in a parallel reality, if Isabelle did run away, what would have become her.

“In that reality I saved up some money, and ran to Paris. The rest of life I became a bakery chef. “

“Perhaps some time later, you’d come back to Nebraska and bake your father a croissant.”

“That’s right.”

But despair blinded her of inspirations and opportunities.

There are always choices.