This past weekend I did a past life regression hypnosis session. It was a magical opportunity to step outside my current life – with all its joy and stress – and catch a glimpse of the bigger picture. Whatever your belief system, level of skepticism, etc., the important thing is that this experience left me with a couple of lingering thoughts/questions.

Since my session, I have been overwhelmingly caught up in realizing that the “me” I experience 95% of the time isn’t really more than a shell. I know this on a fairly deep level anyway – that I am more than just “a wife”, “a mother”, “a buddhist”, “a writer”, or any of the other labels I give myself. When I quit my job, I knew I was still “myself”. If I colour my hair, or lose weight, or move to a different country, I still recognize that I’m my same self. Even beyond my wife/mother labels, I recognize that there is a distinct and separate “self.” I can easily see that the essence of me is much deeper than any of that. But it’s interesting that some labels are more difficult to put aside. I’m also more than my insecurities, my strengths or my weaknesses, or the core characteristics I would typically name for my soul: that I am artistic, or spiritual, or loving. These labels are just ways I define myself in this current situation. Imagining the view from another body really helped me to internalize that I am more (or less) than all of that too. What if I wasn’t artistic? Or spiritual? Or loving? Would I still be me?

It left me wondering about where these labels begin and end. What really does exist at the core of me?

It left me thinking about how all of our soul cores are so much less complicated than we make them, so beautifully simple.

I also realized how much easier it is to love myself when I strip away all the labels. All of the things I dislike about myself are transitory, and none of those surface-level qualities define me, or make me lovable/unlovable. It is much easier to love the spirit of me.

Recognizing that everyone around me is also much more than they appear, I wonder how it’s possible to dislike anyone at all. It is much easier to love the spirit of all other beings.

We are all beautiful souls walking around in these bodies, equally worthy of love respect.