How to Heal the Present by Exploring Your Past Lives-Ep 183 | Guest: Mary Elizabeth Raines

In this enlightening episode of Evolving Humans, host Julia Marie welcomes back Mary Elizabeth Raines, a renowned hypnotist and past life regression expert. 

Together, they delve into the fascinating world of reincarnation and the transformative practice of past life regression. 

With over 24 years of experience, Mary Elizabeth shares her insights on how to choose the right facilitator for hypnosis and regression, emphasizing the importance of connection and trust. 

Listeners will learn about the healing potential of past life regression, including how it can help resolve unresolved emotions, trauma, and even karmic debts. 

Mary Elizabeth discusses common misconceptions, such as the belief that one must fully believe in past lives for the process to work, and explores the therapeutic benefits that can arise from these sessions. 

She shares compelling stories of clients who have experienced profound shifts in their lives through regression, highlighting the importance of emotional release and forgiveness in the healing journey.

Join Julia and Mary Elizabeth as they explore the depths of the soul, the interconnectedness of our experiences, and the potential for growth through understanding our past lives. This episode is perfect for anyone curious about the mysteries of existence and the journey of the soul.

MANY THANKS TO Pixabay's William King: Ambient Classical Guitar 144998 and OY Studio's Awaken 136824 for the music used for the music beds for this episode.

Transcript

Julia Marie (00:03):
If you've been waiting to learn about past life regression, then this is the show for you. Stay tuned as we talk about reincarnation and past life regression with my teacher Mary Elizabeth Rains. I received my  certification as a past life regression counselor from her in 2010, so I'm personally familiar with both the
depth and the breadth of her knowledge of this subject. Welcome to Evolving Humans. I'm your host, Julia Marie, and this podcast is for visionary people like you who are exploring the true nature of reality
and want to contribute to the global awakening. You seek to deepen the connection to your multi- dimensional self so that you can live a more conscious life. Mary Elizabeth Rains is an internationally recognized hypnotist and hypnosis instructor living in Sedona, Arizona for the past 24 years. She's taught
hundreds of professionals from all over the world through her school, the Academy for Professional Hypnosis Training, and she certifies her students as either past life regression counselors or hypno therapists. She wrote a book about past life regression titled The Laughing Cherub's Guide to Past Life
Regression, A Handbook for Real People. You'll find the book on Amazon. It's an honor to welcome her back to Evolving human Soul. Thanks for joining us again, Mary Elizabeth.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (01:43):
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Julia Marie (01:47):
Before we dive into our discussion about past life regression, how can I find the right facilitator for me, both for hypnosis and for regression? That's something that I feel is important and needs to be addressed.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (02:02):
I wish I had a apprehensive directory. I think it's important to interview a hypnotist and past life regressionist gently and politely. Of course, find out how many years they've been doing it, find out where they've received their training. Some people take a course that's only two days long, for example, and that's not sufficient for someone to be a good past life. I think we'll cover some things and you want
to make sure that your regressionist is aware of the kind of topics that we're going to talk about. Interview them and just don't go for hype or slick website. I, I've known people that have been absolute frauds, who've had gorgeous websites, and I've known some really fantastic practitioners who have horrible
websites and artistic ability doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with a good practitioner. Also, talk to them ahead of time, interview them ahead of time, and you shouldn't have to go to their office or pay.
You should be able to do this by phone. See if you connect with their voice, see if you connect with their stout, because we've all had the experience of calling someone up on the phone and we immediately dislike them because of their voice. You wouldn't want to make that mistake just by going blindly to a
practitioner, so have a little bit of a phone chat with them ahead of time.
Julia Marie (03:40):
Well, if I don't like their voice, it's not likely that I'm going to be able to go to where I need to go if they're the one that's guiding me.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (03:49):
Exactly, and that's a complaint that I've heard that people said, oh, I didn't have a good experience since I didn't really jive with my practitioner.
Julia Marie (04:02):
So if a client came to you and said, I'd like to have a regression, but I'm fearful that I'm going to encounter something awful that happened to me in a past life, what would you tell them?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (04:13):
That's a good question because this is the mark of an expert past life regressionist versus someone who just took a quick little class and decides that they can do it. My students and I protect our clients by saying both before the hypnosis and during the hypnosis, that you will only access a lifetime that you're
able to handle when you can understand, integrate and heal from today. I've certainly had experience with clients who went to a regressionist who took them to a lifetime where they experienced lots of trauma and then there was no healing at the end. They left immersed in trauma because there was no healing or no
integration at the end, and they left feeling damaged and even traumatized. So be sure that any practitioner you see does safeguard you. It doesn't mean you won't experience trauma by the way, but you will only experience what you are able to handle and heal from and deal with.
Julia Marie (05:25):
Something else I hear a lot but don't necessarily know if it's absolutely true is what if I can't be hypnotized? Are there any cases where a person just can't be hypnotized?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (05:41):
Yeah, it's people who abuse drugs and alcohol, people with extremely low IQs who, and the latter aren't going to come to you for hypnosis probably anyway, and people with very serious illness. Now, I'm not talking about the neurosis or the depression that all of us have a touch of from time to time, but I'm
talking about very serious psychosis, for example, and that's pretty much it. Almost everybody else can be hypnotized. As for the regression, if you have a good regressionist, nearly everybody can access a past life. One obstacle is if people are trying too hard and they want it so badly. I was like that in the
beginning. I wanted to pass life regression. I was seeking one years and years ago because I thought I'd have it. I'd seen a documentary and I thought, go, I'm going to have a pass life regression. It's going to clear up all my problems in one fell swoop, and instead I went to a past life where I was some kind of
peasant farmer. This is old guy. I was very grumpy and I didn't like people, and that was it. I thought, what? So if you have super high expectations, well, you might be surprised, but even if you want it too badly so that you kind of block yourself because you're thinking, oh boy, I hope this works. Oh gosh, I
hope I get my answers. A good regressionist can guide you through that, give you a few fail safe so that you can have an experience as long as you cooperate with the practitioner.
Julia Marie (07:39):
So do I have to believe in past lives in order for this process to work? As far as past life regression goes?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (07:50):
Well put it this way. I haven't had anybody ever come to me who hasn't believed in past lives, so I really don't know. Well, let one exception, I was once leading a group at, there was a very famous workshop place bookstore called the Bo Tree in West Hollywood, and I gave workshops there and I had a group and there was a guy who had been dragged to the workshop by his girlfriend and he didn't believe in past lives, but at the end he said, well, I had an experience where I was a thief and I was hanged. And he said, I'm not sure if I believe in this or not, but I've never liked tight collars. Oh,
Julia Marie (08:35):
Well.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (08:38):
So there you go.
Julia Marie (08:41):
And that's kind of what I was intimating about is in those group sessions, that's where you're most likely to come across people that don't, but it's fascinating that he probably did regress to a past life. Generally speaking though, why would a person want to explore their past lives
Mary Elizabeth Raines (09:01):
Sometimes just for entertainment. I live in Sedona, Arizona and people come through and they think they need to have a past life regression because it's part of the Sedona experience, and I have no problem with that. But many times it's in a relationship that's puzzling for various reasons. It can be a knee-jerk
response, emotional response. For example, someone who's terrified of wind and they begin to tremble and freak out whenever there's wind or that kind of response to something that can't be explained. It can be all kinds of reasons and relationships. I've had people come also who have explored a talent that they
are kind of a buried or hidden talent that they hadn't even been aware that they had.
(10:02):
I always ask the soul to provide the lifetime, the soul or the highest guidance, God, whatever your belief is to provide you with the lifetime that will give you the best answers to what you need at that moment.
So I had a woman come to me and she was hanging her head down. She had been molested and figured it was kaball. She had probably been a molester in a past life, and she was just full of misery and I'm going to face the music and have a regression. Instead, she went back to a lifetime in Ancient Ireland where she
was a singer in the equivalent of what are today called bars or pubs. And as a result, within six months, she had a little singing in a nightclub in Los Angeles and she didn't even realize that she had had that talent. So her soul said, this is what you really need to look at. I hope that that answers your questions, but
yes, often people just come, they're curious Who was I? And it's fun to find out. One theory is that we've had hundreds if not thousands of past lives.
Julia Marie (11:19):
That's great because I was going to ask you, how many do we have? And you just answered that for me.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (11:25):
I would be aware of any group, a certain cults and certain gurus and mystics say, oh, you, you've had exactly, everybody has 144 past lives, or they put set numbers to it. They say, oh, you, you're going to be reincarcerated every 10 years. I don't know. I would not put much faith in such rules.
Julia Marie (11:51):
Now, the soul is a very complicated energy continuum and it's my own personal belief. We have no understanding of what our soul's capacity is.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (12:05):
Exactly. And Julia, if you think as I do that, I believe that we're all fragments of the way. Yeah, call it God, call it the universe. Whatever you choose, then we are all interconnected. So we eventually could experience every lifetime there is to experience. Some people think that when we're regressed, we just
kind of reach into the soup of all lives and pull out a lifetime where we are one where we are today. And the other theory is that we are having multiple lives at the same time. Our soul is can divide many times.
So you might be an old man in Nigeria and you might be a little girl in Greece, and
Julia Marie (13:03):
That's more along the lines of my perspective when I do past life readings, which is not as impactful as regressions, but it can give people some information. I draw a diagram that shows a big oval at the top that says soul with all these rays coming down to the timeline and we're living all of those at the same time from the perspective of our soul.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (13:28):
That is an understanding among many people with spiritual insight that there is actually no such thing as time and living all our lives at the same time. So if you heal something that was damaged in the past, you are also healing your present. Exactly. And all lives. Yeah,
Julia Marie (13:52):
That was beautifully put, and I'm on that train with you. You touched briefly on Karma. Karma from that one woman, would you mind going into a little bit more about what karma is and how that works or entwines with past life regression?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (14:11):
Yes, I can share my point of view as it is today. And by the way, my face of view or my understandings are changing. I like to listen, by the way, to a lot of near death experiences. Yes. Cause I figure the people that have gone to the other side have the best access to the truth, including those of past lives. There are
going to be people that will absolutely contradict what I believe at present and who knows. But my understanding is that every single action, every single thought that we have comes to us in exact form.
Julia Marie (14:54):
Karma.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (14:55):
Yeah, karma. It's, it's what is called today. Some people have a school of theory called the Law of attraction, and I believe in it is correct except that it takes place over centuries, perhaps millennia, not just in wildlife. So if I stole someone's goat in the 15 hundreds today, someone might steal my car. So when I
say exact, I mean exact in terms of the energy and the experience and response that it causes, but it's also positive karma. If you helped someone out in the 15th century, maybe you'll drop your grocery bag and some stranger will pick it up and carry it to the car for you in this lifetime. It's really quite beautiful to
have this theory because this means we have complete responsibility for our lives, everything ourselves, and then it also helps take the burden off. If we experience something as kind of ugly in our lives, we can say, well, maybe I'm paying off a karmic debt, so maybe that's okay. Instead of going into that suffering
for me to poor me. Right? I'm such a victim. There is no victimhood if you consider this karma. Other people have different ideas about it, just one of many.
Julia Marie (16:37):
And none of us are ever going to definitively know as long as we're speaking from the consciousness level that inhabits a human body.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (16:45):
It's true. Even with the near-death experiences, some people come back and say, there is no say such thing as reincarnation. Other people say, absolutely. I went to the other side. I was shown my past lives and they have agreed or validated the theory that I currently have of karma.
Julia Marie (17:07):
Now, if I'm someone who does believe in past lives, is there any way to prove that? I mean, how could I maybe say to someone that might be evidence that we do live more than one lifetime?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (17:23):
Yes and no. I certainly have had a few clients who have done research into a past life circumstance that they came up with something they would never have been exposed to and discovered that yes, such a thing actually was. I had a woman, for example, and this is in my book, the Laughing Chair of Died to
Pass Life Aggression, a woman who was in the great potato famine in Ireland in her past life, but she had been completely unaware of that historically, and even in the past life she was saying, we're fighting over, it has to do with potatoes. And she was just so stricken by that because it just seemed so odd to her, and
she had never heard of the wars that had resulted, the war that ever resulted or the rebellion because of the potato family. I've had other people have very other extremely validating experiences. There's a man who's written a book about children's past lives. In fact, there are a number of them. I've known people
who as children knew who they were in a past life yet and have actually gone back to the place, the town or the village or the relatives that they once had in a former life and have validated a lot of things. But I guess there's no way of proving it. Someone could say, well, they were just being psychic or whatever.
Julia Marie (19:06):
I'm just glad you shared those things because as you said, quite a number of books and there's actually some videos. There's one that's coming to my mind about that young boy who was the pilot who went down and his parents took him and they did a whole thing for him being able to say goodbye to that
person who he was at that time, so that he could live the lifetime he was in. Currently, to me, that's one of the most moving examples of exactly what you're talking about. I can't remember his name
Mary Elizabeth Raines (19:40):
And I don't have a dog here, but there's several sexual folks.
Julia Marie (19:45):
So how could I use past life regression for my own healing?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (19:51):
That's a wonderful question. There are multiple ways. One is simply recognizing what was and acknowledging it and honoring it. Unfinished business. Sometimes we're left dangling a relationship or someone died and we thought they abandoned us, but they actually had been killed, but we didn't know it
at the time. There can be all kinds of unfinished business, and when we learn about that and realize that, then we have the opportunity to finish it. It's good. Sometimes it's learning what we need to do to resolve
some caramel, which is usually some kind of acts of service from the heart. Can't be fake.
(20:40):
It can be, a lot of times it's shedding tears that we were never able to shed in a past life. Think about past times people were busy just surviving. People did not have the luxury to process their grief. If a child died, that's horrible. But you had to go out in fields and work hard from John to dusk the next day just to
be able to feed yourself so you didn't have the luxury of sobbing and weeping over those kinds of things. And so when it's very common as Julia for during past progression for people to cry it, I would say probably 90% of my clients end up in tears at some point. Don't let that deter you. They're good tears
because they're shedding tears that they were not able to express in their past life. For some reason, when you're having a regression, it gets condensed.
(21:51):
So maybe 30 seconds of sobbing, compensates for a lifetime of holding that brief inside and it's released and people feel so much lighter and better. Another one, in fact, the huge way of healing is through the process of forgiveness, and that includes being forgiven by people either that we've wronged or who think
we wronged them and they hold a grudge against us. Their souls still do, or the people that have harmed us. Now, it can't be faked. You can't push someone into forgiveness. They have to genuinely be willing.
So I've certainly had clients who wanted to hold onto that resentment from hundreds of years ago and clench their John, we're not ready to forgive, and it's too bad, but you can't bully them into forgiving.
When people are ready to forgive, the good news is they don't really have to do anything. They don't have to grunt and groan and try. If they have a connection with some kind of source, some kind of divine source, even if it's their own highest soul, all they need to do is have the willingness, just like kin
hypnosis, all you need is the willingness and the healing then takes place and wow, do the tears flow when that happens? Some people think, well, past lives are faked. They're made up, but my gosh, you can't sit on your couch and all of a sudden start sobbing because you're forgiving a soldier who stabbed
you when you were an indigenous Native American.
(23:53):
Phenomenal. It's beauti. It's a beautiful thing to witness as to too. J
Julia Marie (23:58):
Yes. Well, it's been 13 years, so I don't expect you to remember this, but my poor regression partner had to deal with me releasing tears that were really old from during our final exam. That poor guy. I felt way better after the whole process was over and I've, I've never forgotten it. It left an indelible mark on me.
There's a huge benefit because that energy felt like it was stored in the cells of this container. It came out of this body. That trauma or energy or unexpressed grief was still held in my current physical body, and that's what amazed me about the experience. So I'm going to thank you for giving me the opportunity to
have that as one of my personal experiences and apologize to him wherever he may be for being such a challenging final exam.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (25:03):
We do it. It does seem that our cells do store what happened in our past lives that was not resolved and not healed. Even people sometimes will have scars or body injuries relating to a past life. I have a friend study hypnosis with me, and he said he doesn't necessarily believe in past lives, but he recalled that from
childhood, he had dreams of being an adult male in some Asian country, a wife, and people were chasing them with rifles. And he got shot in the middle of his back, repeated the same dream over and over from early childhood, and then he lifted up the back of his shirt and showed me in adulthood, he got a
melanoma in the center of his back. Oh my Right, where he had dreamt he had been shot and he had a huge scar where they cut it out. Now, I don't think a little child is sophisticated enough to create an analogy that comes in the form of a repetitive dream, and someone else in the class who was very psychic
said yes and told him could see the incident. Someone like you who can do readings told them actually about the incident. Very interesting.
Julia Marie (26:34):
Like I said, it's one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation with you because there's so much more, both opportunity for healing, but also for growth that can be found in people maybe exploring past life regression for themselves, for their own personal reasons. It's amazing what the soul would let go of if
people could just surrender to the process
Mary Elizabeth Raines (27:01):
Story. So many stories are running.
Julia Marie (27:04):
If you wouldn't mind sharing one of your favorites that really made an impact on you as far as your past life regression experience.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (27:16):
I do have one, and this is anonymous, so I doubt if yes, we would never identify the person. A young man who was college age came to me and he had an issue. He was very, very attractive, the kind of man that a lot of women his age would just flip over and he had no problem with that. But when he liked a woman,
he would get frozen, he would get phobic, he would get obsessed, he would go nuts, and then he couldn't really pursue the relationship. I mean, it was really, really messing him up, and there was no reason for it.
He was, again, intelligent, had a good head on his shoulders in every other respect, but he was baffled.
Why does this happen? He went back to a very, very simple lifetime. He had a woman, I don't remember if it was his wife or someone that had moved in with him who he loved terribly, but she was a kind of cheap woman, and she talked all the time, and he was a very sull man who did not really like to talk.
(28:39):
So he would just sit there and listen and then she would nag him, why don't you talk to me? You never listened to me. And he actually loved her with his whole heart, but he just wasn't able to express himself to her. And one day she just left. And in those days when someone left or disappeared, you had no way of
tracing them. You had no way of knowing where they had gone. He spent the rest of his life drinking lonely, obsessed with this woman, woman waiting for her to come back. Oh, never, ever judge. It was really a very simple life. And by the way, most of our past lives are like that. They're very, very simple, and yet they have the clue. And because he recognized this, it completely changed his life. He, he wrote
to me and was so happy he even changed his major in college because he was now going to study psychology and work with people who had problems and obsessions. It was really, really special
Julia Marie (29:55):
Transformative. Yeah. So that's a great story and it's a wonderful place to end this episode. But before we go, do you have any final words or things about past life regression that you'd want to share with the listeners?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (30:14):
I just say, if you're listening to this and something's getting sparked in you, even if it's tiny spark, go for it.
Be careful that you go to someone who's really qualified and take everything you can from the experience.
Julia Marie (30:34):
If you're listening and something, there's a response that's sparked within you, then I would say, your soul is trying to talk to you. There's something for you to learn.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (30:47):
And I will add Juliana's readings and I do pass life regression by phone. And actually, you would think, why would I want to do it by phone? The phone actually makes it easier because people are in their own, they're in their comfort clothes. They're on their own bed, in their own house, and so they don't have to go
through the thing of, oh, I don't know if I like her hair. Look at those shoes. Does she like me? Does she not like me? It's comfortable, and people can go just as deep or even deeper on the phone. And I don't do it via Zoom because we use the voice. It's really awkward to set up a computer when you're lying down
on your bed to show your face. So yes.
Julia Marie (31:37):
So how can people get in touch with you?
Mary Elizabeth Raines (31:40):
The best website would be corino, H t, TPSs, whatever past hyphen life hyphen regression hyphen sedona.com, past life regression sedona.com. Okay. The word separated by hyphens.
Julia Marie (32:02):
Okay. Again, I'll make sure I put that link in the show notes.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (32:07):
Right. And I don't give out my phone number on my website because you get calls that are not wanted, but I'll give it out here on the podcast because I know anyone that's listening is a precious soul, and we're
honest so forth. It's 9 2 8 4 5 1 6 1 1 16, and people can get in touch with me that way.
Julia Marie (32:33):
Thank you so much. Okay. And I want to thank you again for such an enlightening conversation. I frankly, really enjoyed myself.
Mary Elizabeth Raines (32:45):
Thank you. It was quite a pleasure and quite an honor. It was fun too for me