Throughout my journey of self discovery and hopeful enlightenment, I have received many messages about my path and my purpose in life.  If you too are on a path like this, I am sure that you know what I mean.  Each guru, psychic, reader or teacher that you speak to has a different piece of the puzzle for you.  At times, it is easy to see how these puzzle pieces fit together.  At other times, it is hard to see how they even belong to the same set.  When you add in the idea of past lives, alternate realities and future incarnations, it seems virtually impossible to put together this massive conglomeration of information that we receive.

If you struggle with the idea of reincarnation and past life influence, think of it this way.  Imagine our physical incarnation of this life as a semi transparent, million piece puzzle, then add in our previous lives as additional puzzles underneath this one that color and add detail to it.  The majority of what we feel, see and experience in this life is just that, in this life.  But, there are aspects of past lives, lessons, pains, traumas, joys, etc that serve to color our souls and provide us with additional layers of depth in our character and personality.  These deep seated layers of our personality are often the most confusing to us.  There seems to be little, if any, connection to events of our current life that support them.  These aspects can present themselves as seemingly irrational fears, fascinations, or even physical pains.

An example of this from my own life, would be my fascination with Ireland.  I have never been to Ireland, nor do I have any known Irish ancestry.  Yet, for many years now, I have been entranced by the music, culture and scenery of the Emerald Isle.  This was nothing that I had shared with anyone outside of my immediate circle and yet when I began exploring past lives with various professionals, I was amazed to discover that I had lived multiple lifetimes in Ireland and that specific details from those lifetimes had some very important correlations to this this lifetime.  Does that mean that I am reliving that experience?  No, but it does give me access to tools that I used in that life and lessons that were learned there to make better choices in this one.

This has been one of the keys that I have been working to utilize in my life.  This idea of tapping into the wisdom and lessons of my past to better serve me in this lifetime. The challenge that I am finding is that it is really, really hard to draw on the energy of the lesson without getting caught up in the energy of the lifetime.  For those of you who have been following this segment for a while, you have likely heard me wax on and on about living in the now.  This is a regular bit of advice that I seek to work with and is on the tip of nearly every modern guru’s tongue.  Actually, it’s likely been on the tip of every guru’s tongue for ages, but we as a species seem to learn very slowly sometimes.  So how do we live in the now, while learning from the past?  How can we glean these lessons from our past incarnations without getting wrapped up in the experiences that brought the lessons to be?  By seeking to use the information from the past not to fill in our missing puzzle pieces, but to help identify where we need to look to find them now.

I had a recent light bulb moment after getting readings from a couple wonderful Akashic Records readers.  The wisdom and insight that they provided me was key to helping me to understand some very challenging personality traits that I have identified.  As I began to explore past lives and what roles I may have played throughout my soul’s history, I have received many different bits of information.  I have been told that I held mundane roles in society such as banker, cobbler, and farmer.  I have also been advised of more fantastical roles such as wizard, alchemist, and more recently, dragon slayer.  How cool is that?  The little kid in me did a few proud struts around the room after hearing that one.   While aspects of each of these lives held meaning in this life, it was still very hard to decipher where my traits were coming from.

For most of my life, especially my adult life, I have struggled with what some might term as a hero or martyr complex.  I regularly find myself putting my neck out to be the hero for someone else.  I sacrifice my time, my energy, my health at times, to allow others to have an easier existence.  I have found myself in the line of fire for other people’s benefit, more times than I can remember and I can’t really say that it has ever served me any real beneficial purpose.  Even in my spiritual work, I have found myself seeking ways to battle the darker energies and place myself in positions that allow me to become some sort of hero to those that are struggling.  As I began exploring this with the readers, we saw that there were many aspects of this that were played out in some of these past lives.  There were many situations where I was in the role of warrior or soldier against what was perceived to be the darker energies.  I was in a position where this type of battle was not something that I was asked to do now and again, but rather it was my job, my duty and my livelihood.  This energy seemed to carry on through many lifetimes and my role as a warrior became very ingrained in my soul’s nature.  So much so, that when I find myself now, in a situation where there really aren’t these same physical battles to wage, I still feel this desire to fight.

So, how does this help me now?  Well, as we worked on exploring this, we looked at my current astrological chart as well.  One of the key aspects that we looked at was the location of Mars in my chart.  In examining where the warrior planet is in my natal chart, we could look into how that energy is playing out in my life and how it can be most effectively utilized.  My Mars is in Leo which certainly holds to this idea of the valiant warrior and hero.  There is still much of this energy that needs to be tapped into in this life.  But, sitting nearly on top of Mars in my chart, is the Moon.  The Goddess herself, holding back that aggressive, proud desire to wage battles.  There is an emotional, intuitive connection there as well that the battles I do wage, must be done on a more subtle, energetic level and not necessarily on the physical.  The visual reference that I got from this was that of a Knight in service directly to the Queen herself.  My role is that of protector and guardian and not necessarily soldier.  There will be times that force is needed to protect that which is dear to me.  But I do not need to seek these times out.  I need to focus my time and energy on creating that sacred, protected space around myself and those dear to me and not trying to defend or fight for the entire realm.

That being said, here is what I challenge you all to do, should this resonate with you.  Take a look at your life.  Examine and work to identify those areas that really puzzle you.  If it helps get you started, look at the positive first.  Areas that you have unexplained fascinations or connections with.  Now seek out information from past lives connecting you to this area.  This can be done on your own through meditation or through professionals, depending on your comfort level and financial resources.  Repeat this process as you choose to see what patterns begin to develop.  Often you will find that you have a recurring theme in your lives that shares a particular trait with you now.  Once you have identified that trait, look at self exploration tools like the Tarot or astrology to help you decipher how those themes are playing out in your current life.

For example, if you find this warrior theme as well, look for your Mars and the aspects that affect it.  If you find a theme of teaching, seek out your Saturn and see how that is playing out now.  Communicator; find your Mercury.  Rebel; seek out your Uranus.

Use the location of these planets in your chart now, to help you see how you can best tap into those ancient energies.  The information you gather and how you put it to use, may just be the key to unlocking the potential you have inside you now.