Jan Engels-Smith promotes self-healing, empowerment, better communities, a healthy world and conducts workshops in shamanism & journeying. Her book, Becoming Yourself is at http://www.LightSong.net . Jan's a Licensed Counselor. She's done over 2,000 soul retrievals. She is the founder of LightSong School of Shamanic Studies, a Chemical Dependency Specialist, and Marriage Therapist. She is a water-pourer for sweat lodge, a minister, a Reiki Master.
The terms "life experiences," "choice," "karma," "and unconditional love" are all part of the same whole. I will explain them individually, in the way that I received them in my own teachings; however, they must be understood holistically. One without the other can bring confusion. Together, these terms explain the wonder of life.
Life Experience
Life is physical. We are born into a physical body, and we live in a physical world. We interpret our experiences physically. This physicality allows us to "feel," which the spirits have explained to me is the major component of the earth experience. The earth experience is one of emotion, where the soul acquires a physical understanding of emotion. For example, it is one thing to conceptualize anger and another thing to experience anger and to feel it throughout the body. The same holds true for love. It is significantly different to think about being in love and about the concept of love than it is to "feel" love and the emotions and physical sensations of love.
When one thinks of the vast array of human emotions, one realizes how many lifetimes must be lived in order to "know" life. It is the spirits' message that we live many lifetimes and experience many life forms and situations along our path to understanding. With each incarnation, your spirit selects the physical realities you will experience in that lifetime. You, embodied in your spirit, choose the circumstances you will be born into: the life conditions, the geographic location, the economic status, the handicaps, and the body type. You actually choose all of the fixed factors that will constitute a major portion of your life experience. You also choose your variable life conditionsthose conditions that can change through growth and development as you progress through life.
These choices constitute the conditions under which you live each lifetime. What you have chosen to experience is designed for a particular unfolding of your soul. The choices are made at a spiritual levela soulful, subconscious levelbefore you incarnate into this particular body. The unfortunate thing about being human is that you do not get to remember, consciously, the spiritual choices that you made before your incarnation. This lack of remembering, however, allows you to experience each life fully and completely in its current physical reality.
In the next installment, I will discuss the second piece of the picture - choice. You have already chosen to come into this life as your are. Now, how does choice affect your being in this life?
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