>I died today

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Today is the day that I died in 1905.

The picture to the left was me during the Civil War.

One might think that being aware of the exact day and circumstances of a previous death would somehow be mentally damaging or emotionally upsetting. Really, though, it never bothered me, even when I was in utter and total denial that reincarnation is a true facet of the universe. Death is the easy part of life. Yes, the process of dying can be painful and frightening but the pain and fear is only temporary. Going through eighty years of living was much harder for me than the last three months of illness that delivered me into the afterlife. I have little to no recollection at all of the last ten or fifteen years of that life anyhow, so I feel no emotional bond to my elderly years. When I experience feelings of longing for that life in Maine, it’s the people with whom I shared that life that I long to see again. I long for the roots and the sense of home that I had at that time too. I don’t have a sense of permanency in this life that I had back then.

Do I miss Fanny’s body? Not really. My chest was too big, my nose was too big, I had migraines, poor vision, too many aches and pains, etc. Once I’m done with a body, I have no desire to use it again. My belief system dictates that a body is like a change of clothes for the soul and once your soul outgrows that set of clothes, it’s time to discard it and move on to something new. In true transcendentalist fashion, it’s the insight and experience gained through myself that I carry with me, as well as the love I still feel for the souls in my soul group, whether they are presently incarnated or in spirit. I used to feel such an attachment to that life in particular because it was one of my longest, if not the longest, and I invested the most time and energy into the relationships developed at that time. Many of those relationships have continued and evolved in this present life. Some have faded away, having offered all of the lessons we could for each other. It’s okay to let go if your soul tells you to let go of people, habits or events. There are new experiences and relationships on the horizon.

Today I look back fondly on the good parts of my life as Fanny Chamberlain. I think of the good times with a quiet smile, knowing that no one else on earth understands the things I saw and felt back then. True, people can try and pick apart my various relationships, why I did this, why I thought that, and it has taken me years to make peace with the fact that people are going to misinterpret my life because they weren’t there. They didn’t go through it. I did. I have become a little more forgiving of historical misinterpretations. Above all, I look back on my life as Fanny and see his face. Love is truly what matters in the end. Fussing over the small day-to-day details is not going to matter when your last day comes. It’s the good you create in your life, the mark you leave behind, and the love you create.

 
You in my soul I see, faithful watcher by my cot-side long days and nights together through the delirium of mortal anquish, -steadfast, calm and sweet as eternal love. We pass now quickly from each other’s sight; but I know full well that where beyond these passing scenes you shall be, there will be Heaven. -Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, written to Fanny after her death.
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>The Demise of Claude

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Since I have to teach people methods of self-hypnosis and meditation, I decided to go through a refresher session with myself last night before I went to bed. That’s the only time when the house is quiet enough for me to do that sort of thing. I’m a big believer in practice what you preach and I wanted to be sure I was getting the steps right before I taught more people since I haven’t done self-hypnosis in quite a while. I really didn’t expect anything substantial out of it just because I’m so out of practice. At most, I expected to experience some relaxation and the sensation of being re-energized. That’s the main reason why I engage in self-hypnosis and meditation, not for more past life memories. I have enough of those and I’ve made peace with most of it. These days my work with helping other people make peace with their past troubles keeps me occupied and it actually helped me in making peace with most of the past things that were haunting me. I certainly didn’t expect to go through a new memory from my past through my experimental self-hypnosis last night but I did.

In the eighteenth century, I lived in France. Paris and the surrounding area, to be exact. I have pieced together several events and identified members of my soul group over the years from that life, although my nineteenth century past life has always taken precedence because it’s well-documented. I can’t prove the eighteenth century past life without learning French again and digging through scattered historical French records. A lot of it was lost in the Revolution too. Frankly, I don’t feel the need to go to great lengths to prove a life existed when I already endured that grueling process with Fanny Chamberlain for the last twelve years. I know myself well enough now to recognize when I’m experiencing legitimate past life recall and when I’m not. Proof is for other people. The experiences are for me and the growth of my own soul.

Very rarely do I talk about my life in France because parts of it were so traumatic that they caused phobias in this life; namely, loud crowds, the dark, things around my neck, and most weaponry. Most people only know the basic bare bones story, which is that I was the youngest daughter in a low-ranking noble family and we were all executed among thousands of others in the Reign of Terror. I was executed a few weeks after the Queen, I think, but I’m not sure the time is correct. That’s the thing about past life puzzles. They just don’t come with a time stamp. You can see why I don’t enjoy talking about it openly though. The people who know the details are trusted enough that I know they’re not going to talk about it.

I had a father who worked in what I believe was in the financial department of the French government. I had a mother and an uncle as well, me being closer to my uncle than both of my parents. I had an older sister (waving to said sister who knows who she is!) who spent most of her time that I remember lobbying for her marriage to a man by the name of Claude. I don’t know a lot about him other than the fact that he wore a uniform for something like being a guard or some kind of military associated with the royal residences. They were crazy in love with each other but for whatever reason, our father stalled the engagement for years. Maybe he was hoping she would marry above herself instead. I don’t know. I do know that there was a lot of resentment toward him from her.

So last night when I set myself up for the self-hypnosis, I wasn’t thinking about that lifetime at all. I was actually thinking about trying to relieve some pain I’ve been feeling in my right hip. It was supposed to be just a simple trip in and out of the meditation state and then I was going to send the lesson out to the people who needed it.

Deep into the session, I felt very relaxed and pleased with myself that I managed to talk myself out of feeling so much pain (mind over matter does work). A hazy image started to take shape of a doorway with heavily detailed white molding at the top, and as I looked through the doorway, the images got clearer of a man speaking seriously to my sister and my mother standing off to the side behind her. My sister wore a sort of dark sage green dress. I remember that clearly because I really liked the color. She had a full face and a body like the women you see in Botticelli paintings, meaning she wasn’t a skinny girl like I was but she would have been considered a beauty in those days. I remember her cheeks and lips were plump. Maybe I noticed it because I wanted to look more like her. I don’t know.

I came into the room and I thought her color looked bad like she was sick. The man handed her a document and she started to cry while she read it. She saw me at that point and shouted (in French), “They murdered my Claude!” She fell on her knees and let out this horrifying, guttural scream. I approached her and put my arms around her. I distinctly remember feeling the fabric of her dress in my hand and the way her skin felt when I kissed the side of her face. She was completely rigid and I had to pull her to me because the sound of her crying was difficult to take without trying to pacify her.

The thing that tells me that this was a real past life memory is quite simple: in this present life, I can’t use my hands. I don’t know what the texture of embroidered silk feels like in my hand, nor do I know what curly hair feels like, or another person’s face, or anything like that, yet I experienced those things in the self-hypnosis session as if it was an everyday occurrence. Had it been a flight of fancy or a random dream, I would not have experienced the physical sensations associated with hands because I don’t use my hands at all now. This classifies as evidence of knowledge previously unknown to the person experiencing the past life memory. It is a legitimate form of evidence.

As far as I can surmise, Claude met his end sometime in what’s known as the September Massacres. A lot of other little things pieced together tell me that memory took place close to the end of my life. In September of 1792, I only had about a year left to live. I can’t say it with certainty but I believe Claude was working in or around either Versailles or the Tuileries at the time of his death. I believe hundreds of people were massacred at Versailles on September 9, so that is a contender for the point at which he was killed. My sister spent the last year of her life, as far as I can tell, living like a zombie. I think she wanted to die when her time came, although only she could tell me what was in her mind and heart for certain. I don’t think I knew Claude that well but nobody should have died that way.

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>Defining self-worth: a look into my heart

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When I was a little girl, I was painfully shy. I hated meeting new people because I was so sensitive, easily hurt, self-conscious and I was always afraid of when the next panic attack would strike. Around the age of twelve, my mother sat me down and said, “If you don’t learn to open your mouth and stand up for yourself, people will walk all over you for the rest of your life.” That scared me into forcing myself to be more willing to be out there amongst my peers. At first, I treated it like being an actress. If I acted like I was comfortable around people, eventually maybe I could trick myself into believing it.

In a way, being an actress in the sense of trying to fit in with people backfired because my sensitivity to what they thought of me intensified. That sensitivity is something that I still struggle with today. I still find myself very concerned with pleasing people even at my own expense so they are sure to enjoy my company. The truth is I have some deep-rooted problem with thinking subconsciously that I’m not interesting and I’m not worth keeping as a friend, so if I work extra hard at pleasing people, they won’t want to cast me aside. If you want to get all psychologist on the situation, it probably has a lot to do with my father abandoning me as a child. Everybody tends to blame themselves when they are seemingly dumped at the wayside for no good reason. Approaching my friendships and relationships with fierce loyalty has become my way of ensuring that I won’t get abandoned for no reason again. It still happens occasionally, though, and it wounds me so badly that I put the mask of an actress back on so nobody guesses that I suffer so much. I don’t want to look weak but deep inside, I feel like I am weak if I express hurt or disillusionment over the loss of a friendship or a relationship.

As I’ve gotten older, and now pushing thirty, I have seen the big quandary. I could revert back to my childhood shyness, never stick my neck out there for people and live the rest of my life hiding in the shadows, alone yet safe from being hurt. Or I could put myself out there as I have since my mother’s advice and continue getting hurt by people who don’t take friendships and relationships as seriously as I do. It takes a lot for me to really invest in people and I feel like it’s probably my mistake for thinking people will reciprocate. The rate at which people will lie, stab each other in the back, use each other, gossip, and so forth, makes my head spin and I find it to almost be crippling when I unknowingly let wolves in sheep’s clothing into my life. People close to me make comments sometimes that I’m too sensitive for this world and I expect too much out of humanity. In my mind, qualities like honesty, loyalty, tolerance and generosity should be required in this world or we are all doomed to live selfishly and superficially forever. This is not to say I think I’m perfect. Far from it. I slip and fall at times, but I do try to be the best person I can be. There is a lot to be said for people who try in anything in life.

I notice that in tight-knit communities, whether it’s the living history (reenacting) community, the New Kids on the Block fan community, the paranormal studies community, or whatever, people tend to get more bloodthirsty and cutthroat the closer they are to each other. I don’t quite know why that is, but if someone has any sort of reputation at all — good or bad — they become a target of people who wish they had notoriety of their own or envy something they have or simply beat up on them because of their own insecurities. I see it happen every day and it baffles me at how people can speak so hatefully and throw daggers at people’s hearts.

In my case, I’m well aware of the things people say about me. That’s the thing about gossip and negativity — it eventually gets back to the person you least want to hear about it. The things that do get back to me are so hurtful that I can’t imagine what hateful things don’t get back to me. I don’t even know where people get the things said and assumed about me because 99% of it is absolutely not true and the gossip typically originates with people who don’t know me and never bothered to know me. It used to be so upsetting that I would cry and lose sleep over it because I couldn’t understand why people would do that and I thought I had to find a way to erase it. I thought it was up to me to make sure people knew what were lies and what was truth but I didn’t know how. Once lies are out there, it’s like throwing a stone in a pond. It ripples and ripples and nobody can control it anymore — not even the people who threw the stones. A lie, a piece of gossip, is a very powerful thing. It’s not a game. It messes with people’s lives and causes more anguish than anybody realizes, except maybe the target.

Sometimes I still get upset when I hear about this or that person talking about me. I’m not made of stone. I may act like things don’t bother me but I do feel pain and I’m not an ice queen. Sometimes I want to go on my Twitter account or on my blog and say, “So-and-so is saying such-and-such about me but it’s not true!!!” What good would that do? I would exhaust myself trying to clear my name in these cases and it wouldn’t help anything because at the end of the day, people are going to believe what they want to believe. Unfortunately truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. People are happy living in their distorted worlds. Those of us who are easily hurt and extra sensitive simply have to grin and bear it.

I have spent the whole of my life trying to find a way to be myself while living in a world populated by those who try to get ahead by stomping on and climbing over people like me. There is no easy answer. Nothing really clicked until a friend gave me this piece of advice:

Negativity is none of your business.

Basically, that means the way you react to negativity is a choice. You can lose sleep and cry when people try to tear you down or prove that they don’t value your friendship as much as you thought they did, or you can release it into the universe, remind yourself that it’s not your doing and you are not responsible for the actions of others. My need to be validated, loved and accepted by other people is a flaw that I work on every day. The cold hard truth is not all of my friends will have good intentions. Some will abandon me when they think something better comes along. People I don’t know are going to spread lies and try to make me look bad and I can’t control that. I’m not the only one. Anybody who sticks their neck out there is going to get the same treatment whether it’s right or wrong.

Defining my self-worth has to stop with what other people think of me. I’ve known this for years. Even if my best friends, or people like John Deppen (a living historian I admire), Jonathan Knight (a singer I admire), Diane Monroe Smith (an author I admire), anyone else who inspires me, or any random people on the street all came up to me and said, “Jessica, we hate you. You’re a terrible person,” it doesn’t define my worth as a human being. It would be their hang-up and the negative energy they created. Where does that lead?

Negativity is none of my business.

People who listen to gossip and devalue friendship for the next best thing? They’re making negativity their business, inviting it into their lives and devaluing themselves as human beings. Take my advice and work on eliminating bad energy from your lives. Life is a flicker of time and if you are treating people badly, it’s going to eat at you and reflect back on you when their lives are over or maybe sooner. Being more thoughtful and receptive to the idea that what you put out into the universe comes back to you because one day it will all be over and you don’t want to regret things. I promise you that loving each other and investing positive energy into lifting each other up rather than tearing each other down will bring you more rewards in the end. If people just put a little more energy into things beyond me, me, me, we would all be much better off and happier.

So if I’m working on not defining myself by what other people think of me, how do I define myself?

I’m a woman with a big heart.
I’m a daughter.
I’m a granddaughter.
I’m a niece.
I’m a sister.
I’m a child of God.
I’m a staunch proponent of reincarnation and life after death.
I’m Cherokee, Choctaw and Lakota, and proud of it.
I’m descended from royal families of England, France and Spain.
I’m a loyal and true friend.
I’m a lifelong historian and reenactor of the Civil War.
I’m a Blockhead for life.
I’m an award-winning fine artist.
I’m an author of three books and multiple short stories.
I’m a spiritual intuitive who has helped hundreds of people.
I experience psychic visions when people touch me.
I probably know more about you than you think.
I sing really loud when no one can hear me.
I hate objectifying men but sometimes I can’t help it.
I love laughing about stupid things because life is hard.
I’m fighting my anxiety disorder and winning.
I would never change my quadriplegia.
I’m emotional but good at hiding it.
I feel pain for other people.

Those things define me. No matter what people say about me or what friends might ditch me for empty things, I am all of those things and much more. So are you. We are all beautiful, complex people and it shouldn’t matter what other people think as long as you know what’s true. I lie down at night and I do pray for the grace to forgive people who assume and judge me without knowing me but I never wish harm on them. I know who I am. I know what’s true and what’s not. The distortion of other people’s needs and insecurities can’t hurt me so long as I know I am doing the best I can with my life. I do mourn the loss of people who I thought were close to me though. That can’t be helped.

The next time anyone feels the urge to tear someone else down to pull themselves up, I hope they will one day look in the mirror and ask, “What defines my self-worth?” It’s a harder question to answer than people think.

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