Showing posts with label panic attacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label panic attacks. Show all posts

Panic attacks centered around food and a fear of death

My client, a Canadian woman in her early forties, sought my help for anxiety and panic attacks centered around food and a fear of death since her teens. She experienced feelings of faintness / passing out if she didn't eat her meals on time or made unhealthy food choices. She had struggled with an eating disorder since her teens, in which she became very selective about food and engaged in purging behaviours, which lasted for over a decade.

She had two panic attacks recently, triggered by dehydration. To put her fears to rest, she did a comprehensive cardiovascular testing and was declared healthy but she continued experiencing anxiety. She prioritised keeping fit, eating healthily and working out regularly and experienced panic whenever she felt her body wasn't in optimal condition.
She also wanted to explore her connection with her ex-boss whom she feels strongly linked to. He became emotionally abusive and they had a very tumultuous relationship. She experienced insights into three past lives that were related to her current challenges. In her first session, she saw a past life as a plantation owner in USA in the 1800’s who owned slaves on his farm.


Client: “I see a red shovel, medium-sized, stuck in the dirt. The ground is muddy. I’m by myself. I’m on a produce farm that’s growing carrots. I’m wearing boots, they got stuck in the mud. I’m a guy, dressed like a farmer. I had on brown leather gloves and watch and coveralls. I have a brown felt hat on my head. I’m white skinned. I’m scruffy. I have blonde brown hair, blue eyes. I look dirty.”
Me: “Go to the house where you live.”
Client: “I live in a big white house. It’s really nice looking. I’m thinking about money or profit. How to make more money. I’m angry at the state of my fields. I’m really angry, like I’m a businessman, furious that they messed up my fields, it’s not supposed to look like this. I’m plotting what I’m gonna do to fix this.
Me: “Which country are you in?”
Client: “The US. I’m in the fields. I feel really strong. I’m a big guy with muscle. I don’t want to be messed with. Someone is trying to take advantage of me. The workers didn’t do a good job on the fields.”
I instructed the client to go inside the house.
Client: “It’s very clean. I have to take my muddy stuff off. It’s a really nice house. Kinda like a plantation house. It’s made of white wood. Nicely decorated, like a woman decorated it. I didn’t decorate this. I have a nice desk. I’m some kind of business person.”
Me: “Do you work in the fields?”
Client: “I don’t think I was working, I was just inspecting. I think it’s my fields. I went out there and I was really furious. My wife is in the house. She doesn’t want to come near me ‘cos I’m really angry. I’m slamming my hand on the table.”
Client recognised a worker (slave) there, as her ex-boss in her last job.
“I feel like he’s a slave that works on the plantation and he’s living in the shack. I went over to the shack where he lives. He’s a mischief causer. He wrecked something on the fields. He dug it up wrong and made a mess. I’m gonna lose money. I’m so angry that I want to get him.”
(Client sees in third person POV.)
“He’s mad at this worker and thinking what he wants to do with him. He thinks, “If I go to him, I will probably beat him up.” He picks him up with his hands and threw him against the wall, and the guy yells, “Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”. After beating him up the owner leaves. He doesn’t kill him. There are other people there when he’s beating him. He’s not alone. The male slaves live in the separate building from the women slaves.”
“I think I’m not a good guy. I’m the master of the area / plantation or like a lord. I don’t really care about anything except for money. My slave lost me money.”
“My wife is there and makes the house nice, but she keeps clear of me ‘cos I’m really angry and maybe violent. I don’t care about people, I don’t care about the slaves. I don’t really care about my wife; she’s there and her job is to keep the house nice. I think there are babies in the house. There is someone taking care of the babies but I have no interest in them.”
Me: “What year is it?”
Client: “1800’s.”
Next scene:
“I’m in the town. I’m being honoured as the mayor or something. I was the special person of the town and I feel really prideful. I think I might have done something to get to that role. People are scared of me, because I’m not a nice person but I have a lot of power.”
Me: “What do they address you as?”
Client: “Mayor, and they take their hat off when they see me. I feel like I’ve made it, like this is it. Like I’m at the top. Like this is life, this is success. I don’t even feel like there’s a lack of love. There’s no love but I don’t even care.”
I moved client forward to the end of the life.
Client: “I’m watching my own funeral”.
Me: “What did you die of?”
Client: “It was shortly after I became the mayor. It feels like I was poisoned by my slave, X, as I didn’t kill him earlier. He poisoned me. I was drinking and eating, then I felt a pain in my stomach and died. People are relieved. My wife and people in the house were relieved that I died. X, the slave escaped. I don’t think anyone missed me.”
“This guy, X, has been sneaky the whole time, trying to steal from me. He’s been sneaking around the property. I caught him before. I gave him warnings. I think I almost killed him before. He might have run away before but they brought him back to me.”
“I think his family works there too and I think I might have hurt them, beat them or attacked them or something awful. His whole family are slaves. He was angry at me for that. He was trying to sabotage my business.”
Me: “Do the slaves get any payment or do they just work?“
Client: “They just work, get food and shelter, they don’t get money. They have to work”.
Me: “What do you see at the funeral?”
Client: “The funeral is on a grassy hill. A few business people were there. The slaves weren’t there. My wife and kids were there. They weren’t even crying. No one was crying. I have four children. They’re all little. I don’t even know their names, I don’t think I really cared.”
Me: “Reflecting on the past life that you saw just now, what were the lessons that you learned?”
Client: “It felt like it was a lot of responsibility to have slaves. It was a headache to keep them fed. Looking at it from a third person perspective, that guy was angry at the slave, but the guy didn’t seem unhappy without love. I don’t know if his heart was closed off. He didn’t seem to have feelings at all. He was very much in his head. His life seems very flat. It just seems about money and more and more. There was no sadness, he never felt sad. He felt annoyed by this slave for some reason. He didn’t want to kill the him.”
Me: “How do you feed the slaves?”
Client: “With the food they grow. The slaves grow their own food on the farm. They eat their own food. Wheat, rice or veggies. Maybe some chicken. I didn’t kill him, because he may actually be my son. I might have had him with a slave. I didn’t love him and still treated him like a slave but better than the other slaves. That’s why he was allowed to get away with mischief and I didn’t kill him. He is younger, like a teenager.”
(Client later told me that the man had bright blue, beautiful eyes. And the slave had the same kind of blue eyes, which may indicate that the slave may be the man’s son, despite the difference in skin colour).
I asked client about how that lifetime related to the current life in where she felt the necessity to nourish her body through healthy and timely meals.
Client: “The slaves didn’t get much food, they were starving a lot. I only fed them scraps and small amounts of food. Often, they fainted from not enough food or water. But I didn’t care. I can see one woman out in the fields. She passed out and the other slaves had to take her in. My wife looks out and looks concerned, but I don’t care. They had to eat whatever they were given, but they were often without food. They often passed out. They didn’t panic, they had no choice. It was really horrible for them.”
Me: “They can’t grow food on their own?”
Client: “No, all food is grown on the plantation and they get a very small amount of it. The least amount possible. But enough so they could work.”
Reflection:
It appears that the client's past life and current life share striking similarities, especially regarding feelings of being unloved and grappling with dominance and power dynamics. As a child, she experienced a lack of love from her parents, struggled to connect with others, and hardly had any friends. Even her siblings were afraid of her, as she was mean towards them when she was younger, mirroring traits from her past life.
She found the connection to her ex-boss in the present life, who appeared as a slave in the past life regression. Her past life persona had wielded dominance over the slaves and exhibited traits of anger and violent behaviour when things didn't go as desired. Unresolved dynamics or conflicts from past lives add another layer of complexity to her relationships which explains why her current life relationship was tumultuous.
Was the anxiety and panic attacks a form of karmic consequence? It could be. By mistreating the workers and denying them sufficient food, the plantation owner may have generated negative karma, resulting in anxiety and panic attacks in the current life. In the current life, there was fear of not having enough food/timely meals, as seen in the client's anxiety surrounding food and the need for control over meals.
The client's current struggles with anxiety may serve as an opportunity for healing and growth. I facilitated a healing session at the end, and she realised that she needed to have more love, understanding, and compassion, which was missing from the past life.

Note:
The panic attacks and anxiety which revolved around food in her current life weren’t confined to just one lifetime, as revealed in her second past life regression therapy session. (Part 2 will be shared later).

Talk on Phobias, Panic attacks and Relationship issues

I will be giving a talk on “Phobias, panic attacks and relationship issues - A past life regression perspective” on Saturday, 28 October 2017, 8.30 pm at the invitation of Persatuan Buddhist Hilir Perak, Teluk Intan. 



From Colosseum to Conference Room: Tracing Anxiety from Ancient Battles to Modern Life

For two years, my client, who held a senior position in his company, relied on anxiety medication to cope with anxiety attacks triggered by work-related issues. Gradually, he tapered off the medication but was concerned that there may be a resurgence of anxiety attacks in response to work-related stressors. 

He regressed to ancient Rome and found the connection. 



"My anxiety starts when I face a win-lose situation. 
To me, it is like a life-and-death situation. I’m afraid of losing. 
If I lose, I might lose everything, even my life. 
Anxiety occurs when too many things are beyond my control
and coming at the same time." - Client


Client: “I’m in Rome, in the arena. I am one of the gladiators. There are muscular guys around me. I am holding a knife. I have to walk into the arena. I have to fight with the lions and the other gladiators. There’s a lot of fear in me. I see a lot of blood. There are many spectators at the top. We are in the middle of the rink, at the bottom. Some people are pulling away some dead bodies.”

“I was forced to become a gladiator, I was treated like a slave, thrown into the ring and had to fight for my life. I’m a muscular person, tall, well above six feet, with plenty of muscles…. a very rough guy.”

“I feel like I’m viewing from inside the person’s body. (First person point of view). I look down and I can see chains on my legs and hands. I’m 30+ years old. I’m holding a sword.”

“I’m standing inside the gate, before going into the arena. There is a lot of screaming and cheering from the spectators.”

“I have to fight with the other gladiators. This round I survived. They took me out to a cell where they kept all the prisoners. The condition is very bad. Only once a day, they gave me food, and I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. I’ll probably be killed.”

(I brought client to an earlier time in that life to see how he was put in that situation)

“I’m just walking on the street. There are many merchants on the left and right, a lot of people. Suddenly some army people come from behind me… they just captured me and pulled me away. They put me into a prison together with the others. They are the gladiators whom I will be fighting against later”.

(I brought client to an even earlier time to find out about his life and work)

"I am a sword maker, knocking steel into a sword. Due to my work, I had to use a big hammer to knock at the steel, that’s how I became muscular. The year is 405AD.” 
(I later googled and found that the last gladiator fight is 404AD, but the year he gave me was very close). 

“I lived in a hut. The roof is made of dried grass. The wall is made of clay. There are individual houses clumped together in a neighbourhood. I was staying in the hut alone. I was not married. There's not much furniture, there’s only a bed and stove area.”

(I brought client back to the arena)

"I’m sitting there: tired, hungry and there’s some injuries, some blood on the body. I can hear the noises from the other cells. People are groaning and crying due to injuries.  Someone is in pain, it is a very nasty place to stay, damp and smelly. I can smell a lot of blood in the cells. I’m not seriously injured. There are bruises on my body. I’m wearing just a cloth covering the loin area. I have no shirt on.”

End of life:
“This time I have to fight a much taller guy, a dark-skinned guy. My height is already six feet plus. He is another head taller than me. I have to fight against him. Both of us have a sword. He’s another slave as well. This round I lost. He killed me. His sword went through my body. I lay down on the floor and can see a lot of blood.”

“I can see a lot of rich people, sitting on top there, to them it is just a game."

Reflection:
He realised that his anxiety in the workplace was carried toward from that lifetime as a Roman gladiator. The workplace stressors and workplace conflicts triggered his anxiety attacks, as it was akin to being in battle in the arena, in his past life. He felt as though he was in a life and death situation, and he was afraid of losing, as it may cost him his life. He would also have anxiety attacks when there are many things thrown to him and beyond his control. I did healing via hypnotherapy to help him release those trauma and blockages).