Dying To Be With You

By Tonya Swan

Certified Life Between Lives® Facilitator, USA 

Benjamin came to me because he wanted to try hypnosis to regain his violin skills. After talking to him for a short while, it became clear that he was incredibly sad. Eventually he opened up to me about what was going on. He had loved someone all his life; her name was Kari, and they had been in a relationship that had ended 52 years prior.  She was now ill and dying of cancer. He was still deeply in love with her, and she was with him. A few months later, she died leaving him devastated and wanting to die to be with her.

This is what he told me about his love for her: I remember our first kiss, which was at the movies on our second date; a warm summer Friday night on July 12, 1968. I remember our first dance, and although it wasn’t my first time, I remember our first time. I don’t remember the first kiss, the first dance or the first time with anyone else. But I do her. I have always been able to sense her, and she me. It’s been so lonely without her.

Weeks before she passed, she said; “I never stopped loving you. I never understood why I couldn’t come back to the one person who treated me better than anyone else, to the one person I’ve loved all my life. I never understood I was all you ever had”. And I responded, “And you were all I ever wanted”.

He felt she was his soulmate and his reason for being. Even though they kept in contact over the many years, they never succeeded in getting back together, and eventually they both married other people. The cause of Benjamin’s sadness was not so much that they could not get together as a couple in this life, but that she died, leaving him here alone and causing him to lose his desire to live.

I explained to him that a body may die but the soul lives on forever. After suggesting a few books for him to read, I encouraged him to learn to connect with her spiritually so he could be with her energetically instead of dying, which would not be in his highest good. He agreed and we began the journey of spiritual regression.

In the first session he did not go to a past life, as was intended, but went straight into the spirit realm. He said: I went straight to what she called “Source,” which is where souls reside between incarnations. This was extraordinarily vivid, with detail and color unlike anything experienced on earth. I was in deep space, traveling along with a helix which held spheres of glowing light, something like pearls that were lit from within. It seemed like these were souls. As the time for the session concluded, I found myself approaching a nebula of brilliant colors. As I got closer still, there were faint partial outlines of faces in silhouette, formed in vivid golds. For the first time in a very long time, I felt an emotion; LOVE. I was home!

He then met with his Council, and Kari was there with him. He was ecstatic to be in her presence. I explained that one usually goes to the Council alone, but he refused to go without her. They quickly found themselves on a train watching the scenery go by. He felt it was a metaphor for movement or a journey.

As they stood in the train car, Kari was invited to sit down next to a woman who continued to change her appearance. Across from her was what looked like an ancient Chinese sage and an Edwardian gentleman. These were Benjamin’s Council members. They were busy trading creative insults at each other, and occasionally insulting Benjamin who was still standing in the doorway of the train car. Then they turned their attention to him, sending him a feeling of recognition and welcome. Benjamin was laughing so hard at their behavior, he could not contain himself. He just loved how clever their bantering was.

The sage was dressed in tattered rags and had a long scraggly beard that reminded Benjamin of a billy goat, which is what he called him. Billy Goat was his guide’s name from that point on. The Council shared a few general things about his life. They were quite pleased with his progress. They made him aware that he had planned a difficult life. Then we moved on.

We generally explored the spirit realm for a time then returned from the session and had a chat about what he had experienced. Being in that realm of love and light had a profound effect on Benjamin, and he said he felt hope in his heart which he had not felt for a very long time.

The next session he found himself with his beloved, Kari, this time in a recent past life. In this life she was called Light Dances on Water, a name she has retained to this day. In fact, she recently asked him not to call her Kari because it was not who she was anymore, and because it brought up bad memories for him.

Benjamin recounts: The second session, about 10 days later, brought me to what I think are the fjords of northern British Columbia. My sense was it was many centuries ago. As before I witnessed vivid colors, and detail far beyond what human vision can render.

I was in a kayak, and behind me, to my overwhelming joy…. was her! (Kari) I could not see her, but her voice was the same. The energy was the same, and her personality was the same! The warmth and love were beyond measure, and even better was yet to come. She and I were older, and still deeply, passionately in love after a lifetime together. I was struggling not to fall into tears at the joy of being with her.

As I moved back in time, I saw our cabin. Our home was exquisitely beautiful; Heaven, glowing with a soft warm firelight, and overflowing with love.

Then I was moved forward to a time where I was alone. My beloved was no longer there. The once warm cabin was lit by a single flickering and dying candle flame. It was here that I was hit by a tidal wave of grief so profound that all I could do was sob in agony. 

There was nothing here but cold… and loneliness without relief that all hope of happiness and love was gone… forever. And there was only one reason for this unending agony; she was gone. I was overwhelmed with the shock of losing her and filled with the grief of profound hopeless loneliness.

The fire that once warmed the cabin grew faint, and then fainter still, and then dark. Everything became cold, and colder still. It was she who was the source of all warmth and all love, and now she was gone. And there was nothing but emptiness… and cold. I fell into a bitter misery of unending, merciless hopelessness. I wept in the chair.

I then moved forward to my own passing in that lifetime, my death along with the release of grief. I rose into the night sky, my body lying on the earth somewhere below me in the forest. I felt my joy at leaving, of leaving all that pain, all that crushing loneliness there too. As I moved upward my sense was that she was out there somewhere waiting. She wasn’t far, and I wanted to go there. I desperately wanted to go to where she was.

Very soon after passing, his beloved Kari came to speak to him in spirit. Their reunion was joyous and beautiful. There was so much love between them it was breathtaking to behold. After they had their time together, she got right to the point of her concern. She was loving but stern as she communicated to him: You have much more to do in this life. You need to stop this idea of dying and get on with living. Find something to do with your life. You have so much more to give. 

She also explained to him that they were not meant to be together in their present lifetime. They had agreed to be apart to experience life on their own. This was for their soul’s growth, she continued. They had been together in many lives but this one they decided to experience being apart. It had been excruciatingly painful for both of them, but they kept to the agreement they made before embodying.

They had been engaged when she left Benjamin in his present lifetime. At the end of the last session, she came to him, saying, Wait until you see my new wedding dress. It’s white and it’s lace and it’s beautiful. ‘The dress and I are for you”. She repeated the message again indicating that they would be waiting for him when his life was over. As Benjamin reported this, I could feel the love radiating from the two of them. It was so strong it was almost physical. It was one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed as an LBL facilitator.

That information created a profound change in Benjamin. He came out of the session a man with renewed purpose through a deeper understanding of why this was happening to him. He gained an acceptance of his situation through understanding that being apart in this life was something he had agreed to before coming to earth this time and that it was for his growth. He was excited that there was an opportunity for him to connect in a new way and deepen his relationship with Kari. This made us all extremely happy: Benjamin, his beloved Kari and me too. It was the beginning of a new life for him.

Later, as we discussed it, he said he thought about what he might like to do and decided he wanted to study hypnotherapy. Not long after the sessions, he went to Hypnotherapy school and eventually began working in the field. He now has a practice helping other people in the way he was helped. He is very happy and fulfilled in his life now. Of course, he still cannot wait to get home to his beloved Kari, but he will do as much as he can here to help others until then.

Benjamin learned things that transformed his life in many core ways. Because of what he learned in his spiritual regression sessions, he has gone on to live a healthy productive life and fully embrace his lesson of making it on his own. His beloved is always close by, and they communicate regularly in a spiritual way. This has given him the closeness he felt he was losing at her death. In a sense they still talk on the phone just like they did all their lives, and it gives him great comfort to be able to be close to her still.

I have seen this many other times when people do whatever they need to do to connect with their loved ones spiritually. It is always such a relief for them to know they do not have to die to be together but are always together spiritually.

I’m ending with a quote by Benjamin: I have loved you many times, in many lives, and as this life comes to a close, I will love thee better after death. I can’t wait to be in your arms again.