Past Lives and Salad

The power of storytelling across existences to know who we are in this one

I’ve been working with a hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner to clear some gunk.

I’ve done hypnotherapy before and it’s always made me nervous.

Not in the way you might think.

I don’t mind going into deep dark places.

But I get nervous about whether I’m going to the “right” deep dark places.

Am I choosing the most relevant memory?

Is it really my subconscious leading, or am I still there, driving?

Am I actually “under”? Am I really hypnotized?

Neurosis is a pain in the ass.

What’s been different this time around is that I don’t doubt or question.

Part of it’s the drop-in. That opening meditation… I’m just theta-ing away in no time. Without effort or questioning who’s driving.

Another part is the question the practitioner asks:

Whether the originating event of the unconscious belief we’re clearing is from before, during, or after my birth.

This has freed me to explore experiences outside of my personal history.

Past lives before this one.

Ancestral timelines where I wasn’t even there —

Some tiny ovarian cell of 7 generations ago holds the genetic memory —

And lets me be an observer.

I don’t really know what I believe about past lives.

Are they…

• Un-wiped memory from our time in the simulation we inhabit?

• Blips into parallel dimensions in the Multiverse?

• The illusion of Time breaking down as we glimpse everything that’s happening concurrently — the past taking its rightful place alongside the present?

• The soul literally going around and around through the revolving doors of Earthly existence, resting in between in some celestial airport terminal?

I’m not attached to one explanation or another.

I only know it feels like a helpful way to understand patterns and beliefs.

Because going back to these moments puts me into a story.

Specifically, the origin story of a behavior, belief, or pattern.

For me, story is everything.

If I can connect the dots and see a reason why, then I have the power to make a different choice.

Was I really there? Chained to a rock, the storyteller of my tribe, tortured until I became the mouthpiece of power?

In an archeological sense, who could ever say for certain?

But that’s not what’s important for me.

What’s important is having an explanation.

An account.

A history. For that’s what the original Greek “history” means… an account of something.

It was never intended to be Truth.

The be-all-and-end-all explanation.

Herodotus’s History was an account of the things he saw in his travels.

And of the stories told to him.

He didn’t take them all literally.

But he gathered and related them so that we could see why things were done certain ways in certain places. The belief behind the behavior.

That, to me, is what past lives offer.

“Ah… no wonder I have a mission in this life of speaking my truth! Because I carry the memory of being a mouthpiece for power. The memory of people being harmed because I used words the wrong way.”

It’s a personal mythology.

Creation stories that explain the unexplainable.

Fables that teach me right and wrong about my own value system.

It’s similar to reading someone else’s story.

A stage apart from you, where a drama is acted out.

You have the distance to see the lesson.

As well as empathy for the players.

The clarity comes when you look away from your own life.

And the insight arises when you look back at your own life and overlay the story —

And suddenly realize how the lesson applies to you.

One past life visit took me to a small village where I was the child of parents who didn’t have enough food and chose not to feed me. Seeing me as a burden.

OK, cool. Definitely explains my anxious-attachment style. ;)

Interestingly, the rest of the village was happy to give me food on the sly. To provide for me. It brought them joy to feed me.

This ties in with an idea I have about myself… That I am doing the magic in the tribe, so my needs should be taken care of.

Like, people should leave baskets of bread and fruit at my doorstep because I’m doing some pretty major energetic shit that is benefitting them all. That’s my role in the division of labor, so where’s my dinner, thank you very much!

This one is weird. It’s a pretty inconvenient belief to have in 2025 living in a suburb rather than a village, doing my work online, giving away my work because I can’t help helping people. And I never seem to figure out the business model for sharing my magic, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep it locked up. It needs to be spread around!

Some part of my mind tells me how ridiculous my belief is.

“That’s not how the world works, Megan!”

And yet… miracles keep arriving to bear out this foundational myth that I am fully supported.

The other day I was standing in my kitchen feeling so strongly that the work I do should feed me. Not because of any skill I have at monetizing it. But because it’s important. And I’m doing it anyway. Choosing to do it for free rather than hold it back.

I opened my refrigerator and pulled out a container of Greek salad. Perfect. Just what I needed for a quick lunch before the rest of a busy day.

But the funny thing was… I hadn’t made this salad.

My neighbor made it and gave it to me.

Here was my village feeding me.

In defiance of what my rational mind says should be true.

In support of my personal mythology and fables.

Telling my own story back to me:

“I am resourced. I am taken care of. I am fed.”

I’m not going to rely on my neighbor feeding me.

Or demand that she do it.

I know God wants me to take action. God wants me to be not only resourced but also resourceful.

But my neighbor does have an uncanny way of dropping by with homemade bread or chicken soup or cookies at exactly the right time. When I don’t have any leftovers and haven’t been grocery shopping, or when having something ready to eat for a quick lunch would make a huge difference in my busy day.

Kind of like the character of the best friend in The Truman Show arriving with a six-pack at all times of the day or night whenever Truman began to explore awkward existential questions that might lead to his discovery that he lived in a simulation.

But instead of showing up to distract me, my neighbor is showing up to remind me.

That I’m loved, supported, cared for, nourished.

Like Socrates’ Daemon telling him to keep going.

A small but not insignificant voice.

A reminder.

An old story.

Being acted out in the past and present simultaneously.

Across all timelines.

Saying, “Listen. Learn. Grow.”