Feeling Like Someone I Reincarnated with is Ruining My Life :)

I doubt this is the case, but I feel like someone I reincarnated with is "ruining" my current life.

I have studied reincarnation. In graduate school was regressed by Brian Weiss. Have also read quite a bit about the subject - no expert, but I do have some background.

So jumping ahead to "my problem" - I am old now. I helped raise a grandchild who turned out to be a very, very serious alcoholic. I did a lot of "good" in raising him - so much to enrich him: body/mind/spirit - he recently said he wished someone had taught him morals! That was one of my main focuses with him!

I have been in a "rescuer" position with him - as he often shows up in bad shape on my doorstep and I haven't been able to turn him away. I have been with him while he has detoxed, several times. He has become abusive during this process.

I haven't been able to turn him away because he is often in need of medical care.

Abraham Hicks says ". . . if you see someone bleeding in the street, you help them." (Paraphrasing.)

My health has been damaged by putting so much energy into him. And he has not been grateful, but often abusive. It has taken me a long time to see this.

So now that I am old and have been involved with him for over 25 years, I feel that he has "ruined my life." I don't see how I could have or would have done anything differently. The only lessons I have learned seemed to be that people can be really cruel and do horrible things to themselves and others. I don't know how important this would be to learn.

I now feel that I cannot stand anymore of him, yet he is young and he comes to me. I don't want to be cruel and I want to do the "right" thing (which has always motivated me).

I was thinking if reincarnation or any of the Feng Shui stuff I have done actually "worked," I "should" be living a charmed life because I have done a LOT of good (not just for him, but for my parents and his mom and others).

Any comments?

I hate feeling like a victim.

Thanks for sharing seek, and welcome to the forum. Although I have not been through what you spoke of, I had a somewhat similar happening with my daughter who complained to me that she wished that I had made her study more and be more interested in her schooling. That was the main problem that we seemed to have while she was in high school where I felt I was doing everything I could to get her to study and be interested in school, it was the basis of all of the problems I remember with her. You can only try to lead them to the the better path, it is up to them to make their decisions.

The "Ruined my life" comment hits me hard in that it is the exact comment my ex-wife expressed; that my disability ruined her life, and she punished me for that for years. My answer to you about that would not be as loving or caring as was my reaction in my first paragraph. The choices that we all make create the experiences that we consider to be "our lives", I think that those feelings arise from unmet expectations that you might want to reconsider. I'm assuming that you consider your grandson to be the cause of your victimization, but I'm wondering if it might be the result of other choices that you have made (along with him) that took on a life of its own.

I don't think we can reach either your age or mine without feelings of having done somethings "wrong", I'm sorry that you feel that you feel victimized. Your mentioning about caring for your daughter and your parents speaks of a loving nature, maybe the grandson is a contrast that is somehow a window of some understanding that you are meant to understand through this experience.

I'd be interested in hearing about your session with Dr. Weiss if you would find the time to write about that and other experiences if you had any.

I hurriedly posted last night before shutting the computer off; whenever I do that, I'm usually sorry for not taking more time to think about my responses.

Your statement about being old and feeling victimized bothers me, I'm a decade older than you and fortunate to have learned that happiness (or unhappiness) does not come from the outside of myself/yourself. It seems to me that your experience is to learn the details of the result of your decisions or something along those lines - if that is so, I wish you luck in your examination and hope that it results in a more pleasant outlook and understanding.

Choosing to rescue someone is an invitation to dependency that is difficult sometimes to grow out of by BOTH parties.

Thank you for your responses. I WANT to learn more about my problem - I don't seem to be making any headway.

What keeps tripping me up is my wanting to "do the right thing," and not being able to determine what that is. I keep hearing Abe Hicks say "If you see someone bleeding in the street, you help them." That one phrase is what keeps getting me. He shows up in bad shape (one time with bloody feet, another drenched from head-to-toe being out in the rain, and always needing medical care). I helped raised this person and felt responsible for him as a child (because his mother was not taking good care of him). He got very sick as an infant and was hospitalized, and I went down on my knees in prayer and told "God" "If you save him, I will always be there for him." I have tried to cut cords, invalidate that contract, etc., yet my problem still persists.

I am aware of the fact that I am "victim," and I don't seem to be able to get out of that role.

What I am getting out of it is a feeling that I am "doing the right thing." But I don't know if I really AM doing the right thing, at all. He has even told me to turn him away next time, yet he shows up to test me!

I have a hard time with my feelings attached to him. I feel such grief and sadness and worry. I can't believe at my age I am going through this! It seems "unfair" (I realize that is childish.)

I am supporting him now (rent and food) in a sober house. I have been supporting him on and off, for years. He is young, so I thought he was growing up or would "get it."

I don't think I am going to be able to work through this in this lifetime. It is killing me.

On the Brian Weiss experience - it was underwhelming for me. It was a one day intensive in graduate school. He did a group regression (with partners, as I recall), and I recalled a life where I was some kind of pioneer woman. It wasn't enlightening, unfortunately. I actually felt it was a waste of time to go back to a life when I could be living my current life. That was my conscious thought, like: "What is the point of this?"

Welcome to the forum seek.

I have two anecdotes for you.

The first is about myself. As a teen and young adult I was an excessive whiskey drinker who had been pushed over the edge of my sanity by a sociopath. I had a hard life. Eventually people got sick of trying to help me. I was alone with no help and spent four and a half years homeless. Being abandoned by everyone was the best thing that ever happened to me. It meant I was confronted with myself. I had to grow up and get over my childhood. I stopped drinking whiskey, I held down a steady job and made a home for myself. Then everyone came back into my life when I was ready to be a man.

My second anecdote is about my younger brother who was also wayward in another way. I used tough love on him in an effort to get him to sort himself out. Unlike with me and my life it didn't work. He committed suicide in 2007.

What I am saying is that there is a very fine line between helping and enabling and if you choose tough love it might be the best thing you ever do for him or it might be the worst. One can only worry about there own self however. Whatever you choose will be a hard road and as you know, things could become positive or negative. Its depends on the strength and fortitude of your grandson.

My advice is to do what's best for you and be aware if you ever cross the line of enabling. If you do cross that line you won't be helping in my experience. Sometimes men must be left to grow up.

I don't envy you your situation and I wish you well whatever the decision you make.

Thanks for your response. It is very wise, and yes, I have jumped into the "enabling" camp by mistake a few times. That had to do with my naivete' (I believe) or denial - not understanding what I was dealing with and wanting to "help." Also, since he is young, I had been in the role of "taking care of him," so continued that - and he seemed to "need" it (my assessment that a drunk person cannot take care of themselves). I saw him as "disabled" in that way.

I know I have to come to terms with the fact that his life or death is not up to me (somehow, if you turn someone away and something "bad" happens to them, you would blame yourself because you assume that if you had just helped out "one more time" they would still be on the Earth . . . but you can never know). And this makes me angry to think that the person would put that kind of burden on someone else. I wonder, from a reincarnation standpoint, what they are really doing . . . and why I would agree to a contract with someone who would do that. When I said "ruining my life," I am not exaggerating (and yet, I know my life is my responsibility).

I just feel he has played a huge joke on me - a lovely child, whom I adored with all of my heart and soul - and gave everything I could give of myself and my resources to - who would make choices that hurt himself and family, over and over again - knowing that people were hurt by his actions - I just cannot comprehend that at all. I guess, underlying it is his idea that his life is his to do with as he wishes and the rest of us can just make do with whatever. I honestly don't know what he thinks.

Looking for the lesson for myself that does not end up on the solely bitter side. My health has been compromised. I could "go" now and be glad to find out what the suffering was all about. There doesn't seem to be any good purpose for it, that I can make out.

I hate feeling like a victim, but when you love someone who hurts themselves, what is the alternative?

Jim - congratulations on turning yourself around. You must be very strong to have survived on the streets for four years and to have dug yourself out of that situation.

Thank you. It was a hard road but such is life seek.

There's no need for you to be naive about alcoholism. I don't know how much literature you've read on it but this book literally saved my life:

https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous

Whether or not your grandson is open to reading it I don't know, some people have a problem with God. But the Big Book should give you more of an idea of the alcoholic mindset from first hand experience. There are also open AA meetings where a family member can attend and listen to people sharing their experiences. There should be a list for your local area. Knowledge is power after all.

I don't know why people contract to be tormented but I know from my own experience that my torments taught me about the nature of war and evil. Its changed my perspective. Maybe someday you will gain perspective on your own personal trials.

Seek, I'm coming more from a "I came back and got married to someone who had murdered me in a previous life because I thought I could help him become a good person," perspective. How can I put this. I was so certain that I could bring out the good I saw in him that I took it into the next life/lives as well. In the end, I realized that it was just a reverse motive that ended up being the exact same action as the manipulation and deception I so despised in him.

I think what I learned might be useful to you. I'm trying to think how to present it clearly ...

I wasn't doing my ex any favors by seeing his potential. I was letting him practice his worst habits on me. Of course he became better and better at being the worst of himself as a result! What we practice becomes more natural and easier to do with time. By staying I wasn't saying, "I trust you to change," like I thought. In his language, by staying with him I was saying, "Here, keep practicing your worst habits on me. I'll support you!"

I was deluding myself with my own good intentions. I may have been lying to myself in hope of eventually reaching an outcome where he was the amazing person I thought he could be, but by doing so those lies undercut my whole life. He couldn't trust me in turn because he knew that every action I took in regard to him was constructed on the myth that he wanted to change and be this ideal person I so hoped he would be.

So ... it was easier for him to willingly help me maintain that myth by lying to me so I would stay. He didn't want to change. He didn't NEED to change. After all, it was more convenient for him to have a delusional partner who would let him do anything and get away with it than to have to figure out how to be human on his own. I was angry because he expected me to fit his perfect dream life and I hated how he became abusive when I didn't, but I was doing the same thing ... only manipulating with "kindness and acceptance" instead ... which isn't any better when you get down to the fact that it was all manipulation based on getting what I wanted (which he didn't have to offer).

I started with a "love sacrifices for the good of others" viewpoint. And that is true, but we also can't attempt to replace each other's souls (will) with our own without sabotaging ourselves in the process. We all have our own connection to the source of life. Attempting to sustain someone else not only bleeds us dry, it prevents that person from realizing they don't have to depend on others as the source of life. It's like blood. Nobody has enough to sustain two bodies/lives. Trying to live that way just leads to both individuals eventually dying. It's one thing to give blood during a rare emergency, but that doesn't work as a constant solution to an open wound that never gets repaired ... and it doesn't work when it comes to free will either. The wound must be mended. They need to create their own blood as soon as possible. That's just reality.

Not only that, but the vampire myth does have a certain truth to it. When we allow others to feed off us, it's unhealthy. We become enslaved to them by the active and continued choice of allowing them to feed.

Our own ability to sacrifice constructively is limited by how spirit and will function in this world.

Our task is to wake people up to rely on their own link to the universe, and we can't "do it" for them ... but only demonstrate how it is done. It can become a habit to feed off others instead of learning to recognize and open their own rarely accessed channel. They won't need to learn how their channel is capable of sustaining them until they are forced to rely on it. This is where the "rising up after hitting rock bottom" life pattern starts.

Love isn't just "love" as if it was some standalone quality that functions independently of many other things. It helped me to finally sit down and break my idealization of love into pieces to see what all I was mushing together under that word.

• Goodwill/Support - a generous desire to see someone have the best life possible. I think this attitude is always possible both up close and from a distance, but it's easy to want to be a part of making that happen for someone, and when we get too actively involved it can become a take-over of their free will in a way. "You WILL have a good life, and I know what's good for you so I'll just push you as much as it takes to make it happen."
  
  It really is possible to say, "I want the best for you, so the very moment you pour all your energy into improving your own life I will be there to supplement just enough to make it possible when you're straining to reach your goal." People need to lift their own weights to become strong. We're just there to spot for them and catch the bar if it's about to land on their face while they're working hard to grow. Taking their weights away doesn't help.
  
  
• Respect - this is both seeing the good in someone and also an acknowledgement of where they actually are in life. It took me a long time to see that trying to push anyone into "actually demonstrating what they are capable of" is disrespect, not respect. It's fine to see it and to constantly remain positive that "you could be so much more." That's encouraging as long as you also accept where they are. "Okay, so you failed. I'm sure if you keep trying you have the capacity to succeed at this."
  
  Expectation is like saying, "I have this ideal mental image of your capacity. I will pretend to myself that you're really this ideal person and continue to be shocked when you're not." It doesn't feel at all kind or loving to be on the receiving end of those "positive assumptions." In the end it comes across as "I'll keep pretending this false projection of you is real so I can love it instead. You can pretend it's you and be grateful." This is almost never the actual intention, but clinging too tightly to expectations ends with manipulating others to live up to them.
  
  
• Appreciation - Again, this is always a wonderful gift when it comes to love. Genuinely appreciating someone for who they are makes them feel safe. However, "I love imagining how good things could be if you just changed," is merely an alternate universe idealization, not appreciation. "I'm genuinely glad you're still alive, and I will always be cheering you on as you figure out how you get out of this hole you dug for yourself," is way more honest than constantly trying to cover the hole while they're still in there digging.
  
  
• Trust - really is earned, and to push yourself to believe an established pattern will suddenly shift doesn't come across as genuine to the other person. They will not feel trusted, and will begin to mistrust you for lying to yourself (and therefore them) about it. But I've learned to sort trust by categories, and to allow myself to trust certain negative aspects just as I do positive. "I trust you to drop everything and come give me a hug when I'm depressed," is exactly the same mental state as, "I trust you to never remember to bring cake to a party even when you are unrealistic enough to promise you will."
  
  You can always trust someone to be who they are. You just have to truly accept who they are first. Once you do, you know when to rely on their promises and when to disbelieve their optimistic assessments of themselves. This also frees trust from emotion enough that the moment you see a consistent pattern of actively working on their habits in order to change, you can raise your trust level in that area according to how consistently those new habits show up without any reminder or supervision.
  
  
• Hope is never based on the other person, from what I can see. It's always directed toward the universe. If hope is filtered through a realistic understanding of human nature it doesn't lead to false beliefs or overextending yourself in pointless effort to force hope to become reality. Hope isn't focused on other's choices. It's focused on recognizing that the universe always ensures there are positive options in existence should anyone choose to claim them.

It isn't a joke to observe both light and shadow in a single individual. It's not a trick. That's just human. He is the lovely child you want to see fly. He is the man who has yet to learn he has incredible resources within to help him thrive in life.

Maybe fully accepting not only him, but where he is in life will result in different choices on your part. Maybe separating the concept of loving him from sustaining him will help you realize there are ways to love even more wholeheartedly than you do now. I can't predict what the end result will look like, but when you find it I think you'll discover there is far less resentment there. You'll feel free to love without being trapped in the process.

Your life is YOURS. His life is HIS. You are both responsible for your own contributions and how you invest your gifts in this lifetime.

Remember. Your only "task" is to show him what it looks like to fully connect to source and trust the universe to give you opportunities to demonstrate the best of yourself so he can find his own way to that same state of being if he chooses to do so.

I hope this helps. A lot of it is difficult to explain without going off into my own, internal illustrations that might not make sense to others. I had to work through so much of this in order to free myself from the cage I had allowed myself to believe had the power to contain me. I was always the key to my own freedom. I just had to learn how to own the truth. You can, too. And so can he. It is always up to each of us to realize this in every single lifetime.

Thank you everyone. The responses are meaty. I am going to have to come back and study them (in the middle of something else right now). I so appreciate those who have taken time to try to school me. I know, 100% that I chose this - I just can't see, in my present consciousness, what "good" I am learning. I hope to gain some insight, and I feel hopeful that your responses will assist me.

Here are two things that happened not too long ago - which exemplify my dilemma: 1) He was "missing" for a few days. I actually filed a "missing person's report." I have an empathic connection to him and can feel when he is in trouble. This is problematic for me. Anyway, as I came home from filing that report, he was sitting in a chair in my backyard, in a stupor. He had to go to the hospital and had the beginnings of a very serious condition that in the past led to kidney failure. 2) Just a couple of weeks after this, after I had helped him detox, he told some major lies and ran off and did his "thing" again. I locked my front gates. I got a text from him asking if he could stop by and get some clothes (which I knew was a manipulation to get into my house) and I ran outside to go down to the basement to pack a bag for him (which I was going to leave outside) and RAN INTO HIM in my backyard. He had jumped the fence.

Here is my dilemma: If he gets onto my property and I SEE him, there is no way I can turn him away - because he is severely intoxicated and speaks of jumping off cliffs, etc. He could easily get hit by a car - and he has that propensity to get kidney failure. If I HEAR that he has relapsed, I can keep my boundaries, but as soon as I SEE him, and he comes onto my property, I can't turn him away. AND when I take him in, then I have to care for him and help him detox and he gets violent around days 3 and 4.

So my problem is around "doing the right thing." If there was a god who could come down and tell me: "Just let him go and let him get hit by a car or whatever - that is the best for him," then I might be able to do it - but as it is, Abraham Hicks specifically says (related to an alcoholic or drug addict): "If you see someone bleeding in the street, you help them." So I feel a moral duty to help.

Also, how could I let him go in bad shape and go on living my life and not know what happens to him? I can't fathom that.

I am familiar with the Big Book and AA and Alanon - thanks for the suggestion.

I hope I can gain some understanding that might help me figure out what is in this for me.

I raised him as a child, and you do everything you can to assure a child will live, so it is counter-intuitive to turn someone away to die.

Oh, and I have a problem connecting to "source." Ha Ha

seek said:

I can't turn him away. AND when I take him in, then I have to care for him

Click to expand...

Instead of "I can't turn him away" it might help to say "I choose not to turn him away" and instead of "I have to care for him" you're actually dealing with "I believe I should, so I choose to care for him." It's hard to see alternative options when you assess a situation in a way that excludes everything other than the current pattern of response.

I'm not sure where you are in the world, but in many places there are services where if someone is threatening suicide you can turn them over to professionals to get help.

I'd also suggest joining a support group for people dealing with addicts in the family. Or, at the very least, find a counselor where you can vent about the stress you're going through. There might be resources and methods you haven't tried, and (even if you've tried everything) finding a community of people to support and advise you will give you strength to endure until you find a solution you can live with.

There are no free services in my area.

And yes, I know I am choosing to respond.

I want to get back to the reincarnation theme - not the practical, worldly problem.

Thanks

seek, I was just thinking about something that might interest you. I've read quite a bit about NDE experiences, none of them report "happiness" on the other side of the veil. I thought about that a bit and came to the point of questioning if indeed emotion is one of the main reasons we incarnate. NDE reports speak of peace and love, but no negative experiences beyond their life review. I had not thought of that before.

The other thing I thought of concerning your posts is your adherence to Ms. Hicks pronouncements, why do you take them so seriously?

KenJ: Not sure what you are saying , re: NDE's and no emotion and reincarnating to feel emotion?

On the Abe Hicks quote: That particular quote presented me with a moral dilemma. They were referring to someone who was dealing with an alcoholic/addict . . . it resonated and I have not been able to reconcile my wish to not be involved with their dictate (and my experience) that you are obliged to help those who show up on your doorstep in bad shape.

I'm sorry seek, my post was a little strange. My feelings were that you seemed to be experiencing "unhappiness" and it recently occurred to me that happiness and sorrow were feelings (like fear and hatred) that seem not to exist without our "human" existence. Just another view of those feelings and possible need for the experience - and how to deal with them perhaps.

Thank you, KenJ . . . I am not "unhappy" as much as frustrated and feeling like a victim, as I can't control him, yet, I haven't been able to keep him away from my house. There are many incidents - the first one, he took a bus from a distance and landed on my doorstep at almost midnight. I was not expecting him and had no experience with detoxing anyone.

Then there was the time he showed up with bloody feet (walking miles and miles) and then drenched to the bone. All of the times intoxicated, so my perception was that he needed "help" in the moment. I didn't know it would become a pattern and go on and on.

At the core of this for me seems to be putting him before me. In a life or death situation, I put him first because his issues are "urgent." My ill-health related to him is more subtle and less dramatic.

I am old though, and he is young, so I have to find a way to deal with this.

I think my lessons might have something to do with self-love and self-esteem and thinking I "deserve" to have peace (a relative told me I did not "deserve" something and it had a bad effect on me).

But then the Dalai Lama says the purpose of life is ". . . to help others, and if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them." That's another spiritual directive which leads me to put him before me.

I need help to see my blind-spots so I can transcend the Victim mentality I have going on. Part of my "story" is that I have been "tricked" somehow. I helped raise him and did every good thing I could to protect him and enhance his life - and it has been a lot. As he displayed the alcoholism, I did not comprehend the extent or severity of it. I have helped him detox more than eight times - each because he showed up on my doorstep and I thought that since he wanted to stop I should support him in that. He is still young (mid-twenties), so my theory is that he has arrested development and was drunk and unconscious for much of the past few years so needs time to heal and grow up.

I feel tricked in that nothing I did seemed to have any positive effect on him. And that does not feel good, because I did a lot - everything I could do. If parents thought that nothing they did or said could affect their kids, then parenting would really change.

And I have been scapegoated by my family for hanging in there, so I have been alienated for what I perceive as being loyal and loving.

I am angry and resentful now and feel lonely too.

I have two points:

You cannot heal others if you are bleeding out yourself. If this is taking too much out of you, it may be better for all parties involved if you take some time off to reassess and to take care of yourself.

Not every lesson you take from a lifetime is a positive/correct one. I did an audio regression once which asked me at the end what lesson I took from that lifetime and immediately responded, "If you become famous, they will kill you." Clearly, this is not a correct piece of information, and my subconscious was holding onto a bad lesson I had taken from unnecessary suffering.

Thank you, Spirit Sword. I was having some serious depression. Underneath depression is always something else - I had a lot of unprocessed grief and sadness, and then anger and resentment - it all felt awful. I finally seem to have processed some layers and am feeling better. I learned some things about my wanting this person to change so I will feel better. I realize that not only is that impossible (which I thought I already knew on some level, but obviously didn't), but that I COULD have a voice (which I had been withholding for fear of hurting him or it "not being the right time." I realized that I don't have to say everything I would LIKE to say (LOVE to say), but that I can still express myself a little bit and not accept unacceptable behavior AND not have some expectations I was having (that seem unreasonable to me now - given where he is in his life).

So, in answer to your first point, yes, I REALLY need to take care of myself - love myself, put myself first. Thank you.

In regards to your second point, I would like some clarification. I understand you think you drew a wrong conclusion - isn't that something we will realize on the other side? I don't expect to "get it" on this side, regression or not. And what do you mean about "unnecessary suffering?" I would like to know so as to avoid it myself, if possible!

I tend to get myself into bad situations and not ask for help before it is too late. Or I make an enemy of someone by standing firmly on what I believe to be the right side and expecting them to come around only for them to run me through. And since I was trying to be self-sufficient or stand up for my morals, I do not think that I processed it properly as mistakes on my side. I've been falling into these same dangerous behaviors for hundreds of years and assigning blame to others and situations instead of picking up behaviors which are not ideal, but are necessary for working well within human society.

Negative patterns and lessons can still be encoded. That is why a lot of people seek out regression therapy: it is a way to find the bad subconscious thought processes and physical/mental ailments and root them out at their source.

Long story short: you have to be careful about what lessons you might be teaching yourself. If you say there is nothing you can do and this situation is making you a victim, then you will train yourself to think that even more so in the future. I doubt anyone purposefully puts incorrect lessons into their life plans, but they can pop up.