3 year old with a vivid past

[Carol]

It's good to hear from you again! So glad to hear that Steven is doing better. It sounds as if his memories are fading, or he's letting go of the painful feelings and now feels safe.


I just read your other post about your daughter's memories. Now that you're experienced, you can talk to her about them. It's interesting to me that once you started reading the book again her memories were triggered. I talked about that in the first book, and have found that our children really are tuned in to our awareness--on so many different levels.


Both of your children needed good parents this time who could love them, understand them, and keep them safe.


Thanks for sharing your daughter's story too. Please keep us posted on both of your children, and let us know if we can help.

 

[Ukwood]

And then out of nowhere..


It's been ages since I last posted, as it has been very normal in our home. Steven hasn't spoken of his past or mentioned the 'horrible man'.


Just before Christmas we decided that Steven can start using our dinner plates, instead of his Mickey plate, which has a slightly raised side to for easy scooping onto his fork.


I gave him his dinner and he put his lips to the side of the plate and started shovelling his food in his mouth. I told him that was not good manners and to eat properly. He said, ' that's how the horrible man eats' and laughed. I told him off and we had to show him all over again how to use his knife and fork as he kept doing this at each dinner time.


Then he went to school after the new year and came home upset because a teacher had told him off. She just said 'no to him in a stern voice. The nightmares have begun again, he is scared to be in his room alone. We have to keep checking on him every 5 minutes until he falls asleep. Then every other night he is screaming out in his sleep. He is semi awake and he tells me about the horrible man. He is very tearful in the day, as he is having restless nights. It is just awful for him. I make sure I listen and ask him open questions, to get it out of his mind.


I can't wait until he is 7/8 so he can forget. It breaks my heart and I hate him upset. He truly is a happy boy and his teachers comment on how well he does and how happy he is, but when he closes his eyes he is seeing a different world. I wish this would end for him.


What is really annoying, is that after all we have been through with Steven, my husband still doesn't believe any of it and still gives me a look as though I am nuts. I feel very alone in helping Steven at times and I'm am close to tears most night he gets in a state.


I'm taking him to a new treatment called Health Kinesiology. I've had a few sessions, and it is really great. It was developed by a Canadian guy, and seems to be growing in popularity. I will try anything of course to help him. Has anyone tried this?


Since I last posted I had a surprise third baby, and I am intrigued by what he will tell me one day.

 

[tanguerra]

Probably the stress of starting the new school year, with a new teacher, has upset him a bit and brought up feelings of insecurity? Hopefully it will settle down again in a while. He needs to process it. It's a lot to process! Possibly even a word to the teacher about how he hasn't been sleeping too well, and has been feeling a bit fragile, and perhaps go a bit easy on him would be in order (without going into all 'this' of course)?


Maybe get him to do some drawings and then scribble them out or throw them away or something like that, so he can remind himself that that's all finished now would help?


Lots of cuddles of course. Remind him that he's safe now, as often as it takes.

What is really annoying, is that after all we have been through with Steven, my husband still doesn't believe any of it and still gives me a look as though I am nuts. I feel very alone in helping Steven at times and I'm am close to tears most night he gets in a state.

It's hard not to be supported by your partner with something like this. But, you've got us!! We're always here.

 

[argonne1918]

It's hard not to be supported by your partner with something like this. But, you've got us!! We're always here.

Many, if not most, of us here are similar. Thank God for the internet and groups like this one. Back in the 1970s I went to a past life regression workshop in my city put on by Dick Sutphen. There was no advertising. People like me who were on his newsletter and customer list got a letter in the mail announcing this workshop that was held at a local hotel. They expected maybe 50 people. Instead there were about 300! The hotel had to open the partition and use two meeting/banquet rooms. Mr. Sutphen said this happened everywhere he went. Even remote areas like Montana. People were coming out of the woodwork. He was in town doing research at the courthouse and library on one of his own past lives as an outlaw in the late 1800s.

 

[Blueheart]

Then every other night he is screaming out in his sleep. He is semi awake and he tells me about the horrible man. He is very tearful in the day, as he is having restless nights. It is just awful for him.

I may be reading more into this than you wrote, but it sounds as if he is now having night terrors, which is a bit different from nightmares. My middle child had them too. We would find her sitting up in bed, eyes wide open, screaming in mortal terror. She would talk and answer questions, but have no memory of the incident the following morning.


I found they increased on cold nights, when she would pile on the blankets as she was falling asleep. An hour or two later, her body heat would warm up a pocket like a little inferno, and this, I think, was the thing that triggered the terrors for her. It triggered the fight-or-flight response. Pulling a blanket or two off of her when I went to bed seemed to make them less frequent.


If they are terrors, the good news is, they are probably far more difficult for you to listen to, than it is for him to experience, as he will not remember what he is dreaming about. And, here is more good news for you . . . after the terrors, the worst of Emily's waking memories (of drowning) came to a halt. This might be just the final stage of him processing what happened so he can forget and move on. A doctor told me it was best if we did not try to wake her up at these times. To just make sure she is not going to fall out of bed and let her sleep. If you think about it in terms of him processing a past life, it might be best to not disrupt this nighttime "therapy". I know it is easier said than done.


I am sorry your husband does not see it the way you do. That is tough. Congrats on the new baby.

 

[sofiajt]

Dear Ukwood,


I'm sorry things have been tough lately and want to send you at least a virtual hug. Although my daughter is doing much better than when we started on this road, once in a while she'll remember things and wake up with nightmares as well. Just a couple nights ago she was crying inconsolably talking about death and not wanting to see others die... She's just grasping the concept of death so the memories are flooding in.


Blueheart, I find it curious that my little one's nightmares are always worse when she feels hot at night. I have to be very careful about finding a balance between heat and cold to avoid the nightmares. And she can't stand wearing socks at night, that always triggers something for her for some reason.


I don't know if this helps, Ukwood, but I have come to terms that my daughter will always carry her memories with her and will have to deal with them all her life. It's a blessing in disguise, I hope. I don't know much about past lives but I'm hoping that the information helps my daughter become stronger and deal with life's challenges in a more compassionate, wiser manner. One can always hope.


We're here for you if you ever want to chat.


many hugs,


sofia

 

[Ukwood]

Thank you


Thank you for your support and messages. It helps me to know I am not the only person with a little soul going through this.


Blueheart it's interesting you say about the heat at night. I never thought of that. I will try keep it cooler. Steven is an incredibly hot little boy anyway, but in Winter is hotter as he is in Winter pj's and duvet. I will try and reduce the heat. From what you described, he is getting night terrors and wakes up still in a trace sort of state. He doesn't remember in the morning or when he wakes.


Sofia, thank you for your continued advice and support.


Steven has been asking about death a lot recently, and today we had time as he had a hospital appointment. He always gets sad thinking our dog will die one day etc. He spoke about when he died with the horrible man and mentioned all the previous stuff again. But he finds comfort in the fact that he did die before and you come back. So,it does have a silver lining.

 

[Ukwood]

I have not posted here in a while as my son has been generally a content and happy boy. It’s hard to believe that any of the above actually happened until a little glimpse of something comes through every now and again.

Steven is now 7 and has not spoken of his past life for a while. But every so often he becomes very emotional or very withdrawn. It’s not until we delve into why he is behaving like this do we get reminded that his past life is still there in his mind and seems to affect his day to day life even now.

Earlier this year Steven would cry every day when I dropped him off at his class at school. I thought it was just because I was leaving. Then if he was expecting my husband in a room, but saw me he would get all upset and ask where Daddy had gone. And the same would be if I suddenly was in the kitchen but went outside. He would get all upset. On top of all this he was getting stomach aches at night and then in the day at school. He saw a few doctors who diagnosed him with allergies or it was stomach flu. I took him to our Health Kinesiologist as I was desperate to get to the bottom of these stomach aches. We found out that he is absolutely terrified of an adult leaving a room, as he thinks he is going to be taken. So if the teacher unexpectedly leaves the class, or I am not in a room he thinks I am in, Steven gets all worked up resulting in him getting stomach aches. He wants his parents and adults he feels safe with around, so that the horrible man and lady don’t come and get him. We have been working on this all year, and are very careful to let him know where we are around the house. The stomach aches have subsided.

Then last week two incidences which left Steven very worried and upset. He unknowingly dropped his jumper on the ground after school on the way to the car. He was so upset and getting quite beside himself. I explained, that it had his name in and it would go to lost property and that it would be ok. He was scared, I couldn’t say anything that made him feel any better. I asked him what he was scared of and he said he didn’t know, but he was just scared. I asked him if he was scared of me and scared I might get cross with him, he said no.

Then he had his first test ever and got one question correct. He was hiding his homework book from me. He started getting all upset and really emotional and looked terrified when I asked him if I could see his book. I asked him why he was crying, he said he was scared. I asked him what about and he didn’t know, he was just scared that someone would get really mad at him. He was terrified of the consequences. I explained that his sister had the same thing happen and we helped her with reading and she got her test correct. We helped him that evening and the next day he got 100%.

He has always been scared of consequences. We nurture our children and help them develop. We have NEVER hurt our children or given them reason to be scared. He isn’t scared of us, he has this fear in the back of his mind that something will happen to him if…

It’s heart breaking as his parents, as we don’t want him to grow up scared in this lifetime. He has nothing to be scared of, but yet there is that underlying fear that has come through from his past. It is such a shame, because he is the funniest boy in his class. He has lots of friends and was voted most popular. He has such a beautiful personality. I fear this is holding him back.

Has anyone else had any similar experience? Is there anything we can do?

 

[Mere Dreamer]

You can try giving him additional constructive experiences of failure/breaking rules/making mistakes so he can experience the fact that mistakes can happen without horrible consequences. Some of this might be easier when he's older, but here's a variety of options to jump-start your imagination.

I read once about a father who offered to reward his son for breaking some non-essential rule at school because the son was so much of a rule-follower that his father was concerned he wouldn't do the right thing if it was against some rule or other.

Maybe play a game with him, where he purposely tries things he know he isn't good at and then gets points/stars/rewards just for trying something new and experimenting with life. Add even more points for continuing to try again in the face of continued failures. Sit down each time and think with him about what he's learning from each attempt. Take the focus off him and put it on solving the reasons why some things work and some don't. Can he do better next time? Can he control the probabilities? Maybe the results of his "mistake" would actually be useful in some other context. Can he think of one?

Take his bad grade, for instance, you can explain that he can now see what he understands very well (the ones he got right) and what he still needs to learn more about. Ask if he realized anything new from reviewing the test that might help him get those questions right the next time. What has he learned about tests in general? What kinds of information did his teacher focus on?

Show him with something like a coin toss how random events work, then ask him if the coin is wrong if he wants a head and the tail shows up instead. Point out that the tail is just the other side of the same coin, and that without the tail the coin would vanish entirely and there wouldn't be a heads up either. He can keep trying and just count the flips that show the side of the coin he wants to keep until he has as many as he wants.

Talk about how he can find the good side of the things that happen and start a "gratitude journal" where he explains what he is learning from mistakes or experiences that feel negative at first. Ask if he would have learned so much just from everything going right without knowing why.

Have him collect experiences that go right using something symbolic. Maybe write a word on a piece of paper and keep it in a jar. One penny for every positive experience. One rock for every lesson learned, etc. The build up of visible evidence will give him a tangible explanation to cling to for why he doesn't need to live in fear when he's in the midst of a trigger.

Hopefully you can eventually construct a practiced sense of optimism to balance out his fatalistic thought processes and move him from automatic negative reactions to questioning whether something good might be possible, too. It's only a step from imagining good things might be possible to learning to find the good/useful possibility first and taking the opportunities that come with them.

 

[Ukwood]

Thank you very much Mere Dreamer. I will try some of your suggestions. They are very practical and I am sure he would understand at his age.

 

[Wild Rose]

I have not posted here in a while as my son has been generally a content and happy boy. It’s hard to believe that any of the above actually happened until a little glimpse of something comes through every now and again. ...

It’s heart breaking as his parents, as we don’t want him to grow up scared in this lifetime. He has nothing to be scared of, but yet there is that underlying fear that has come through from his past. It is such a shame, because he is the funniest boy in his class. He has lots of friends and was voted most popular. He has such a beautiful personality. I fear this is holding him back.

Has anyone else had any similar experience? Is there anything we can do?

Hello Ukwood, I read the posts about Steven with interest. He sounds a lovely child and you are a very dedicated and loving Mum! I am sure that being so unconditionally loved and actively supported is the most healing experience possible for him after his past life ordeals.

In thinking over his situation I came upon an idea which I thought might prove to be helpful if he were to be triggered again. By that I mean his projecting of his general fear (originating in his past life) upon comparatively harmless people and situations in his present life.

I am just a lay person, so I might not explain this too well, but here goes … There is a healing method called Inner Child Therapy which adults usually undertake to heal psychological problems originating in their childhood (of their present life). I was reflecting that your description of Steven’s behaviour sounds like what a therapist would call having internalised the horrible parents of his past life. (That basically means that they are not physically there but their poisonous behaviour invaded the child’s mind and a kind of “ghost” version of the parent continues to exist within the child’s mind.)

In present lives this happens to many people who grew up having experienced insufficient parenting and although the parents may even be dead, their painful behaviour becomes internalised during childhood and is then often projected upon others into adulthood. You then need the help of a psychotherapist – and possibly one specialising in Inner Child Therapy – in order to free yourself of the internalised parent.

In thinking about Steven, I wondered if something along the lines of Inner Child therapy might help him be able to release those internalised parents and free himself of his fear and sense of powerlessness. There are surely IC therapists who also believe in re-incarnation and I personally can’t see that it really matters in the end if the parents are from another life or this one, because at least the way I understand the therapy, it is the feelings which are still alive within oneself and causing the bother.

I would like to hope that Steven’s awful memories just fade away, but in case he is still sometimes plagued I wanted to pass on my thoughts.

 

[allenn]

Hmm.. that's really sad what your son is going through.. Maybe he is bad dreams..?
Keep talking to him always and make him positive minded.
Hugs and prayers.