What we "see" inside ourselves and what we project out - What others see

[Tex]

I was an American paratrooper during WWII. Born in 1926, died September 1944. A private.
I did match in my current life lot of stuff done during the same period of time, at the same age during the 30's and 40's (including parachuting at age 17/18 as a civvie this time). I quit the activity at the same age I got killed near Eindhoven in ´44 (almost exactly the same age, month and day). Most of my friends were in the army as officers and NCO's in the 80's. I did not have any particular reaction from people in the barracks back then. In the last ten or fifteen years I realize something different happens. As I said, I never being in the armed forces during my current lifetime. I´m not much involved with the Army or Air Force now, but once in a while happens to me to visit some friends in uniform at their bases (or sons of my friends, officers them too). Strangely, lot of people give me military salute in those places. A few weeks ago, it happens that I went to the Navy base to visit an arriving officer. At least eight people, from all ranks, saluted me in that way. I payed attention if that was a norm to other visitors at that base, but no one received that treatment. The captain of the ship I was visiting, approach to me and present himself (never seen that high officer in my life) with a salute, identifying himself with name and rank. My friends, beside, stared at me for that situation. It is something I can't logically explain.
My question is (as this thread title) What we can see inside ourselves, and what other people can see (or what we "project" to others)?
It seems to me that we walk around this world with a tag applied to our forehead. Something we are unable to read, but it is the first thing others can "see" or sense.
When you are in a friendly environment, this can be just a tag. In other not so friendly places, this could be a curse.

 

[There and back again]

Safe to say that spirit always knows and we go through the hum drum of daily life without giving it much notice if any thought until it gets brought to our attention.

 

[Speedwell]

What others see and interpret about us may be insightful, but it may also be a wild guess and completely incorrect. One incident, many years ago, I was getting into meditation and was trying to meditate as I walked. I overheard a comment from one passer-by to another "he thinks he's John Wayne" which was very far from what I was feeling. Another time, I'd been quite ill for a few days and eventually had to drag myself out to the nearby shops to get some food. It was a desperate struggle and I walked very slowly, feeling terribly unwell. As I passed a group of young guys hanging around on a street corner, I heard one say quite loudly "wow, give me some of what he's on, man!" - assuming I was on some sort of drug trip. Things are not always what they seem.

Having said that, the original post from @Tex may be on to something. We do definitely carry with us much of our self from who we used to be. However, if we imagine a future life, we may be then bringing our 2022 self into that life. So who are we really?

 

[melon04]

I was an American paratrooper during WWII. Born in 1926, died September 1944. A private.
I did match in my current life lot of stuff done during the same period of time, at the same age during the 30's and 40's (including parachuting at age 17/18 as a civvie this time). I quit the activity at the same age I got killed near Eindhoven in ´44 (almost exactly the same age, month and day). Most of my friends were in the army as officers and NCO's in the 80's. I did not have any particular reaction from people in the barracks back then. In the last ten or fifteen years I realize something different happens. As I said, I never being in the armed forces during my current lifetime. I´m not much involved with the Army or Air Force now, but once in a while happens to me to visit some friends in uniform at their bases (or sons of my friends, officers them too). Strangely, lot of people give me military salute in those places. A few weeks ago, it happens that I went to the Navy base to visit an arriving officer. At least eight people, from all ranks, saluted me in that way. I payed attention if that was a norm to other visitors at that base, but no one received that treatment. The captain of the ship I was visiting, approach to me and present himself (never seen that high officer in my life) with a salute, identifying himself with name and rank. My friends, beside, stared at me for that situation. It is something I can't logically explain.
My question is (as this thread title) What we can see inside ourselves, and what other people can see (or what we "project" to others)?
It seems to me that we walk around this world with a tag applied to our forehead. Something we are unable to read, but it is the first thing others can "see" or sense.
When you are in a friendly environment, this can be just a tag. In other not so friendly places, this could be a curse.

Wow that's an interesting past life! Did you have any prior interest in WWII even before doing the regression?

 

[Tex]

Wow that's an interesting past life! Did you have any prior interest in WWII even before doing the regression?

Sorry for my late answer. I'm not visiting the forum lately.
Yes, of course. My first interest in life (since I have consciousness) was WWII related history, in the very early 70's.
I start jumping from airplanes at 17 (in the early 80s) and that is just the tip of the iceberg... here you can read more about this:
https://reincarnationforum.com/threads/how-past-life-can-shape-your-life.3498/ and the replays under that thread.

 

[Tex]

What others see and interpret about us may be insightful, but it may also be a wild guess and completely incorrect. One incident, many years ago, I was getting into meditation and was trying to meditate as I walked. I overheard a comment from one passer-by to another "he thinks he's John Wayne" which was very far from what I was feeling. Another time, I'd been quite ill for a few days and eventually had to drag myself out to the nearby shops to get some food. It was a desperate struggle and I walked very slowly, feeling terribly unwell. As I passed a group of young guys hanging around on a street corner, I heard one say quite loudly "wow, give me some of what he's on, man!" - assuming I was on some sort of drug trip. Things are not always what they seem.

Having said that, the original post from @Tex may be on to something. We do definitely carry with us much of our self from who we used to be. However, if we imagine a future life, we may be then bringing our 2022 self into that life. So who are we really?

Probably we are the sum of ALL our experiences, learnings and times. Life is a very interesting sandbox. Sometimes we can build, sometimes we fall, we can get hurt too (physically, and also spiritually), but we always learn. Learn also to heal (ourselves and myself regarding my own past experiences). When I was a teen, I use to take "long distance approach" to people I use to "sense" as "foes" (regarding what they "projected"). Now, lot of years later, I understood that we are here to learn, to evolve. Even if most of my friends in this present are related very positively to that experience in the 40s and before, one of my best friend now, was a German soldier in the Eastern Front during WWII (he died there). I'm still learning. We have the opportunity to learn. I think that is life after all.

 

[For The Survivors]

First, let me apologise in advance for being so inactive and then hijacking this thread now. I don't know if it's okay to do this, but as I was reading this post it struck a chord in me because I never saw anybody else mention this phenomenon before, and it's something I recognise, be it in another form.

The thing is, there is something about me that nearly gives me an identity crisis at times. For as long as I can remember I have identified with the more "rough", streetwise crowd, feeling like I'm part of them (Dark Necessities from the Peppers is one of my absolute favourite songs for a reason, the video absolutely feels like coming home to me). The smokers, the drinkers, the drug users. Even though I haven't used any of that in this lifetime at all, nor am I ever planning to, I strongly feel like that's where my place is, and that I should receive due "respect"/"credit" for it, no matter how twisted that sounds, and I know it does. But here's the thing, also for as long as I can remember, people have been treating me like a naive, innocent child. Like I can't handle rough jokes, or swearing, or any mention of streetlife whatsoever. Like I should be shielded from it; "that's not your crowd"...

I just don't know what the hell I even am anymore. I am pretty sure I must have a lived at least one life like that, and my guess is fairly recent lifetime. Because if I didn't, why would that scene, that world, still hit me the way it does? Just because my parents lived a bit of a rough life before I was born? I doubt that; by the time I came here, their lifestyle had already significantly mellowed. But then why do I wear a completely different tag? It's true, in this life I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, I don't go out, my husband is the only partner I've ever had, and I could go on with this list. I obviously have absolutely nothing against this lifestyle I seem to be so far away from this time, I somehow just don't care for it now. But I don't think that makes me naive or inexperienced in life. So why do I have this horrible, unfitting tag stuck to my forehead? I can't seem to get away from it. It makes me fear that I actually am some little baby, just a wannabe, "fried air" so to speak. Because if so many people treat me that way, I surely must be projecting it? But it's the complete opposite from the way I feel inside.

I'm not even sure what my purpose is with this post. Of course I understand that no one can answer this for me, I guess I just wanted to chime in because this thread rang a bell, and this is such a big deal to me. Either way, I hope to become a little more active here as reincarnation is my number one interest in life, even though I have very little to offer.

 

[baro-san]

...

Not to give advice, just my perspective ...

We react to outer and inner perceptions instinctually, emotionally, intellectually, intuitively.

As humans, we mostly mastered instincts, are dominated by emotions, develop an intellect, and have rudimentary intuitive glimpses. As a mosquito is attracted by an incandescent bulb and gets zapped, sometimes humans are attracted by things that can be detrimental to them.

Reality is a structure of gestalts of consciousness, on an infinite scale of evolvement; every gestalt is also element in other gestalts, and everything is in permanent change and action, evolving.

 

[For The Survivors]

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate it. And you're right of course, I guess it's just the good old human nature to feel the need to label everything, I somehow can't get over that a lot of the time. It's confusing to belong to something, but then again you don't.

Also, I wasn't familiar with the term "gestalt" yet, so I looked it up. I'm going to remember that one; it's a very interesting word with a meaning that speaks to the imagination.

 

[Tex]

Hi, and welcome to the thread
In my opinion, we are greatly defined by the life program we "designed" before coming here. In my experience, I would like to be repeating a more known path of life (like a military life for me, as it was in the past). It's easier to beat the well known path. It is more like to repeat year in high school, or to became expert in one field. We can feel "comfortably numb" (thanks Pink Floyd!) when we feel we are at ease with life. But probably you are not here to feel comfortable, even if that's not fully conscious. We are here to grow and to achive the "next level", once we have to go back and to prepare the next chapter. If you had a rough life in the past, probably you already learned some lessons if you are not repeating the experience. In my case, army life is part of my self, even if in this life span, I never formed part of the Army. And I never got into the army, because I came here with some health problems that made me impossible to serve. I'm sure I was very conscious about that before coming here, when we planned my life after dying in WWII. If my body component would be fully responsive, probably I would be choosing my well known path of life. Most of my friends are or were in the army. People, still today, "salute" me as if they see some invisible rank on my shoulders. Sometimes people fears me, even if I never killed somebody, at least in this lifetime. But they seems to see something that I can't, but that probably Im projecting on them. It's an eerie feeling, specially for them. Sometimes the people around see a wolf, when you actually embody just a Husky. Or, sometimes today people see just a Husky, when you feel that, in the past you were a wolf. This last is more difficult, because you can feel powerless in situations where you use to be moving easily in the past.
On the other hand, you are like a two-component adhesive... Your body and your spirit. Both comes to this life with their own memory. And both are part of this time life experience. Strong spirit with all its memory, combined to a "weak" illness proven body can be very different than a strong minded individual with full resources in both "fields". I think that "combination" is part of your programming experience when you decide to come back to this sand-box that is life.

 

[fireflydancing]

I am not quite aware of what I project out. The only funny thing that comes to my mind is that during my life people of all kinds of cultures assumed I was one of... them... despite my physical looks. So, it is not a type of profession or specific traits. I always try not to offend other cultures/religions but I also don't compromise too much on my standards. I am not a chameleon at all. A lot of funny and even weird stories happened during my life and to be honest, I cannot connect it all to past life memories. Yet.