The Woman Who Haunted Herself.

I suppose once you start wrapping your mind around ideas like non-local consciousness and reincarnation and non-linear time you can pretty much expect weird things to happen.   Recently we got a request for help from a woman (I'll call her Judy) who was being haunted.  Judy had a great deal of experience with mediums and hypnotherapy and past life regressions.  She had learned about several of her past lives including one in Camelot and one in Colonial America.   


Meanwhile Judy in the 21st century was involved in a relationship of the sort that is described on Facebook as "It's Complicated."   In this case FB should probably provide an option for  "It's Very Very Complicated."   One of the complicating factors is that, with the help of her team of paranormal experts, Judy learned that (we'll call him) Tony is her "primary soul mate."   Now Ben and others have explained that being soul mates does not make two people good romantic partners or candidates for marriage.  In fact, usually it portends just the opposite.  It could mean that this person is in your life for the purpose of making you so miserable you will be forced to learn an unpleasant lesson.  

What makes this relationship even more complicated is that Tony is the reincarnation of  Captain Elijah Farthing, captain of the ship that had brought the earlier incarnation of Judy and her family to the new world.  He was also the man the young Colonial Judy fell in love with, not knowing he was already married.

Evidently Captain Elijah died when his time came and crossed over and eventually reincarnated as Tony who intermittently loved Judy but not just Judy.  Tony was something of a rogue.  But Judy refused to give up on him.  

Meanwhile, back in the colonies Judy, who for our purposes was then named Ruth, was killed by an arrow during war between the white settlers and the local native Americans.  She left her body quickly but then refused to cross over and join her loved ones on the Other Side.  For reasons best known to herself, she opted to stay and help the Indian spirits protect the land.  When her loved ones on the Other Side tried to encourage her to come home she refused.   She said she was waiting for Captain Elijah.  She waited for over three hundred years.

Eventually Judy and Ruth met up because Ruth was haunting the land where she had lived in the 1600s which later Judy and her first husband purchased in the 1900s.  It took the help of some psyche-savvy helpers to figure out what was going on but they finally informed Judy that the ghost was Ruth, her earlier incarnation.   It seems Judy was haunting herself.

Donya was so bewildered by this story that she had to start referring to herself in the third person.  For one thing in all the time she had been willing to think about reincarnation she assumed you had to cross-over and report to headquarters or something before you could reincarnate.  Accounts of Lives Between Lives and even Ben's stories of  The Timeless Spaceless Place always suggest that souls go "home" before they embark on another incarnated adventure.  

But evidently that is not always the case because there was Ruth becoming increasingly disruptive, annoying the neighbors and making the property unsaleable.  She was also starting to demand attention from Tony whom she recognized as the man who, in her opinion, should have married her back in the colony. 

Judy finally asked Ben what to do.   While Donya may have been overwhelmed by the complexity of the stories and the amazing cast of characters, most of whom have been left out of this account,  Ben was not.  He listened to (read) the whole story and then stepped up and addressed Judy.  

BEN:  Judy, Your ghost is you and you are your ghost. It's time for you to learn the lesson she didn't learn in her life time. If you want her to let go and move on you have to let go and move on. You are as stubborn as she is and she is as stubborn as you are. If you can't learn to let go you will have to come back and do it again and then there will be three of you.  It's not going to stop until the lesson is learned.  I understand about wanting to be with your soul mate. But that is part of what you need to learn. Someone being your soul mate doesn't make him what you want him to be.  It sounds to me like his job this time is to break your heart until you stop letting him.  

Judy wanted to know what she could do to get Ruth to go home.  Ben pulled no punches.

BEN:  You have to have a conversation with her and tell her that you will let go of the man who is breaking your heart and she must do the same.  Assure her that in the Timeless Spaceless place you will all have a glorious reunion and everything will be right.  When you let go, Ruth will let go.  There's no point in sprinkling holy water around or burning incense. She's not doing anything inappropriate as far as she is concerned.  Once she realizes that her soul has learned to put on her big girl panties she will do likewise and move on.

Judy was not offended by Ben's forthright speech and agreed to  talk to Ruth. Tony and Judy talked to her together.  Ruth agreed that it was time for her to leave but said she wanted to stay for Tony's upcoming birthday party.  Tony and Judy (reluctantly) agreed.  It was the kind of "it's complicated" party that might be expected when ex-lovers and new lovers and literal ghosts from the past show up along with all sorts of other friends and relations.  Stressful but actually fun in spite of everything. 

At the party, instead of gifts, guests were encouraged to present roasts and toasts they had written.  Judy announced that she wanted to read an anonymous note from someone who was not able to be physically present. Everyone wondered who the note was from except Tony.  He told Judy to thank Ruth for him and to tell her that she had been very special to him. 

It is often the case with spirits who refuse to cross that they are waiting for some sort of apology or acknowledgement from someone they love.  Tony's words addressed to her in public seemed to satisfy Ruth's need to hear from Captain Elijah.  She was now ready to move on. 

Later Ruth reported that once she decided to move into the Light it was easy and her arrival was joyous.  Judy still had a lot of healing and recovery to do but she felt that the way was clear now. 

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Hi.  This is Ben.  I'm Donya's Ghosty Friend.  Sometimes she thinks the things that have happened to her since she met me are kind of crazy.  But I tell her not to worry.  People haunt themselves all the time without even being dead.  It's a lot more interesting to be haunted by a self from three hundred years ago than one who just refuses to let go of a bad feeling or an unpleasant memory from last week. Be nice to yourself. And remember to always be nice to ghosts.  The ghost you find in your closet could be YOU! 

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