ASK DR. WEISS: Workshops; romantic soulmates; suicide

Hello. This is Dr. Brian Weiss, and we’re continuing the series on questions and answers
on YouTube, and I have more answers today. I want to talk a little bit about our workshops,
my workshops, because this is actually a question. A question from John Yang, who wrote: Dear
Dr. Weiss, if I go to your workshops, do I have any chance to experience a past life?
The answer to this is: yes. In all of my workshops, they become highly experiential, because my
goal, or one of the goals, in addition to teaching, is to allow people to have their
own experiences. These are often experiences of past lives. I try to remove anxieties and
fear, and try to increase understanding, because through understanding you can remove symptoms,
you can feel happier. By removing fear, we can really reach our potential. So all of
my workshops now are very experiential. The full-day workshops have two past-life experiences,
and there are other exercises as well. Now with Australia coming up very quickly, and
Chicago, and Toronto, and New York State at Omega, and other workshops, it’s important
to know this, that it’s highly experiential and open to everybody. You do not need to
be a therapist to come. So the answer to the question is yes, of course, that’s one of
the goals of the workshops, that you have your own experiences. I encourage everybody
to come if you can.
Now, the other questions, one is from Arushi, and several people have asked the same questions.
So some of the questions I’m answering…and reminding you once again that these are my
own answers. They aren’t necessarily from what I’ve read, or other people’s opinions,
but mostly from my own experiences with patients and through my own meditations. There are
many possibilities other than my answers, of course. This is about soul mates. The question
is: Do soul mates have to be romantic? We hear about this all the time. Will I meet
my soul mate? When? How does it work? Well, I think that there is destiny involved. You
will meet your soul mate, and it may be romantic. Then there is also free will involved, because
your reaction to the events, for example to meeting a soul mate, this is free will. So
destiny is the meeting, and your free will is: do you stay together? Do you not? And
all the choices you make afterwards. But soul relationships, soul mate relationships, do
not have to be romantic. They can be parent-child, grandparent-grandchild, best friends, and
in many other ways. We actually have more, I would say, families of souls, rather than
just one soul mate. We have many soul mates, and we’re being connected all the time.
Sometimes it’s for very brief periods of time. It can be for minutes or days or weeks,
and this short amount of time can change one’s life incredibly. Or you may be with a soul
mate for fifty years, or sixty years, or longer. It’s not the time that’s important. It’s
the lessons that are learned, and the directions, and the reminders that happen when soul mate
encounters happen. So the answer is that there are many soul mates, not just romantic.
The question from Sonia has been asked by many people, and it’s about suicides. Again,
I’m speaking from my own experiences and not from religious tradition, where there
are many interpretations. But to me, there is no place such as hell that is permanent.
Sometimes, you go to a place where you may think it is this or that, but it’s not permanent.
Because once you understand what is happening and the lessons, everything is light. Everything
is love and compassion and forgiveness and understanding. So, if a person successfully
commits suicide, they go to the other side. There may be turbulence there. They may try
to get back into their bodies. I’ve come across this many times. But it’s too late,
if it’s a successful suicide. Then the lesson on the other side is that if you have a functioning
physical body, and you’re here in this earth school to learn lessons, take advantage of
that opportunity. Don’t leave a healthy body early, because this is not really why
we’re here. We’re here to learn lessons of love, compassion, kindness, understanding,
non-hatred, non-prejudice, non-violence, and so on. There are many different types of suicide.
I think a suicide of a ninety-five-year-old person with intractable, permanent, severe
pain that’s not going to have any improvement is very different from a suicide of a person
who is, perhaps, thirty years old and very healthy, but caught up in an embarrassing
scandal, or humiliated, or something like this. That’s not the same thing. The second
case, of the healthy body, has much more in terms of consequences or karma. I also believe
that if it’s a suicide because of mental illness, and as a psychiatrist I’ve come
across this concept many times, this is also not as serious. Because sometimes it is the
mental illness that is responsible for the decision. Nevertheless, you can never harm
a soul. And that soul will come back to the earth plane to learn its lessons. I have found
that there is a kind of commonality among suicides, and that is the soul is returned
to earth more quickly. This is very similar to children who die. Their souls tend to come
back more quickly. There are more lessons to learn. And so, if a person commits suicide,
on the other side they may realize: Oh, this was not the solution. I should have stayed,
worked it out, made other choices. They will come back. They will oftentimes be faced with
similar circumstances as those that may have precipitated the suicidal decision in the
first place, and they need to find another way of coping without harming a physical body.
Because this physical body is a gift for us. This is the place, earth, where in physical
bodies we can experience relationships, soul mates, pain, loss, separation, death, and
illness. Great opportunities for soul evolution and growth. It is not correct to leave these
bodies early, if we have that choice. So you just come back again. But the overriding principle
is that you can never harm or kill a soul. The soul just returns. There will be a new
body, and similar lessons to be learned. Once you master those lessons, you go on and master
other lessons. Then, eventually, you come back to this earth plane voluntarily to help
other souls.
There are many more questions that have come in, and I thank you for sending these in.
There are questions about parallel dimensions and parallel universes and other areas that
we will look to in the future. But for now, this is the end of this question-and-answer
video. Thank you very much.