#262 My Past Life of Tchaikovsky with Chris Nielsen

Chris Nielsen, past life regression practitioner and author of Being Pyotr Ilyich, joins Johnny Burke to share her uncanny past-life connection to composer Tchaikovsky. Drawing on over 20 regression sessions, Chris explains what she experienced in the "life between lives," why parallel lives can split from a single soul, and what actually keeps a spirit earthbound after death.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the afterlife phase of a regression matters more than the past life itself
• How one soul can split into parallel — even opposing — lives
• What it really takes to help a spirit find the light

Find Chris at ChrisNielsenBooks.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00 Johnny Burke 0:01

Welcome to Closure to Venus. I'm Johnny Burke, and today's guest is Chris Nielsen. She is an experiencer and past life regression practitioner as well as the author of Being Peter, a spiritual memoir about Tchaikovsky based on over 20 past life regression sessions. In this episode, we'll discuss how a past life memory became a spiritual memoir and what this experience may suggest about soul memory, reincarnation, and the continuity of consciousness. Chris, welcome to the program.

Chris Nielsen 0:34

Thank you so much, Joni.

Speaker 1 0:35

It's such an honor. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Johnny Burke 0:38

Thank you for joining us. This is a very interesting concept, which I know is based on your book. But first of all, how did you become interested in past life regression? How'd that start?

Chris Nielsen 0:49

I always think about the fact that it's so stunning that one mere book footnote may change your life completely. I was reading a very interesting spiritual book written by a Romanian doctor who was analyzing this close relationship between physical body, thoughts, mind, soul, emotion, spirit. So in a holistic view, the human being analyzed. And in a footnote, he mentioned this idea of past lives and especially past life regressions, adding two important titles, which were Sandra and Taylor's book on past lives and especially the famous bestseller written by Brian Wise Many Lives, Many Masters. Up to that moment I had never heard about past lives. I had no convictions or any ideas about this concept, so it was something completely new, but it was something that magnetically and in an unexplainable way attracted me. Then I found out about the past life regression academy based in the United Kingdom. And I became very soon one of their students studying basic hypnosis and then keeping on continuing with past life regressions for almost three years, up to the moment when I became a certified hypnosis. It all started with a mere footnote in a spiritual book.

Johnny Burke 2:18

And the Brian Weiss book, Many Lives, Many Masters, has inspired quite a few people. There's no question about that. So during your studies, you identified about 30 different past life identities. Did they have something in common?

Chris Nielsen 2:34

I was stunned to discover that almost all my life are either life of different artists. I was a musician, and Djaikovsky was not the only one. I was an architect, I was a painter, I was a filmmaker, etc. And I had very many lives with a spiritual path. I was frequently a monk. I was a Catholic monk, I was a Buddhist monk in the Himalayas, I was an Orthodox monk, I was one of the monks who founded with St. Francis of Assises in Italy his religious order. So yes, I have noticed that I have this obvious attraction for either dedicating my life to the divine and trying to understand how this universe was really built on, or dedicating my life to arts and trying to communicate emotions through something beautiful. So these are the two topics that are quite a let's say of obsession for my own spirit.

Johnny Burke 3:34

So that was a common strain with a lot of those past lives, art, spirituality, and so forth. So your book, Being Pure Illich, refers to your past life as Tchaikovsky. Why did you choose this life to be the basis for your book?

Chris Nielsen 3:50

There are two very important reasons. One is closely linked to my own heart and to my, let's say, intimate relationship with this past personality. Because I was myself stunned to discover in Tchaikovsky an extraordinary being. What stunned me is his extraordinary inner sensitivity. He was, how should I put it, like a being without skin. He was feeling everything and he had an extraordinary inner moral quality. His level of consciousness was very high. The second most important choice for writing this book about Tchaikovsky was for the audiences. Because I received under trance so many important and I would say extremely irrelevant answers about universal questions that we all have. Answers regarding our fear of abandonment, the reason why we are here on earth, the reason of suffering on earth, our life missions, why we choose a certain body, a certain family, what birth or death really means from a spiritual point of view. Answers about karma, about family karma, about depression, about impossible love or the difficulty of finding love, etc. And I thought that all these answers might really be what a lot of people are searching for. And this was what pushed me to write this book. I think that Tchaikovsky serves as a case study, as a basis to explain what's behind our life script.

Johnny Burke 5:21

It's a good point. When I read the book, I was really surprised at the level of detail. There were quite a few sessions which you focused just on his life or your past life. Were you able to go into this space of life between lives?

Chris Nielsen 5:35

Yes, of course. And not only that I went there, but in my own opinion, as a therapist, I'm not speaking now only as a client. I think that this afterlife or life between lives part of a regression session is, in my opinion, the most important one because here we really speak about healing. In the first part of the session, you are navigating or you are exploring the most important moments of a particular current or past life, depending on the problem you want to solve in your current life. The second part which I found once again the most important is the afterlife, where you use certain specific techniques to guide the client in order not only to see what happened, but the why behind. Because what's important is not only to see the movie of a past or current life, but to understand the reasons why this or that happened into your life. Then you must understand why it happened for being able to accept what happened, then to forgive yourself, the others, or the divines, and then finally you will be able to start the healing. Without understanding, accepting and forgiving, the healing is not possible. And I don't think that you can heal without going in the afterlife, because there you understand why you choose why you chose this or that situation, while these or that characters, spirits were present in your life, why they're present there.

Johnny Burke 7:14

That's a very good point about the characters. You mentioned a movie a moment ago. We've interviewed quite a few people that have entered experienced the life between life space, and they all pretty much say the same thing. It's like casting a movie. Were you able to see why they chose this life, why this character and that character played a certain role? And without going there, like you said, healing is not possible. But when you do experience it, then it all makes sense.

Chris Nielsen 7:43

Of course, and Johnny, I want to add something extremely important. Perhaps the most important thing to understand while you are in the afterlife is to remember that you chose it. Because I think that one of the most important problems of the mankind is that we always feel victims. And of course, that the most important step in order to be able to release your anger, your deep sorrow, your frustrations, etcetera, is to remember that you are the one who really chose this or that experience to believed in order to learn something and to evolve as a spirit.

Johnny Burke 8:20

Okay. So it was like casting a movie, or I think an even better analogy is that of a theater group. Of course. Characters choose roles that are challenging, and it makes a lot of sense when you hear someone like the Long Island Medium say something like, Life is like an episode of Saturday Night Life. Everyone plays different characters and puts on different costumes, but at the end of the night they all hug.

Chris Nielsen 8:48

In spirituality, there is a very nice story which I think it's true, when it is said that one day in the afterlife within a spiritual group of souls, one soul came and told to the others, listen, I have this inner feelings and inner urge and some particular emotions, and I need to go back to earth in order to suffer, in order to be raped, to be killed, etc. And the others were stunned and they hesitated and they told their friend who was part of their spiritual soul group, listen, if you really think that you need this, we are here in order to help you. We will go there and we will kill you, we will rape you, etc. In order for you to fulfill these lessons.

Johnny Burke 9:38

That's incredible.

Chris Nielsen 9:39

Of course, this is a story, but in the end, taking into account my experience as a patient and as a therapist, I think that it is quite true.

Johnny Burke 9:49

And there is the meaning of suffering, which you have referred to in the book. And because there's a reason for it, I think you have to learn both sides of the experience in order to really appreciate it. You have to be the persecutor and the persecuted. Maybe not all in one life, but that's why we switch roles. Again, going back to the theater group. In this movie or in this play, you're gonna play the hero. In the next one, you're gonna be the victim. And that way they become more well-rounded, and that's not just for their benefit, it's for the benefit of the soul group as well.

Chris Nielsen 10:25

Yes, you are perfectly right. And Johnny, if you mention this, I want to tell you a very interesting example, which was drawn from my experience as a therapist. Three or four years ago, I had a friend of mine who asked me to do a bus life regression for her, and she found herself as a woman in the medieval ages, somewhere in Europe. She was a very smart woman, and she was one, let's say, of the first architects. She was building bridges and she was managing to build extremely intricate technical structures. But of course, in that period of time, women were not really accepted as being intellectually important figures. One member of her family, I think one of her uncles, was the one who assumed publicly her works, etc. But in the end, it was a very important conflict within the family and within the two of them, and almost by mistake in this very intense conflict between them, he killed her. And while going into the afterlife, I had one of the most shocking situations in my life as a therapist this time, because when I asked her to connect with this perpetrator, with her uncle who killed her, etc., she had a pause and she told me, Listen, I th I'm feeling something very strange. And then we checked her feelings and we insisted on that, and in the end it proved that her spirit and her uncle, so her perpetrator spirit, were the same spirit. So the same energy split into parts before coming into that life on earth, and she was both the victim and the perpetrator in the same time. So her energy was split between the two, and she wanted to learn a lesson which she learned on her own because she was, as a matter of fact, the one who killed herself. And I think it was really stunning. It was one of my first experiences with parallel lives, because it doesn't happen very frequently. Later on, years on, I discovered other situations of parallel lives, both in my own case and with my clients. But generally speaking, in parallel lives, you don't meet with yourself. Not only she met herself, but she killed herself. And I thought that this was really stunning. And it was one of the moments when I concluded that speaking about the divine and this universe, anything might happen if it is for our own benefit in order to learn and to evolve. So some things are really beyond our imagination.

Johnny Burke 13:03

The parallel lives is also very interesting because just about every past life experiencer or practitioner will say that it's all happening at once. They're really like concurrent lives. So in that particular example, she did not meet herself, but her energy was split into two. Now, when you are in the middle of a session and someone is experiencing something like that, are you able to actually experience it with them or are you just like the court reporter, you're taking notes and doing the recording and so forth?

Chris Nielsen 13:37

Okay, so you are asking me if I'm also a medium or not. It happens quite frequently to have medium, let's say, abilities. So, yes, I do feel sometimes things before they are told to me, but I think that this is not a special gift that I have. I think that this is something that we all have, but we didn't train this and we are not conscious about it. And I will tell you why. When I was under my training with the Past Life Regression Academy, we were doing a case study, one of our colleagues was under trance, and our main teacher was leading the session. And we were about, I don't know, nine or ten students around, and we were closely watching this past life regression uh happening, and all of a sudden something happened, and I think the person was in the mountains and the huge rock fall on her and killed her in a few seconds. And after the regression session ended, I think 80% of us told that they knew a few seconds before, although nothing in her story was announcing it, that something will happen and she will be killed right away. So almost all of us, if we were really connected to her field, felt what would happen. So I think it's a natural gift for all of us in the spiritual area, it's very much debated this topic of oneness, of unity, that we are all connected in the same divine or universal field. And I think it's true. And if we are connected, yes, it's very simple to feel what happens with the other.

Johnny Burke 15:26

It's a great point. It's a really good point, Chris.

Chris Nielsen 15:28

And and if you are asking me about parallel lives and feeling things, another very interesting thing happened to me. I was regressing another young lady a few years ago, and she accessed a life in the United States of America where she was a man, she was a businessman with a family, with kids, etc., and with a happy life and with a quite good social status, I would say, and financial status. And her life was interesting because it was quite the opposite of her current life here, because here she's single, there she had a family here, she has financial problems there, she had a very good financial and social life, etc. And I noticed, of course, that she spoke to me about cars, about she is describing her house with electric appliances, and of course, that to some extent it resembled a lot nowadays, and I was quite stunned, but I thought that maybe, I don't know, she lived in the 60s and she died, etc. And at one point, her story started to slow down at her as a pace, the reasons started to slow down, and I felt intuitively, as a mediumship, let's say, ability, that the story will end without dying. And this is exactly what happened. I was expecting her to die at one point because I thought it was a past life. And at a certain moment she told me there is nothing else to add. And I asked her, Can you tell me more about this? Can you detain a bit? And she said, Yes, this is where my life is right now. I'm still living. I didn't die. I'm still living in the United States, and my life is still going on, and I described to you everything that happened until now. And I was stunned because it was a parallel life. And it was very interesting that as a spirit she chose to split at least in these two. I don't know if there were other life also, and that the lives were once again quite opposite. Why? Because this is exactly why we are splitting. We are splitting in order to broaden our experiences. So in parallel lives, you might choose even opposite situations exactly in order to see the same situation from opposite points of view and to unreach our life experiences.

Johnny Burke 17:54

Again, a very good point. And I like the idea of choosing polar opposites and splitting energy into two different lives. And we hear about past lives more and more when people discuss past lives, they call them concurrent lives because they're all happening, they all exist at once. One woman told me it's like an infinite multiplex theater. All these movies are happening at once. You just have to go from one theater to the other to see what's going on. And also, another good point you made connecting mediumship abilities to oneness. When you're connected, and everybody tells me the same thing, we all have the ability, but we have to train. You can't just take one class and then be in business as a medium. It doesn't work that way. One other question I wanted to ask is that you've had discussions with the divine, especially when you're in that space of the past life of Tchaikovsky. And I remember certain passages from the book where you would say, Well, I didn't understand this then, but when I went back to heaven, I understood everything. Now, when you mention heaven, is that similar to or maybe adjacent to the life between lives space, or is it something different?

Chris Nielsen 19:16

Yes. I used it as synonyms, let's say in the book. Although Johnny, it's very hard to speak above the other upper realms, because I think it would be more correct to say heavens in plural rather than heaven in singular, because as I think that Jesus also says something in the Bible, but I'm sorry, I don't know the quotation.

Johnny Burke 19:36

I know it, and I actually named one of my bands after it. In my father's house are many mansions, and I read the book. Thank you so much, it's very true, and I've heard people talk about different rooms. So there's more than one heaven.

Chris Nielsen 19:53

Yes, I think there are more layers, let's say. I see the upper realms as maybe to sound funny, as a block of flats with different plants with different layers. And why I'm saying this because I think that when we go after life, of course, that we are let's say at the fifth floor, but there are also other upper realms, and you may go at the sixth, seventh, eighth floor, and so on. And sometimes when I am under trance, I do feel this difference of vibration between these floors because, in the end, if we speak from a technical point of view, all these heavens, in my own opinion, in my view, are separated by the level of vibration.

Johnny Burke 20:38

Level of vibration.

Chris Nielsen 20:39

And the higher you go, the vibration is higher, of course. And yes, when I call in the book heavens, I'm speaking about afterlife, about this sacred place where we go when we die. But of course, where we go when we die, if we do follow the paths towards light, let's say, because as I'm explaining in the book, sometimes unfortunately, you might get stuck here in the lower vibrational layers near the astral plane of the earth. And this was what really happened to me as Tchaikovsky and I'm explaining exactly this process in the book. So if you are stuck here, if there is a very important trauma, very important emotional bond with a person, with a house, or if there is a very strong promise that you made, for example, to your children that you will never abandon them, etc., then you might get stuck near the earth when you die, and you won't follow immediately, let's say, the right way towards what I call home or heavens or the afterlife. But generally speaking, yes, we do go, let's say, there, and it's a place where let's say we rest between lives and we plan our next incarnation. And I want to add something very interesting, speaking about what you told me earlier about the fact that. Lives, as a matter of fact, are all in the same moment, and that time as a linear time doesn't exist as we perceive it here on earth. It's true that probably everything happens in the same moment, but I want to add something very important. I am very sure that there is a very complex mechanism that allows us to pour all our experience into our higher self, into our let's say, spiritual being. And I think that this happens in a real moment over time. And why am I telling you this? Because in this current life, I was born with a very important love for music, but not only for playing music, because you would think at Tchaikovsky, but I was born with an enormous inner urge to sing, to use my voice in order to produce music. And one of my main problems in my childhood and during my twins was the fact that unfortunately in this current life, I don't have a musical talent in order to sing with my voice, in order to use my voice as a singer. And this was a very important inner struggle to surpass in my current life. And I also have a very strong connection with Italy. As a matter of fact, I have just arrived back home from two weeks' holiday in Italy, and I'm very fond of Italian language, etc. Only to discover three years ago that I have a parallel life as an Italian singer who died in 1995, and I am born in my current life in 1986. So I was nine years old in my current life when she died.

Johnny Burke 23:55

So how did that happen then?

Chris Nielsen 23:56

So my answer is that so she didn't die in order to pour all her experience in my higher self and then I came back on earth. No, it happened in parallel time. So I think that we do download all our experience in real time so that to some extent when I was born, I was deeply feeling this need of singing and using my voice in order to express my feelings, because it was a very important way to express my feelings in that life as an Italian singer, and I couldn't do it anymore. And it took me almost 40 years to discover why I had this important inner urgent, why this connection with Italy and Italian language, etc. This is when I really realized that yes, maybe our lives may develop in a unique time which is not linear, but still the consequences of what we feel and live are already determined by things that apparently we lived before.

Johnny Burke 25:04

So, in other words, it's possible if you're focused on a particular thing that you may get a download from a parallel life?

Chris Nielsen 25:13

Yes, and what I want to say is for example, we speak about Tchaikovsky in my book. I had in my current life a lot of consequences which were drawn from that life as Tchaikovsky. If that life didn't already happen, if we live a completely unique time frame, in a completely unique time frame, then it would be impossible for me to have consequences from a life which didn't happen yet.

Johnny Burke 25:44

I wanted to revisit one of the point you made previously. You mentioned that during the life of Tchaikoski that you were stuck in the lower realms when you died. Now that implies that at one point that was basically an earthbound ghost. Because you didn't go to the light right away. So this is very important. And a lot of mediums are very good at helping those souls see the light. How did you eventually find the light?

Chris Nielsen 26:10

How did I find my way home, you are asking? Right. Yes. Each time when you are bound to earth, there is a very clear particular trigger that keeps you here. So each time, if you are a therapist or a medium, you must understand this trigger in order to release it and to let that spirit go away. This trigger might be one of the following situations. Either you were very connected with your house and you don't want to leave a particular place to whom you feel very close attached. Another reason might be that you feel very close attached to a particular being and you don't want to leave that being, either your child, your husband, your parents, etc. Also, there are people who are connected to their physical body. I once assisted a past life regression where a peasant died alone in the field of a stroke. Nothing really traumatic happened, but he died of a stroke. And because he was alone, he couldn't leave because he was afraid that no one would ever discover his body. And he stayed in order, let's say, to protect his body. So sometimes it's even a connection with the physical body itself. Then other situations are when you did a very important promise, which is almost like a legacy, or when there are dark magic things between you and another being. These are also things that curses and so on that might keep you there really closely linked to a place or to a person. For example, once again, I frequently met the situation when a mother dies and she promised to her children that she will never abandon them no matter what. And then when she dies, she really doesn't abandon them and she is still there as a ghost. And another very important situation, and very frequently met, is the traumatic and sudden death, car accidents, uh etc. So when the death is very sudden and you don't expect it, you might find it shocking, Johnny. But there are a lot of spirits who simply didn't have the time to understand that they are not alive anymore because things happened so quickly and they were sure so shocking. The spirit simply needs to understand that he's not in a physical shape anymore. And sometimes this is the only thing that the medium has to do to help them understand that to become conscious that they don't have their physical body anymore. This is the simplest situation. But the other examples are more complicated because you have to discover and to help them dissolve the trigger that keeps them here. In my own situation as Tchaikovsky, the trigger was, of course, my nephew, which was, of course, the love of my life. And because my uh suicide affected him so much and uh created neurosis and very important psychological problems in his mind, I felt, of course, so desperate and I felt so guilty because I did this to him, so I couldn't leave him. And I was a ghost up to the moment when, unfortunately, 13 years after my physical death, F. Tchaikovsky, he committed suicide too. And when he committed suicide and he got out of his body and I got reunited with him, then I was able to leave. So I found my way to the light when my trigger, who was my nephew, died too.

Johnny Burke 29:58

Interesting. Okay, last question. When we talk about going to the light and earthbound ghosts or souls that are finally released, in your sessions, is it possible that someone that's living, one of your clients, can still have energy from a soul, a past life that did not go to the light, or is that not really possible?

Chris Nielsen 30:22

It is very possible and it's quite frequently, as a matter of fact. Yes. And sometimes, Johnny, it's let's say something which is not intended to be negative, neither from the client or from the spirit who is attached. Sometimes it might be negative, but sometimes it isn't. For example, one of my teachers in the academy told us about a client who couldn't release the spirit of her husband who died. They were very closely linked one with the other, and when the husband died, she kept it here, and he felt that she couldn't release him or her. And at that particular moment, a very strong relationship in the astral plane was created between them, and our teacher told us that it took a lot of session in order to slowly convince the client, the wife, that she wasn't really helping him. Because this is the very hard lesson that we must understand. No matter how much we love someone, we are not helping him or her if we are keeping him or her here. Because when we die, our being naturally seeks for the upper place. Keeping or living here in the lower place of density and in this physical material world is quite a trauma for the spirit. In the end, we are not helping anyone, we just prolong this sufferers for both of us. But sometimes it takes times for this separation to take place and for people to understand that it's better to send love and to rest assured that we will meet again and that we are eternal beings and that our love never ends and our life never really ends.

Johnny Burke 32:16

Never ends.

Chris Nielsen 32:16

Yes, and but to ask the other one to go and to wait for us up to the proper moment when we will join him or her in the upper realms.

Johnny Burke 32:26

Okay, so in other words, you have to let them go. Yes. Because as you mentioned, we are eternal beings, and then we all go home. This is great stuff, Chris. Thanks for joining us today. Excellent information. In the meantime, how can our listeners find you online?

Speaker 1 32:43

My author website, ChrisNielsenbooks.com, where they can learn more about myself and about my book being Piotr Illich, and also about my podcast.

Johnny Burke 32:53

You've been listening to Closer to Venus, I'm Johnny Burke. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider subscribing. In the meantime, you can find more info on closer to Venus.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.