Counselor Believes Regression Therapy Can Have Benefits

Article By Scott Smith, The Pueblo Chieftain
November 1, 2007
 
She’s a believer — in soul, in self, in healing, in growth. And in reincarnation and the power of past-life regression therapy. For Marcia Beachy, it just makes sense.
 
The Pueblo resident first embraced the past-lives concept many years ago, after reading a book about the life of renowned psychic Edgar Cayce. “I felt like I had come home to something that I knew and didn’t know that I knew,” says Beachy. “Suddenly, the way in which the world functioned made more sense to me. I understood the potential causes of suffering and how that works for us, and ‘as you sow, so shall ye reap’ began to make sense. “To look at the soul as having a long journey of experiences made me feel like I had been given a lifeline of walking my own path — and I dove into it.”

Beachy became a professional counselor — and more. She has a master’s degree in counseling from Northern Illinois University and is also a certified clinical hypnotherapist; a specialist in past-life, present-life and between-life regression therapy; a certified massage therapist; a reiki master; and a trained bereavement facilitator. She’s been a counselor for 23 years and has 13 years of experience in past-life regression and soul-connection work.
 
And, all the while, she’s been on her own journey, both physically and spiritually. She grew up in Cheraw, spent most of her adult life in the Chicago area (married, had three daughters, divorced), moved to La Junta nine years ago (“Colorado won’t let you alone — it’s always in your heart,” she says) and settled in Pueblo last year.
 
Most of her counseling business includes traditional psychotherapy, but some of her clients also choose to explore regression therapy with Beachy, who is adept at helping to guide their expeditions into their unconscious pasts.
“I’ve always been drawn to uncover the deeper truths of who we are,” says the soft-spoken Beachy. “You could call that our soul, you could call it our true self, you could call it many things. But that’s where the juice is for me, where the excitement is for me in working with people. “And my journey required that I do the same thing, so there’s no separation between my growth and the growth I’m able to support with my clients. So the deeper I go, hopefully, the deeper they are invited to go.”
 
Beachy stresses that regression therapy should not be viewed as a magical solution to an individual’s problems and issues in this life — but she believes that past-life exploration can yield genuine benefits in the area of self-realization. Basically, she says, people sometimes can better deal with existing trauma, drama and pain once they realize a problem’s deeper origin. “People benefit by experiencing forgiveness, by experiencing relief of guilt, by experiencing insight, by experiencing a higher perspective of who they are,” Beachy says. “Sometimes, there’s even a release of physical symptoms, because the original cause is accessed. “It’s a wonderful additional therapy. . . . But regression therapy is not an escape. It’s a complement (to talk therapy).” It’s also not just for those working on difficult emotional or psychological issues.
 
Some of Beachy’s clients are merely curious. “They want a venue for exploring more of who they are; they want to grow, rather than to alleviate pain,” she says. “And this therapy can provide growth on many levels that can be very satisfying.” But regression therapy is not for everyone, cautions Beachy. “It’s not for people who already have enough on their plates — they need to be dealing with the here and now,” she says. “And it’s not for people who have dissociative disorders and personality disorders; things are already jumbled.”
 
A regression session with Beachy usually lasts about 2 1/2 hours and costs $150; it includes a half-hour interview with the client, followed by relaxation techniques, hypnotherapy and a gently guided journey into the unconscious. There are no guarantees — not everybody can access past lives (“Some people just see black”) — but Beachy says that most people can connect, some more easily than others. For some, it’s a one-time deal; for others, they return again and again to further delve into their past lives.
 
Beachy has written a book about past-life regressions, “This Divine Classroom,” which includes detailed case studies of three repeat clients. One of them not only experienced personal emotional growth, but also reported a cessation of physical pain after one session. “She went into a past life in which she was a monk in a monastery who was very troubled about his sexuality and had a lot of guilt, and the despair drove him to throw himself over the wall, where he died,” Beachy says. “What he felt when he hit the ground were his bones crushing in his legs. She said, ‘That’s why I’ve always had weak ankles.’ She told me later that her ankles were much stronger now that they don’t carry that trauma anymore.”
 
Of course, not everyone is a believer in reincarnation — and that’s just fine, says Beachy. “I’m not here to do any convincing,” she says. “In fact, having an open, skeptical mind is actually a very good approach, because there’s not the expectation of your ego needs being met by doing a regression. “I don’t worry about whether you believe in past lives or not; my work is about healing and wholeness. I don’t care if (a past life) can be documented. What’s important is if it’s added to your own understanding.”
 
Beachy is now working on another book, and focusing more on the death and dying process and what we can learn from it. “We die as we live,” she says. “If our predominant frequency is love and wisdom and forgiveness, which is a high frequency, then we carry on with that; if it’s anger and rage and resentment, we carry on with that. When we die, it continues according to what we’ve built.
 
“It doesn’t matter what religious hat we put on. What matters is what’s in our heart.”
 
For more information, call Beachy at 542-0156 or visit her Web site, www.marciabeachy.com
 
Source: The Pueblo Chieftain
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