Your Soul's Plan Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born

by SCHWARTZ, ROBERT

• ISBN13: 9781583942727
• ISBN10: 1583942726
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-24
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Summary

Your Soul's Planexplores the provocative premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges,before we are bornfor the purpose of spiritual growth. Through compelling profiles of people who knowingly planned experiences such as AIDS and cancer, parenting handicapped children, deafness, blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, losing a loved one, and severe accidents, this book shows that suffering is not purposeless, but imbued with deep meaning. Working with four of the country's most gifted mediums, author Robert Schwartz reveals the significance of each individual's soul plan and allows us a fascinating look into the "other side." Each personal story focuses on a specific life challenge, organized by type for easy reference. Accessible both to those familiar with the metaphysical aspects of spirituality and to the general reader, the moving narratives that compriseYour Soul's Planhelp readers awaken to the reality that they are transcendent, eternal souls. With this stirring book as a guide, feelings of anger, resentment, guilt, and victimization are healed and replaced by acceptance, forgiveness, peace, and gratitude.

Author Biography

Robert Schwartz holds a B.A. in psychology from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. He has worked as a freelance journalist for publications such as Life magazine and has over fifteen years' experience in corporate marketing and public relations. After a "spiritual awakening" in 2003, he left the corporate sector to research and write Courageous Souls, the self-published first edition of Your Soul's Plan. He regularly speaks on the subject of pre-birth planning at venues across the United States and maintains a companion website at www.CourageousSouls.com.

Excerpts

In May of 2003, I was leading an unfulfilling life as a self-employed marketing and communications consultant. Although I enjoyed some of my work, I did not derive deep satisfaction from any of it. I often felt that if I were to fall off the face of the Earth, my clients would hardly notice; they would simply plug someone else into my role. More important, my life was not a unique expression of my soul. A spiritual but not a religious person, I longed to make a contribution to the world that would be "uniquely me," but I had no idea what that might be.

I had exhausted the usual routes one explores to find meaning and purpose. I was lost and floundering. Then, an inspiration came to me: why not consult a medium? Although I had a strong belief in God, I had never (as far as I knew) directly experienced the metaphysical. I felt I had nothing to lose. I researched mediums and selected someone with whom I felt comfortable.

My session with the medium took place on May 7, 2003. I remember the exact date because on that day my life changed. I told the medium very little about myself, describing my circumstances only in the most general terms. She explained that each of us has spirit guides, nonphysical beings with whom we plan our lives prior to incarnation. Through her I was able to speak with mine. They knew everything about me—not only what I had done but also what I had thought and felt. For example, they referred to a specific prayer I had said to God some five years earlier. At a particularly difficult time I had prayed, "God, I can't do this alone. Please send help." My guides told me that additional nonphysical assistance had been provided. "Your prayer was answered," they said. I was astounded.

Eager to understand the suffering I had experienced, I asked my guides about the major challenges I had faced. They explained that I had planned these challenges before birth—not for the purpose of suffering, but for the growth that would result. I was shaken by this information. My conscious mind knew nothing of pre-birth planning, yet intuitively I sensed truth in their words.

Although I did not realize it at the time, my session with the medium triggered a profound spiritual awakening for me. I would later understand that this awakening was really a remembering—a remembering of who I am as an eternal soul and, more specifically, what I had planned to do on Earth.

For the next few weeks I continued with life as usual, although the information from my guides was constantly on my mind. I did not know what to do with it. One afternoon I took a break from work and went for a walk—and had an experience even more profound than my session with the medium. I suddenly felt overwhelming, unconditional love for every person I saw! No words can adequately convey the power of this love. It was of an intensity and depth I had never experienced and did not know was possible. For each person—the mother pushing her baby in a stroller, the cab driver waiting for a fare, the child playing at the corner, the barber cutting hair behind the window of his barbershop—I felt pure, limitless love.

Though I had never before heard of such an experience, I knew intuitively what was happening: I was in enhanced, immediate communion with my soul. In effect my soul was saying to me, "This love is who you are." I now believe my soul gifted me with this experience to facilitate the work I would soon begin.

I became obsessed with reading about spirituality and metaphysics. As I read I thought often about pre-birth planning. All my life I had viewed my challenges as nothing more than meaningless suffering and their occurrences as random and arbitrary. Had I known that I'd planned my challenges, I would have seen them rich with purpose. That knowledge alone would have greatly eased my suffering. Had I also known why I'd planned them, I could have

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Excerpted from Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born by Robert Schwartz
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