In my early 20s, when I first began exploring the big questions (Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?), there was one concept that I always found particularly horrifying: reincarnation. The notion that my lifetime as Tina was but one of hundreds or thousands of incarnations of my soul, that the pain and suffering that I had experienced in my lifetime (indeed, that each of us experiences while here) had been and would be repeated many times, was dire. I refused to accept it. “And if reincarnation is real,” I assured myself, “I have free will and I am not coming back! Who would choose this?” 

As it turns out, I would. You probably did, too.

To explain how I reached a place of understanding that I am a divine spark, a thread of God consciousness that is incarnated here in this (illusion of) time and space having the experience of Tina to evolve my soul and be of service to others, and my knowledge that this is only one of many such experiences for my spirit, would take thousands of pages. But here in a nutshell is the understanding I have come to about reincarnation along the way:

The Universe is governed by laws. Most of us understand and accept this without thought, when it comes to the natural world. We know that gravity keeps our planets in orbit around the sun. We know that sun rises every morning and sets every evening. Plants and animals follow the cycles of the seasons. We can see that we exist in a marvelous, magnificently designed Universe. Yet many of us believe that this divine order does not extend to humans. Instead, if we believe in God, we often believe that horrible things happen in life and there is no understanding why. “Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are some people so lucky and others seem to get nothing but tough breaks? Why do some people live long lives and others die young? Why are some born into poverty and others wealth? Why are some so healthy and others beset with many illnesses? Why do we suffer?” These questions are often difficult to reconcile with our notion of a loving God. And that’s if we believe in God. Others of us feel that this must be all there is. We live and when the body dies, we cease to exist. “Life is very unfair at times, and that’s all there is to it,” many of us think.

However, if we view the “fairness” of life through the lens of reincarnation, we get a very different perspective. Here is what I have come to understand: Earth is, in effect, a school for our souls, in which we come to learn lessons about love. We exist eternally in the spirit world (call it what you will—heaven, 5D, the higher realms), and in that world we understand what we truly are: threads of consciousness, each created by God and literally made of God. What we are is energetic light beings of pure love. In 5D, there is no contrast—no fear, no duality. So we incarnate on earth (and part of incarnating is putting on a veil of forgetfulness so that don’t recall who we truly are) to experience the illusion of separation, i.e. the feeling that we are individuals, disconnected from others. It is this illusion of separation that allows us, when we do love, when we do help, when we do connect with others, to rediscover the joy of who and what we really are: Love. And sometimes our soul makes these discoveries through contrast, e.g. a soul might experience a real hardship so that, in overcoming it, it discovers its resilience and eternal nature. This is really key to understanding why “bad things” happen to us. We must understand that, no matter how painful something is as we experience it (and trust me, I know despair), the soul sees an opportunity for growth. As the proverb says, “All sunshine makes a desert,” and often it is only through hindsight that we can see that those “rainy times” are what helped us grow, developed our strength and character and compassion. And sometimes, what we experience was chosen, on a soul level, to help others grow. When we see someone else hurting, in need, they are offering us a chance to give love, understanding, compassion, help. And we all know that those times when we know we have truly made a difference are the times when we have tapped into the deepest, truest parts of ourselves. 

To evolve, each soul wants a depth and breadth of life experiences, so it incarnates many times. It chooses long lives, short lives. It incarnates into bodies of different races, nationalities, sexes, sexual orientations, income levels, etc. I know that in my life, for example, all of the characteristics of Tina—my physical features, my talents, my personality, etc.—were all chosen by my soul to best help me achieve what my soul wanted to accomplish in this life. And what’s even more beautiful and amazing is that, on a soul level, we coordinate with one another. The plan wouldn’t work if we all came here as doctors or actors or farmers. Every single one of us is here contributing to the divine tapestry that we are collectively weaving; as each of us learns, gives love, and evolves our soul, we are also contributing to the highest good of all because, ultimately, there is only One of us here—God experiencing Itself in billions of different ways. 

I am sharing my thoughts now because I know that for many of us, this is a time of great fear, and fear often brings feelings of powerlessness or hopelessness. I’ve written before of the opportunities the pandemic has been presenting, and the same is true for our larger world experience. The natural disasters in the U.S. and around the world, the fires, COVID, the polarized politics of us vs. them, all of these things and more are essentially a collective dark night of the soul for our planet. But. It’s important to remember that spiritual crisis precedes higher consciousness, and chaos precedes evolution. I believe that is what our planet is moving toward. It may not happen in our (present) lifetime, but it will happen. Every choice made in fear is a remnant of the old paradigm of separation, which sees lack and finite resources. Every choice made in love, from an open heart, lifts us up toward abundance and cooperation. 

Finally, I’d just like to say that, whether we remember or not, each of us chose to incarnate here on Earth at this time. In some ways, I feel like we are each on a service mission—we knew the going would be tough, but we wanted to be part of making this world a better place. I think each of us is pretty brave for being here at this time. Namaste. 

P.S. For anyone looking to read uplifting spiritual material at this time, I highly recommend The Light Between Us by Laura Lynne Jackson and Alchemy by Paul Selig.