Ask The Council

Before We are Born, Do We Plan Challenging Human Relationships To Advance Our Spiritual Expansion?

This post is inspired by several thought-provoking questions from Joe, who has a strained relationship with his two sons during a difficult divorce from their mother. Joe is familiar with The Council’s teaching that we come into this life with the intention of bringing with us the vibration of love, and that we sometimes pre-plan with other souls before we incarnate, to experience challenging human relationships so we can experience finding the love within ourselves that transforms these situations.

With this in mind Joe asks The Council how he can better understand the spiritual aspects of his role and his children’s role in their strained relationship. On Sunday, May 27, 2012 we did a session with The Council to answer Joe’s questions, and their answers are presented in this post. The highlight of this session for us is The Council’s insight that the people in our lives we find most aggravating are often acting in a way we asked them to as a spiritual being before we incarnated into this lifetime—for the purpose of inspiring us to bring more love into our physical reality.

Recorded Audio Content

Recently we invested in recording equipment that allows us to make recordings of our sessions with The Council that have a sound quality we feel comfortable making available in our blog posts. Where you see this image  in the post, it’s an audio player that will play a recorded segment of our session. Typically the segment is related to the textual content that follows the player.

The text of the post is an abridged and edited version of our session with The Council. It is meant to provide a good sense of what we consider the most relevant aspects of the session. The recorded content is also abridged, but it’s a somewhat less edited version of the session. The recordings include some session content that’s been edited out of the written post to help it be more easily readable and understandable. It’s our hope that the audio segments help you connect more easily with the feeling of what The Council is talking about.

To play an audio segment, left-click on the triangle on the right side of the audio player. The clip name is displayed in the player and when the recording begins, the time left in the recording is also displayed. To stop the audio player, left-click on the icon that looks like this: . The volume can be adjusted by left-clicking on this icon: ; click on the right side to increase volume and the left side to lower volume.

Joe’s Questions

The complete text of Joe’s comment and questions that inspired this post are not included in the post. You can read them by clicking here. The following audio clip is a recording of Bob reading Joe’s questions to the Council during our session. Copyright ℗ 2014 Bob & Cynthia Dukes

You Are Not Here to Learn Lessons

Joe’s initial question: “If we come here as Spirit to learn lessons about love, how am I to understand my role in” my strained relationship with my two sons, and their role?

“You do not come here to learn lessons about love. You are love. You know all about love.

“What you come here for is to take that love into each situation you are faced with. So there is no lesson, you already know this. The knowledge is within you.

“Each challenge that you face—that you created in this life—is for you to remember to bring love…to bring the essence of who you are and [who] the other person is into this lifetime.”

—The Council
(Similarly formatted text throughout the post represents quotations from The Council. Text [between brackets] in a quotation was not spoken by The Council; it has been added, where it seems appropriate, to help readers follow the conversation.)

Every Soul’s Mission: Bring Love From Spirit into Your Physical Experience

Bob: “So from Joe’s point of view when he talks about learning lessons about love, would you agree that he’s learning how to bring the love he is as a spiritual being into whatever he’s experiencing as a human being?”

“That is every soul’s mission—if you’d like to call it a mission—that chooses to incarnate. There is one role and one role only: That whatever situations you create in your lifetime—and you have the freedom to create as many challenges or easy ways along the path that feel necessary—but in every situation no matter what you face, [it] is to bring the love from the spirit world…or the spirit part of you…or your higher self…into that situation.”

Remember You are a Spiritual Being in a Physical Body

“And at this time we (again) say it is important for everyone to not learn, but remember who they really are: They are spirits who have chosen to be in a physical body, in physical reality in this time and space to bring [into physical experience] the essence, the beauty, the vibration of love.

“And people who find it difficult to tune into this feeling, this vibration of love; when you learn, when you remember, when you concentrate and think over and over that: ‘No matter what is going on in my life I am this spirit…’ (even questioning it) ‘…I am this spirit in physical body.’ When you learn that, it is almost impossible not to feel differently about yourself and about others.

“So even if you are in the most challenging situations that you can come up with [to bring love into], the knowledge you are a spirit will get you through each situation and will automatically bring in this vibration of love. There is the inner knowing, the inner remembering, of what it’s like to be in spirit. Is that understood?”

Suppose I Don’t Feel Like Spirit in a Physical Body?

Bob: “For myself, it seems like there are times when I think that I know that I’m spirit in a physical body, but I don’t feellike spirit in a physical body.”

“This is a fairly new thought at this time in your reality, and so everyone is learning and everyone is remembering.

“And at certain times you really get it. Oh, you know you are this wonderful spirit in this body. And then whatever happens in your life, [the feeling] is gone, it’s just gone. [You think] there’s no way you are this spirit. ‘And if I am, I’m not feeling it, and these things wouldn’t be happening, and everything is all wrong.’

“And this is part of the process that many are going through. And no matter what challenge, no matter how you don’t believe it—surprise!—you are spirit in this physical body of your own choosing; of your own choosing to be here and to face whatever you create in your life.

A Big Step Toward Enlightenment

“And there are many people who create very challenging situations [to bring love into]. When you begin to get this [idea], you will now begin to change those situations when you realize it is you, and no one else is making this happen to you. It is a very big step and a very big leap on the ladder to (what you call) enlightenment—even though we are all already enlightened.”

To What Extent Do We Pre-Plan Our Current Life before We are Born?

After addressing Joe’s first question, we moved on his next question: “If we supposedly pre-plan before we come in with our “Soul Group” the different ways that things may happen, then is this process one that [my children] agreed to help me learn, or I agreed to help them learn, or both?”

“Some souls are very specific [about] what they want to encounter—what they want to create—and how they want to come through it [in their life]. And there are others that say; ‘Alright, I’m going to go in there and I’m going to be one of the many to bring love into that reality.’

“And so (in a loosely put sort of way) you will say to people in you soul group: ‘I want to bring love to the planet and I need people to help me, especially if I am creating something difficult [to bring love into].’ And someone may agree, or two may agree, or three may agree. And yet it is not specific that [for example]: ‘I will be your father and you will be mean to me, and I will be mean to you, and we will not talk.’

“It is more [like]: ‘When you are in my life and I create a situation [to bring love into] where it is difficult for us and there is no love…remind me to somehow have the patience and look differently and remember what my role is. And that no matter how you treat me or how I treat you [as human beings], there will be a remembering of how I [as a spiritual being] want it to be.’

Later in the session there is additional discussion of this idea that no matter how his children treat Joe, as a spiritual being he remembers who his children are (as spiritual beings).

Love Allows Everything

“And answering [Joe’s] question, you know—with this difficulty—what you want with your children is to have a loving relationship.

“You created a situation where you were with them and it was loving in the beginning. And then they grew and you allowed them to do what they did, and they allowed you to be your way, and it brought up this challenge [you are asking about].

“So now in this challenge…can you remember to look at it with love? Not to accept the disrespect, but to—in your [own] way—allow them to be the way they are, and [you] still create a feeling of love?

“And as you create that and make your boundaries with your children which ever way you feel it’s necessary to do this, they—feeling the change in you—will then have an opportunity to change and treat you differently.

“But no matter how—if you change or if they change—by allowing them either to work this out with you or not work this out with you; because love allows everything—you allow it to be.

“So if it also does not work out, you will then focus on the love within you and somehow learn to love yourself, and perhaps learn that there is more to you than you believe there is.

“And allowing them to be any way they want…you are bringing in the vibration of love.”

Love is Always There

“There is no: ‘Well if things get good between us again, okay—there is love.’

“No! There is love even if it does not get better between the three of you because we are all love—pure love.

“And when you leave this incarnation you will then feel the love towards each other. It’s always there. It is the situation that you are in that causes you to feel this way or that way, and [ask] what have you learned and how do you want it to be.

“But if there is the acceptance [as in]: ‘This is who they are, I will not allow them to hurt me,’ or, ‘I will allow them to be and act the way they want to, but I will love myself and do what I have to do to feel the love for myself; whether [I] pull away or try to make [a better relationship] happen more,’ it is the allowing [that’s important]. Love allows everything.”

Pre-Incarnation Planning, Part 2

Based on Joe’s previous question about his pre-incarnation planning with his children, I (Bob) asked The Council if they could comment on Joe’s and Joe’s children’s intentions—as spiritual beings before they incarnated—for their relationship in this lifetime.

“As we said in the beginning, to bring love into this existence.”

Bob: “Anything more specific?”

“Joe has learned most of his lifetime to not feel good about himself, and a lot of it he has accepted. And so this creates [a situation with] the children—when they are old enough—to feel that vibration of him not loving himself. And then a situation is created where they feel they do not love him, and then it goes into disrespect, and then it goes into arguing, and then it goes into distance.

“And so by doing this [separation], it is allowing [Joe] to be on his own and not so much wrapped up in them, but for him to find himself and who he is.

“And so when his vibration about himself changes, and when he taps into (maybe) his intelligence, (maybe) his strength in areas he never thought there was strength in, and to start feeling better about himself… .

“That is what he created with his children: the experience of separating; and in that time of separation to find more of this respect that he is [not] experiencing from his children; where it is really disrespect he has had for himself—not feeling good about himself.

“So now in this separation—the time of questioning, and looking within, and learning, and remembering— as he now changes how he feels about himself no matter what is going on around him—the vibration goes out.

“Source sees his vibration and will send him situations and people in his life that will now respect him, show him love, feel differently about him, feel that he is smart, feel that he is—we want to say the word organized, and we are sure he will understand what that means—and that he can achieve many different things in his life.

“But it is only when he looks at himself differently that he will bring in the people that will also see him in that light. They have to. Everyone has to because your vibration will be different. And the ones that refuse to let that in will drop nicely away from your life.”

Work on Feelings About Yourself Before You Work on Feelings About Others

“And so there [are] many challenges going on for Joe at this time, and while these children are a big part of it, to leap into trying to fix it with them before he fixes his feelings about himself, within himself, will not be of a great service.

“And then (of course) if the emotion, the vibration, the feelings about oneself does not change, eventually the relationship with the children can go back to the fighting and will not be able to heal correctly.

“And so it is very nice to think: ‘I want this to work out with my children. I want to be there for them; maybe they can see me differently; let me spend more time with them.’ This does not work well until you work on yourself. And that is very important for Joe.”

Pre-Incarnation Planning, Part 3

Following up on Joe’s interest in pre-incarnation planning I asked The Council if they could elaborate on the details and degree of pre-birth planning between Joe and his sons.

“The only thing that Joe chose with his children in pre-planning was that they would be his children, and that when the experience [of Joe’s self-respect] came up, if he did not learn self-respect and love for himself earlier in his life—which we see here, looking back on his life, he did not learn—then these children would step in and bring the lesson more in front of him (so to speak).

“So yes, if he had learned [self-respect] earlier, this [separation] would have not been needed.”

Bob: “It sounds like you’re saying that if Joe had learned to love himself and appreciate himself earlier in life…”

“…and felt better about himself, then this situation with the children would not have happened.”

This information answers Joe’s third question: “Is it then not true that if I had learned certain lessons earlier in my life, then this part of these lessons [the separation] would not have taken place?”

I asked The Council if they were saying that Joe’s children (as spiritual beings) chose (as human beings) to be disrespectful to Joe out of their love for Joe because all three agreed (as spiritual beings) that this disrespect would inspire Joe to remember the self-love he desires to bring into this lifetime.

“Many spirits—when they plan what they want to learn when they incarnate—before all spirits jump in we laugh because many of us say: ‘Okay, I will do this for you and I will do that for you.’

“But we always laugh and we say, ‘But remember who I really am [as spirit, and] that you asked me to do this.’ So here in the spirit world we laugh because we know if we have to make it difficult for you [as a human being] it is out of love.”

The Bigger the Pain, the Greater the Love?

It was somewhat unexpected to hear The Council suggest that the people in our lives we experience as giving us the most aggravation might actually be acting out of love (as spiritual beings in cooperation with our own spiritual being) to inspire us to bring more love into our human experience.

This felt like very important information and I wanted to be sure I wasn’t misunderstanding what The Council was saying, so I asked (for a third time) if I was understanding them correctly.

Bob: “In the context of Joe’s question about his role and his children’s role, are you saying that his children’s behavior (as human beings) seems disrespectful to him, but ultimately [it] has the result of him having more appreciation for himself and loving and respecting himself more; [and] that from a spiritual point of view his children have behaved (as human beings) in a way that helped Joe feel more love and appreciation for himself, and that’s a way…

“Yes, exactly.”

Bob: “…he can understand their role?”

“The greater part of them that is in spirit—when it came to this point the greater part would say: ‘Okay, here we go.’ And at that point the greater part of you knows that it is not doing wrong; that it is not making it difficult for you; that it is doing exactly what you had asked and that they are creating the situation where you have to reach for love.”

“And [consider] how much they love him to allow themselves to have to act in a very unloving way for him to discover who he is.”

Bob: “…how much they love him as spiritual beings…”

“Of course.”

Bob: “…to be willing to experience the opposite, as human beings.”

“Right. And as they say when they agreed to do this…as all the spirits laugh, planning what they are planning, it’s like: ‘Okay, I will be this horrible person, but somehow remember who I am [as spirit].’”

“And so we feel what we have said will help Joe quite a bit [to] find peace in this situation. And again we would like to say: ‘Do not jump into fixing this relationship with your children until you have come to a good place within yourself—about yourself.’”

Pre-Incarnation Planning, Part 4

Bob: “And when Joe says it seems difficult to imagine how his life could be discussed, planned, and put together before coming here—and the same for each one of us—it sounds like you’re suggesting that for most of us there isn’t the degree of planning and discussion, and everything planned out before we actually incarnate into the physical experience.”

“No, it’s never said, like: ‘Okay, you know, you will be my child; at a certain age you will be very nasty [and] you will hurt my feelings.’ It was not planned to that extent. Each soul – the two children – decided [during this lifetime] this is the way we will create this [reminder].”

Bob: “So if you think about it in terms of a play, there’s a lot of ad-libbing going on.

“Exactly. It is being written as it goes on—[like] live TV.”

Can We Change Our Pre-Incarnation Plans After We Incarnate?

I asked The Council to comment on our ability as human beings to influence plans we may have made as spiritual beings prior to our incarnation, but most of their response seemed to answer a related (but different) question: Why is it so difficult for us (as human beings) to remember details of what we pre-planned (as spiritual beings) to accomplish after incarnating into our physical lives.

This seems like an excellent question, but given the depth of information already presented in this post, we thought it would be better to address this question in a future post, probably after getting additional information from The Council. If you’re curious, you can hear The Council’s response on Audio Clip #16.

The part of their response that did seem to answer my question, emphasized the importance of remembering each person is spirit in a physical body, and that as spirit we are the vibration of love, which allows and creates all that is.

We interpret this to mean that when we (as human beings) attune ourselves to the vibration of the love we are as a spiritual being, this gives us the creative power to influence and change what we pre-planned prior to our incarnation in this lifetime, if we choose to.

Trust Your Feelings

The information in the previous section ended our initial session with The Council on Joe’s questions. In a session with The Council after Joe’s session,  I asked if there was anything they’d like to add to their previous answers to Joe’s questions and this was their reply:

“We see now there is a beginning of a change with [Joe] and his children. And they have all come—in a short period of time—to wanting to heal this relationship; wanting to genuinely bring love into this relationship. And so if it is not felt already, he will soon feel this.

“And so while this is wonderful and this is going in (what we would say) the right direction, we ask him always to be aware of how he feels and to trust more in his feelings.

“And there are some things that will come up that should be addressed with these children that we see he would not necessarily do in this new role of a stronger caring father. We ask him to be aware of these issues and to trust in himself to now be able to handle them—as we believe he can.

“And so they are all expanding, and with great joy we see this.”

Wrap Up

We’d like to express our appreciation for Joe, for his interest in The Council’s teachings, for his willingness to explore a difficult personal situation in this public forum, and most of all for the insights from The Council that his questions inspired. We thank The Council for their guidance. And we thank you, the reader, for making it to the end of this relatively long post and your interest in this material.

We understand that the belief in reincarnation and pre-incarnation planning may be difficult for many people to accept at this time, and it is not our intention to try and persuade skeptics and disbelievers in their reality. We feel The Council’s guidance on bringing love into our human experience has tremendous value that is independent of beliefs in reincarnation and pre-birth planning, and we are happy to share this guidance with readers who may find it helpful.

Let Us Know What You Think

We hope you’ve benefited from the information in this post. We’d love to know what you think of this material. Please consider leaving a comment in the Leave a Reply section below. If you have any questions for The Council about ideas mentioned in this post or other posts, the Leave a Reply section at the bottom of any post is a good place to submit your questions. We will be notified by email. (If you’re reading a post on our Home page you won’t see the Leave a Reply section, but each post on the Home page has a Comment link at the end that will take you to the Leave a Reply section for that post.)

This post was revised on June 21, 2012.

June 17, 2012 - Posted by Cynthia & Bob | Audio Content, Feelings, Law of Attraction, Love, Pre-Incarnation Planning, Questions & Answers, Relationships, Spirit | Love, Pre-Birth Planning, Pre-Incarnation Planning, Relationships, Soul, Spirit