"Every single person that’s here is a vast, multidimensional, eternal soul, very courageous for coming into body, and very courageous for executing the pre-birth plan after they’re in body." (From a "Conversation with Robert Schwartz.' Link is below.)

"The planning we do before birth is far-reaching and detailed.... We choose our parents (and they choose us), when and where we will incarnate, the schools we will attend, the homes in which we will live, the people we will meet, and the relationships we will have." p. 21

"As divine souls, we seek to forget our true identities because [then] remembering will give us a more profound self-knowing. To obtain this deeper awareness, we leave the nonphysical realm--a place of joy, peace, and love--because there we experience no contrast to ourselves. Without contrast, we cannot fully know ourselves." p. 22

"Importantly, the personality has free will. Life challenges may therefore be accepted or resisted. Earth is a stage on which the personality enacts or deviates from the script written before birth. We choose how we respond--with anger and bitterness or with love and compassion. When we recognize that we planned our challenges, the choice becomes clear and much easier to make. p. 24

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?, Robert Schwartz, 2007

In this edition of Just Who Do We Think We Are?, I am highlighting Robert Schwartz. His studies of pre-birth planning are fascinating and bring a new concept to the understanding of reincarnation. His work has convinced him that souls plan certain challenges for their lives before they are born to enhance their learning of particular lessons. He writes in Courageous Souls that Spirit Guides help souls to plan challenging events in their lives on earth for the purpose of growing and learning lessons that they would not be able to experience on the other side where there is not "contrast"-- polarities such as good vs. bad, light vs. dark, happy vs. sad, or healthy vs. illness.

This concept is not totally new. Dr. Brian Weiss writes in Messages from the Masters on page 11 that:

"Our lives are not the result of random actions and events. Lifetimes are wisely and carefully scripted to enhance our learning and evolution. We choose our parents, who usually are souls with whom we have interacted in prior lifetimes....After our souls leave our bodies at the time of physical 'death,' our learning continues on higher planes, which are really higher levels of consciousness. We review the lives we have just left, learn our lessons, and plan for our next life. Learning does not end with the death of the body."

Robert Schwartz explains why he feels it is so important to realize that we help to plan the things that happen to us in life. He writes that the "realization that we are not our bodies makes all the difference. If you are physically disabled and you believe this is your only life and you are no more than your body, then abject despair can result. If, on the other hand, you know--which is to say you feel--yourself to be an eternal soul, then an entirely different life is the consequence. If you also know that you planned your disability, that it indeed has deep significance, then your life may become a quest to uncover that meaning. Suffering is lightened, emptiness replaced with purpose."

What a difference this knowledge can make! Whether we suffer the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job or a devastating illness, we can be assured that there is a higher meaning in life occurrences and that we desired to experience them for our growth.

If you are not already familiar with Robert Schwartz, I hope you will enjoy learning about him and his books by visiting his website and watching the video below.

"On February 25, 1969, Christina, a twenty-year-old administrative assistant in the department of political science at Pomona College in Claremont, California, went to the department's basement mailbox to pick up her employer's mail. As she touched a package in the mailbox a bomb detonated, hurling her across the room. Dust and soot filled the air; six-foot splinters of wood shot like arrows into the cement wall behind her. Flames from the explosion scorched Christina's face, leaving her temporarily blind. The blast severed two fingers from her right hand and ruptured both eardrums.

Christina planned this experience before she was born.

And she knows why." p. 1

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Challenges Before Birth?, Robert Schwartz, 2007

"Prior to birth, we have in-depth conversations with our spirit guides and the other souls with whom we will share our incarnation. We discuss the lessons we hope to learn and the ways in which we will learn them." A flowchart is often "used to map if-then scenarios in the life to come." p. 15

"The Realm of spirit, in which we plan our incarnations and to which we will return when they are complete, is accessible to us now through mediums and channels. The equivalent of spirit guides in human form, they are compassionate, sensitive, and insightful pathfinders to the other side." p. 17

A medium's spirit guides are able to access the Akashic Records, also called "Book of Lives," which is "a complete record of our every; experience, act, word, and thought. When mediums provide their clients with information about past lives, they are often tapping into the Akashic Records. The great American psychic, Edgar Cayce, used these records in the thousands of readings he conducted." p. 16

"If you ever felt you already know someone you just met, it may well be true. That person was probably part of your pre-birth planning. When a place, name, image, or phrase seems oddly familiar the first time you see or hear it, that familiarity is often a vague remembrance of what was discussed before incarnation." p. 21

"A soul is a spark of the Divine; a personality--a human being--is a portion of a soul's energy in a physical body. The personality consists of temporary traits that exist only during the physical lifetime and an immortal core that reunites with the soul after death. The soul is vast and goes well beyond any one personality, yet each personality is vital to and dearly loved by the soul." p. 24

Each chapter in Courageous Souls tells the story of someone with whom Schwartz has worked, using a reading with a medium to access their pre-birth planning. The stories include challenges that the subjects chose to experience in their lives. The reasons that these subjects chose to experience deafness and blindness, addiction and alcoholism, the death of a loved one, various accidents, and being a parent to handicapped children are explained in depth.

In his book, Courageous Souls, 2007, Schwartz explains that through the medium, he asked his guides about the challenges he had faced in his life. It was explained that he had planned his challenges before birth—not for the purpose of suffering, but for the growth they would bring. He writes that the session with the medium began a spiritual awakening, a remembering of who he is as an eternal soul and what he had planned to do on Earth. He became obsessed with reading about spirituality and metaphysics, and no longer viewed challenges in his life as meaningless suffering but now could see them as "rich with purpose."

He found his purpose in writing and speaking about the subject of "life plans," working with several mediums to explore the pre-birth plans of many people. He believes that the events in our lives are not random or arbitrary but part of an intricate plan that we have a part in designing. Schwartz has since written three additional books, Your Soul's Plan, 2010, Your Soul's Gift, 2012, and Your Soul's Love, 2021, that "offer...the life stories and pre-birth plans of many courageous souls."

In a "Conversation with Rob Schwartz" on his website, Schwartz describes how and why souls can plan their lives before they are born. Click below to read an interview in which he briefly tells his story and what he has come to believe about pre-birth planning.

Roberta Grimes Says...

"With 160,000 people dying daily, it is tragic that in the 21st century so many still die in ignorance and fear." p. 5

"In fact, the change that we call death is a passage as easy as a sneeze into a reality far happier and even more alive than this one is, so it is past time for us to stop being afraid to use the word. At worst, death is a brief illusion of separation from some of those we love; at best, it is a glorious new freedom. But it is not in any sense an ending. So let's use the word. It is time to stop fearing it." p. 9

The Fun of Dying: Find Out What Really Happens Next, Roberta Grimes, 2014

Carl Bowman Says...

"I’m convinced. Without a doubt, the best evidence for the continuation of consciousness beyond death is the spontaneous past life memories of very young children.

The children are remembering being here before, in other bodies, as distinct individuals. Which means, therefore, that some form of identity—a cluster of personality, memory, emotion—survives bodily death and travels full circle to be reborn: the working definition of reincarnation.

It’s a natural phenomenon, supported by thousands of cases reported all over the world, from all cultures, regardless of religious beliefs—including Western cultures that don’t believe in reincarnation. I’m convinced from working directly with American families, counseling parents whose children are spontaneously remembering and acting out a past life. I’ve collected scores of cases. These cases contain plenty of hard evidence—statements, behaviors, and birthmarks—that can’t be explained except by reincarnation."

These children are pulling back the curtain on one of the perennial mysteries of human experience—what happens after death."

The Power of Our Thoughts 

About Future Crunch: "We are a team of science communicators based in Melbourne, Australia. We curate stories of good news, mind-blowing science, human progress, and we support small charities using science and technology to make the world a better place. More than 40,000 people subscribe to our free, fortnightly email newsletter. (https://futurecrun.ch/)

"The Snoqualmie Indian Tribe has reclaimed ownership of its ancestral lands in Oregon, with the purchase of 12,000 acres of former logging forest. It’s a ‘monumental’ victory for the tribe, who have fought to reclaim the land since the 1930s and will now switch to harvesting sustainable timber as part of a bigger plan to restore local wildlife populations." Oregon Live

"In the two decades since Portugal decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs, overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime have all dramatically decreased. The ground-breaking reform was part of policy shift to prioritise health over criminalization and its success has inspired the implentation of similar models in Oregon and now, potentially, Norway." Transform Drugs

"US insurance giant Travelers will no longer underwrite companies that generate more than 30% of their revenue from coal or have more than 30% of their reserves in tar sands. It joins 35 insurers globally that have ended or limited coverage: three Norh American insurers, most Asian insurers, and all major European insurers."

"Another insurance company has dumped Adani: Convex, a global reinsurance company, has announced it won't be going anywhere coal or coal-related infrastructure. The company did not specifically name Adani but referred only to “a new coal mine in Australia.” Convex is the 43rd insurer to rule out underwriting the mine." Insurance Business Mag

"Duke Energy, a US utility serving customers in six states, has announced plans to cut coal to less than 5% of its total generation by 2030 and to fully exit coal by 2035. The company currently owns about 16 GW of coal plants, and describes this as the 'largest planned coal fleet retirement in the industry.'” IEEFA

Shari Harris

"Just Who Do We Think We Are?"

Shari's website under the "My Two Cents" tab.