Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?

by Robert Schwartz

So often, when something “bad” happens to us, it appears to be purposeless suffering. But what if our most difficult experiences are actually rich with hidden purpose – purpose that we ourselves planned before we were born? Could it be that we choose our life’s circumstances, relationships, and events?

In my research for my book Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?, I found that the answer to this question is a definite yes. Working with four of the most gifted mediums and channels in the country, including one who is able to hear the conversations people had with their future parents, children, spouses, friends, and other loved ones, I’ve examined the pre-birth plans of dozens of individuals. These people planned such challenges as physical illness, having handicapped children, deafness, blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, losing a loved one, and severe accidents.

Why do we plan to experience challenges? I found four primary reasons. First, challenges allow us to balance karma from past lives. Karma is sometimes conceptualized as “cosmic debt,” but I think of it more as unbalanced energy. Let’s say, for example, that in a past life one person was physically ill and another person was the caretaker. When these two people transition back into spirit and have their life review, they will have a sense of unbalanced energy. One way to create balance would be to switch roles. The one who was ill now plans to be the caretaker, while the one who was the caretaker now plans to experience illness. What makes these life blueprints so challenging is that once in body, neither soul will remember the pre-birth plan.

Second, we plan challenges in order to heal. For example, Penelope, the deaf woman in my book’s chapter on deafness and blindness, planned to be born completely deaf because in a past life she had heard the gunshots that killed her mother. She was a small child when the murder occurred. She was traumatized by her mother’s death and went on to commit suicide later in that incarnation. In this lifetime, she sought to focus on self-healing and wanted to make sure that her healing would not be hindered by a similar trauma. In her pre-birth planning session, her spirit guide asks, “My dear …  would you prefer to be born deaf so that no sound will ever remind you of those sounds again?” Penelope replies, “Yes, that is what I want and what I wish to do.”

Third, we plan challenges to be of service to others. In the chapter on physical illness, I write about Jon, a homosexual man who planned to have AIDS so that he could teach tolerance to humanity. In his pre-birth planning session, we heard Jon conferring with the soul of the future lover who would – at his request – transmit the virus to him. The future lover says, “There is an issue larger than all of the personal benefit of contracting this illness. We can teach our elders, honor them, and provide them with a valuable opportunity to experience, learn, and grow.” Jon, therefore, is not someone to be judged or scorned, but rather someone we may thank for having the raw courage to plan such a bold mission in service to others.

Lastly, life challenges allow us to know ourselves as love. By this I mean not simply that we are loving, although certainly that is true, but that we are quite literally made of the energy of love. In our nonphysical Home, we experience no contrast to ourselves and, therefore, cannot fully understand our nature as love. On Earth, in a realm of duality and stark contrast, we often encounter a lack of love. As we choose, in the face of such experiences, to give and receive love freely and unconditionally, we remember who we really are.

© 2007 Robert Schwartz. Robert Schwartz is the author of Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth? (ISBN 9780977679454). Free PDF book samples are available at www.CourageousSouls.com. The book may be ordered on the website or by calling Whispering Winds Press at 1-800-742-0148 (in the US) or writing to info@courageoussouls.com. His book is a culmination of three years of study and research. You can reach him at author@courageoussouls.com