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| Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Schwartz
Publisher: Frog Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $11.53
You Save: $5.42 (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 487501
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 344
ISBN: 1583942726
Dewey Decimal Number: 133
EAN: 9781583942727
ASIN: 1583942726
Publication Date: March 24, 2009 (In 111 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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Product Description
Your Soul’s Plan explores the provocative premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges, before we are born for 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 comprise Your Soul’s Plan help 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...
Fascinating and Important Book March 5, 2007
93 out of 95 found this review helpful
"There is a need to create limitation, as the soul uses limitation in your realm for growth. As you experience limitedness, there is a need to overcome frustration, work within one's own parameters, and focus energy--an energy that cuts through the density in your realm and creates spaces of light and a higher vibration." - From Courageous Souls
At some point, everyone on Earth has asked "Why?" in the face of difficult circumstances. Why did my fiance die in a car accident? Why is my mother an alcoholic? Why is my son Autistic? Why do I have cancer? Why is my brother a quadriplegic because of a diving accident? Why do some people die at the hands of serial killers or suicide bombers?
Like existential detectives, many of us try to wrap our heads around life challenges and, ultimately, find out "whodunit?" Was it because of a nasty devil wanting to afflict? Is a capricious god punishing me--or is the wheel of karma catching up? Is negative thinking the root of my illness?
What if NONE of these scenarios was the case--but, in fact, we CONTRACTED our life challenges before incarnating?
In his book Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?, author Robert Schwartz takes readers behind the veil of forgetfulness into the conversations and decisions that have taken place "between lives". Interviewing about a dozen people who have experienced loss, illness, accidents, and addictions, Schwartz explores the idea of agreements made before birth to learn and experience certain life lesson--and coming to know our true selves.
In addition, the author facilitates sessions between these individuals and several mediums. These mediums access the Akashic Records (an etheric "book of life" that records every thought, word, and action) for information on pre-birth planning sessions or "channel" messages from their spirit guides about specific agreements.
Echoing the case studies of hypnotherapist Dr. Michael Newton, author of the books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls--as well as the children's book The Little Soul and the Sun by Neale Donald Walsch-- Schwartz maintains that Earth is place of duality where powerful creators incarnate in order to learn through opposites. A candle surrounded by brilliant light can only experience darkness by entering it.
"Who but the most power of souls could conjure an illusion that appears real to its very creator?" he asks. While we're on the other side, we consult with members of our soul group and guides and agree to perform certain roles--all for the purpose of soul growth and experience. By incarnating on the Earth plane--being born--we enter a "river of forgetfulness", as Caroline Myss describes in her book Sacred Contracts. We forget so we can have a powerful "remembering".
If we accept that each human has contracted particular life lessons such as parenting a disabled child, losing a loved one, participating in an addiction, or experiencing an illness, then the concept of being a "victim"--either of a negligent person, system, or god--is neutralized. Even more than that, there is a sense of meaning and empowerment that enables the personality to move forward, heal, and even contribute to the well-being of others and the raising of group consciousness.
Courageous Souls parts the curtain on the great stage of life, revealing the elaborate play and agreed upon roles that humanity acts out here on Earth--all motivated by deep love and respect for one another. Schwartz writes:
"We love the souls whom we plan our lives. During our earthly existence, they may be people who complicate matters, cause us stress or worry, or even become our `enemies'. When not incarnate the estranged husband and wife, the abusive parent and neglected child, and the warring ex-business partners are loving friends. They care deeply for one another and will often reincarnate together in an effort to master lessons unfinished in previous lives."
Of course, empirical verification of the stories and channeled information relayed in Courageous Souls is impossible, but so are, ultimately, any assertions made by a sacred text, religious leader, or jaded philosopher. One thing I know for sure: ALL of us tell stories to ourselves (and others) that attempt to explain why things happen as they do. Many of those interpretations of "the facts" come from outside us, such as the doctrines of religion or the mores of a culture.
So if we're all telling stories about what we're experiencing on Earth in the attempt to explain situations or create meaning, why not tell ones that embolden, enlighten, and inspire? What is accomplished by playing the victim, wallowing in blame, or becoming entangled in mind games of "woulda, coulda, shoulda"?
What IS has already happened--and how empowering is the idea that we all are playing our roles brilliantly--and that we will embrace all the actors on the other side, congratulating them on their performance and their act of service!
If these ideas sound like the kind of reality you would like to learn more about, then I highly recommend Courageous Souls by Robert Schwartz. By allowing us, the readers, to eavesdrop into pre-birth planning sessions and post-"trauma" interviews, we are given a precious gift of comfort, peace, and meaning--urging us forward in our unique destinies with the knowledge that none is a victim...and EVERYTHING can be used for our highest good.
Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book: Picture the Past, Experience the Cards, Understand the Present (coming Fall 2008 from Hampton Roads Publishing)
A New Way to Look at Life March 11, 2007
53 out of 55 found this review helpful
In "Courageous Souls" Robert Schwartz not only discusses the concept of pre-birth planning, but he also provides an in-depth look at both the pre-birth planning process (which occurs while in spirit before each incarnation), as well as the various reasons a soul may have chosen the particular challenges they're dealing with in this lifetime.
What I found particularly interesting were the personal interviews the author did with several participants & the subsequent sessions with various mediums/psychics to assess each person's pre-birth planning sessions. Together these sessions provided background information regarding each person's challenge & the reasons their soul chose that challenge for this lifetime. The types of challenges discussed include: physical illness, parenting handicapped children, drug addiction & alcoholism, death of a loved one, & accidents.
Reading this book allows one to consider a whole new way to look at life's challenges - a way where each challenge does in fact serve a purpose, and a high purpose at that! A way where there is no reason to blame or judge or hate - because we're able to recognize that each person on this earth is also serving a purpose.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in spirituality & the concept of pre-birth planning - it's truly inspiring.
P.S. This book also offers the names & contact information for the psychics/mediums who worked with the author on this book - a great addition for those of us who would like some assistance in accessing our own pre-birth planning sessions!
Pondering the Possibilities Outside the Box February 27, 2007
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
Robert Schwartz is an eloquent spokesman for his explorations in the realm few of us have even considered, much less explored fully: the concept of pre-birth planning as a convention of souls who make decisions about incarnation - place, time, circumstances, and challenges - that will heighten the overall improvement of not only their repeated growth in the process of rebirth but also the gift to the betterment of mankind.
Schwartz' manner of writing is so tender and so lacking in preaching that he gradually draws the reader into his realm of thinking in a way that allows us to suspend any doubt or prejudice we may have about spirituality or after life or universal karma. He uses conversations with people who share their experiences of living with such 'handicaps' as physical illness, parenting handicapped children, deafness and blindness, drug addiction and alcoholism, accidents, death of a loved one and alters the word 'handicapped' to 'challenges'; 'Challenges are mirrors that reflect to us our feelings about ourselves. In that sense, they are gifts. Wisdom allows us to recognize them as such.'
In addition to discussing the above challenges with particular people who have them, Schwartz introduces us to mediums and channelers who channel the souls of the people we meet, allowing Schwartz to relay to us the conversations between the spiritual world and the physical world. In this very quiet manner Schwartz offers an explanation as to why 'untoward events' happen: his conversations with the various people he shares (for instance the autistic child or the parent of that child) allow us to consider that these choices are made in the spirit world prior to our birth and that these challenges offer the opportunity to separate the physical self-centered being from the choice to make the situations examples of growth, and of revealing love to those around us.
Schwartz takes no credit for the information he presents in this book. His drive is to open doors to us the readers to consider his findings and philosophy as a means to learning more about how life and the spiritual world are enmeshed. 'I have learned from the wise nonphysical beings with whom I have spoken...Through them I now understand the immense power of this most elemental truth: that we are not our bodies...If you also know that you planned your disability, that it indeed has a deep significance, then your life may become a quest to uncover that meaning. Suffering is lightened, emptiness replaced with purpose.'
Writers such as Robert Schwartz challenge our inside the box thinking, encouraging us to suspend prejudice and the state of being uninformed to enter the arena of growing spiritually. The beauty of this enormously moving book lies in the simplicity of the style Schwartz has chosen to communicate. This is not a sensationalized series of speaking with the 'great dramatic seance', this is instead a welcome to another way of viewing our lives - this one and the ones that have been and will be. Grady Harp, February 07
 Seriously Flawed, but E for Effort December 10, 2007
22 out of 34 found this review helpful
This is a strange combination of wishful thinking, naivete and some spiritual wisdom. It is mainly a monument to what is called the "pathetic fallacy", the tendency of man to impart meaning and purpose to natural things that are innately attributable to chance, like seeing faces in clouds. In the case of human suffering (euphemistically called "challenge" in New Age circles), there is naturally an extra strong motivation to find meaning and purpose, because then it doesn't seem as bad. So a person can always ingeniously invent meanings and purposes justifying his own personal history of suffering and tragedy. Human imagination is a powerful force. This is overall a naive rationalizing away of the ugly reality of human suffering, and is beloved by so many New Age "true believers", usually driven by hidden fears.
In the case of this book, the usual New Age metaphysical notion that we "choose our life" is the paradigm: we (as our soul) usually choose our suffering, and the meanings and purposes accordingly also were chosen by our soul.
In my view this may actually be the case in some instances, but nowhere as often as suggested in this book. Chance and the impact of multitudes of free will choices of other humans obviously results in much suffering, unless souls somehow abrogate the operation of physical natural law and human free will.
For the amount of human suffering that may be through soul choice, the book purports to offer comfort. But this blithely assumes that it is comforting to see one's pain as coming from soul choice. The vast majority of the human race are aware of themselves not as souls but as unique human personalities with memories going back to childhood. 99.9% of the human race automatically identify themselves as their bodies, and for them suffering is one with and identical to physical pain. To most persons a soul choice of suffering is as unjust as it being the choice of another human being. This isn't because they have consciously made the choice to reject New Age metaphysics - they don't live where they could be exposed to it, and don't have the liesure to indulge in it.
Most people would angrily reject (I can imagine the expletives) anyone coming up and telling him "don't worry, it's for the good of your soul". Do you want to go to a nursing home and tell one of
the lonely, abandoned, and painfully sick maybe bedridden elderly
that they shouldn't feel sorry for themselves - after all, they have really chosen this situation? Or try it with a quadraplegic in a veterans hospital.
I apologize if the following is is too intensely negative for
some people, but the reality is that there are endless horrendous
examples of long, slow, incredibly cruel dying that can take years,
to say nothing about purely mental and emotional suffering. I would
like to cite an example combining both from my own experience, in
periodically visiting and trying to comfort a member of my wife's
family who had had a severe stroke. It took him five years to die. He
was severely disabled by the first stroke, necessitating a 24-hour
medical care nursing home. At the beginning he was still able to
speak a little, and said he wanted to die. He repeated this on
several subsequent visits while he was still able, using paper and
pencil, with a terrible begging desperation in his eyes. He was in
constant physical pain due to various effects resulting from the
stroke and being bedridden. His condition slowly, gruelingly
worsened so that in the last couple of years he was shrunken,
twisted and incoherent. But he still was conscious, and obviously
continued to suffer terribly despite being incapable of coherent
thought.
This is not a fictional horror story - it really happened, and is
hardly unique.
I would like to propose a thought experiment: put yourself in my
place on one of my visits, rise above any instinctive fear of one day
going through the same nightmare ending, and see if you can feel the
goodness of this life and the soul choices that led to it.
The brutal reality of innocent suffering is still there. It can't be rationalized away. Soul choice may be involved, but it is not good or right or loving from the human point of view. Maybe from the soul point of view, but we live as humans not souls.
A note about the channeling methods used to elicit the information. In my opinion much of this material involved the power of suggestion and the psychological phenomenon called confabulation. Investigators often find what they are looking for, no matter what it is.
An Empowering Way to Reframe Painful Challenges in Our Lives September 17, 2007
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
It has been said that asking oneself the question, "Who was I before I was born?" can teach us the most about our true spiritual identity -- yet few of us have been so enlightened as to have heard the full reply. COURAGEOUS SOULS takes this starting point one step further by exploring just how we may have crafted our entire life around all of our life circumstances -- both the high and the low points.
What sets Robert Schwartz's book apart from other books about spirituality, reincarnation and the afterlife is his organized use of intuitive readings as companion pieces to accompany the various life stories he includes. These intuitive sessions provide a deep sense of interconnectedness and unconditional love shared in our lifetimes which we sometimes lose sight of, as well as insights into how we continue learning life lessons from one life to the next. The stories include descriptions of people who have experienced tremendous suffering who are greatly inspired and relieved to see an underlying sense of purpose and meaning to all they have gone through.
COURAGEOUS SOULS is an exceptional book for anyone interested in exploring the true nature of their spiritual identity, who is willing to keep an open mind regarding the value of some of the most painful challenges we humans face in our lives on Earth; this is highly recommended reading for anyone seeking to reframe and find deeper meaning from the painful challenges, setbacks or hardships in their lives.
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