Background information
I did it! My Vipassana experience: what ten days of silence did to me
by Ronja Magdziak
Have I ever lived before?
23.4.2019
Translation: machine translated
My light-sensitive eyes squint at the smartphone display. Three hours seem to have passed since I set off on a journey to a past life. Two hours, 48 minutes and 53 seconds to be precise.
I feel a little uneasy at the thought of being in a stranger's home. But as a coach for holistic fitness, Martina Laager knows how to create a familiar atmosphere that immediately puts me at ease. Martina is a qualified pharmaceutical assistant and, together with her husband Alex, has been offering so-called regression therapies for ten years. This involves taking a kind of mental journey back to your youth, childhood or even a past life. The aim? To find answers. Answers to questions that you can no longer let go of. "How far someone can be led back into the past depends on what beliefs that person has," Martina explains to me. I, for example, believe in reincarnation, which is why I want to have this experience - even if most of the people around me roll their eyes when I broach the topic.
I believe in reincarnation.
Let's talk
Martina leads me to a white pallet table where our preliminary discussion is to take place. My gaze falls on the large glass carafe with the flower of life at the bottom. An ornament that had already caught my eye when I visited the life coach Brigitte Jenni. Martina pours us two glasses of water and asks me directly how I feel. Happy, relaxed and content, is my answer. She wants to know if I noticed any physical symptoms before I came here. This is something that can happen more often. I prick up my ears. Wasn't there that stabbing pain in my right shoulder that had been bothering me for the last few metres on the way to her? It came out of nowhere and disappeared just as Martina opened the door and greeted me with a smile. Coincidence?
We go through a pre-prepared questionnaire together. She asks about important people in my life, behavioural patterns I know, feelings, physical complaints, wishes for the future and the worst thing I think could happen to me. In this way, she gets to know me better and together we formulate the questions I am looking for answers to: Have I met certain people before? What was my life like back then and how did I die? These are just the ones I'm prepared to reveal publicly. In total, I come up with eight questions.
Martina explains to me that the whole thing takes place without hypnosis. I am fully conscious and can decide at any time whether I want to stop. She merely takes on the role of my companion. I ask her if it works for everyone. "There are people who don't find their way into a regression at all and are blocked. This has never happened to me personally, but it can happen." A regression is not right for everyone. I should see it as a tool for self-help. As a kind of instrument that can help me in any situation in life to answer an urgent question or understand something better.
Before we start, Martina asks me to set my mobile to flight mode and record everything that happens using the memo function on my phone. This way I can listen to it again promptly, preferably within 72 hours of the regression. I also remove metals such as piercings in favour of the energy flow. Then I lie down on my back on a couch. I place my head on the cushion, while the backs of my knees are supported by a padded element. A cloth rests on my eyes. After a breathing exercise, Martina instructs me to "switch off" my individual limbs step by step using my imagination so that I can enter my consciousness. Now there are only my thoughts.
Where am I? And more importantly, who am I?
My journey begins. I am asked to imagine a house. The image of an old, stony building comes together in my mind's eye. Martina asks for a lift in a gentle voice. No, there is definitely no lift here. So I look for a staircase. "Which floor would you like to go to?" she asks me. As if shot out of a pistol, I answer "two". I'm surprised and immediately ask myself how I know that so well. The number has clearly appeared in my mind's eye, no question about it. But isn't that simply because I also live on the second floor at this point in my life?
I quickly realise that the answers are not always so clear-cut, and sometimes even impossible to find. "Everyone only sees and feels what they are ready for," Martina reassures me. For the first half hour, I seem to be wandering around somewhere in an ancient setting and end up first in a kitchen, then in a strange room. I'm all alone, looking around. And then I shock myself. When Martina asks me how I feel about this place, the first tears roll down my cheeks. What the hell is wrong with me? I was feeling great a moment ago. I can't explain the emotional outburst and it makes me very uncomfortable. "It happens sometimes, just go with the flow," says Martina.
This is followed by various scene changes and image fragments. Again and again, I have to ask my "higher self" to take me to the scenes that are important to me. By this, Martina means the person who guides me through the whole thing internally. But I don't always succeed. Sometimes it's just images that appear before my closed eyes out of nowhere, sometimes moving scenes or just feelings. And sometimes there is nothing. The question constantly circles in my head: Am I just imagining everything? Is this all just my wishful thinking? Am I perhaps inferring the past from the present instead of the other way round?
Timeless
I lose all sense of time. I can feel my neck stiffening, which must be a sign that I've been lying there longer than I thought. Staying focussed is getting harder by the second. The final part is the hardest for me. In it, I analyse the characters I've encountered in my head cinema to find out whether they are crucial key figures. To do this, I symbolically place a guardian angel at my side, which I have to swap for a substitute because it is "no good". Although I believe in such angelic companions, I find it difficult to take the matter seriously at this moment. What's more, I've reached my mental limits. I answer Martina's questions more and more often with "I can't say". Then it's over.
Slowly I sit up. My head is buzzing. As my light-sensitive eyes squint at the smartphone display, I can hardly believe it: Three hours seem to have passed. Two hours, 48 minutes and 53 seconds to be precise. Unbelievable, especially as I would have estimated the time on the couch to be around an hour. Now I realise why I should take five hours for this experience. An hour's preliminary talk, two to three hours of regression, followed by an hour's follow-up. This includes using Martina's notes to link what I have "seen" with my life today in order to find answers to the questions I asked at the beginning. I then receive a Reiki treatment from her, which has its roots in the Tibetan art of healing. This is intended to have an energising effect and ensure that I regain my strength. By gently touching me and holding her hands over certain parts of my body, she guides me into deep relaxation.
Hocus pocus?
To this day, a week after my regression, I still have no clear opinion on the whole thing. Very atypical for me. This is probably because I had a completely different idea of the experience. I thought I could see everything clearly in front of me. Like a kind of film playing in front of my inner eye. I didn't expect that a lot of personal work, energy and concentration would be required of me. The interplay of self-doubt and self-confidence is also exhausting. While one moment I'm convinced that I'm on the right track, the next minute my faith starts to waver. Then I blame everything on my blossoming imagination. And as soon as I can't perceive anything, I involuntarily put myself under pressure.
As for my questions: I wasn't able to answer all of them, but some of them. At times, my mental journey even seemed to take me to two different lives. Basically, I would describe the experience as an externally guided monologue that showed me subtle connections and parallels between what I experienced in the session and my current life. Martina got me to dig out topics that have probably been occupying my subconscious for some time and put them into context with images, scenes and feelings. As a result, I have literally visualised a few connections. I can well imagine giving it another go in a few years' time. Until then, some of the things I've seen will continue to haunt me for a while...
Martina Laager now practices in her own studio. You can find more information here
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Header image: Martina Laager gives me a relaxing Reiki treatment after the return.
Natalie Hemengül
Senior Editor
Natalie.Hemenguel@digitecgalaxus.chAs a massive Disney fan, I see the world through rose-tinted glasses. I worship series from the 90s and consider mermaids a religion. When I’m not dancing in glitter rain, I’m either hanging out at pyjama parties or sitting at my make-up table. P.S. I love you, bacon, garlic and onions.
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