Christian Sundberg Talks About Pre-birth Memories, The Purpose Of Life, Suffering, And Is Hell Real

Hello everyone, I'm Janet Tarantino, the author of Dying to See: Revelations About God, Jesus, Our Pathways, and the Nature of the Soul. I'd like to welcome you today to my YouTube channel called Exploring Everything Spiritual. Please click the like button below, and feel free to share any video on my YouTube channel. Don't forget to subscribe below to hear future amazing stories about everything spiritual.

Our guest today is Christian Sundberg, author of A Walk in the Physical: Understanding the Human Experience Within the Larger Spiritual Context. Let me tell you a little bit about Christian. When Christian was a young child, he remembered his existence before coming to Earth. While his pre-birth memory left him completely during his early adult life, it spontaneously returned at the age of 30 when Christian took up a meditation practice and went through a personal awakening journey. He also began to have out-of-body experiences, known as OBEs.

Now, Christian has given over 80 public speaking presentations in hopes of reminding others, or at least opening their awareness, to who we really are. Welcome, Christian. Glad to have you here today.

Christian: Thank you so much, Janet. I appreciate it.

Janet: My pleasure. I find your story very interesting, as I agree with the pre-birth planning because that's kind of part of my story. I say that because even though I don't have specific pre-birth memories, part of my story goes back to when I was young and had recollections of things I shouldn't have known.

My parents already had twin boys, and they were two years older than me. When I came along, they decided to build a larger home to accommodate the family. I remember that day very clearly because I was about 18 months old, and I still couldn't walk very well. My mom was holding me in the crook of her arm, and my dad had taken us to see the progress of the family home. My dad was animatedly and excitedly describing to my mom where the kitchen appliances and the sink and everything were going to go.

I felt like I was looking out the portholes of this little girl that was me, as if I was the spirit looking out of a porthole of a ship. I already knew what my home was going to look like, with the kitchen being the heart of our home. Does this support what you're going to talk about today?

Christian: Yeah, absolutely. Especially when we're young, the veil is not quite as thick, so to speak. So, it's very common for children to connect to that higher portion of themselves and be able to see from that perspective. It gets a little less common as we become more and more deeply associated with the identity and the forms of Earth. But yeah, that definitely sounds like something I would think is normal.

Janet: Okay, so let's hear a little bit more about what you'd like to share today, and we'll go from there.

Christian: Yeah, sure. I think the primary message that I want to share, and I think is the most important thing, is that whoever you are listening today, you are loved. You are deeply, deeply loved. And that is not just an abstract, distant concept. It is a tangible, substantive reality, even if you don't necessarily feel it right now on a human level.

What we come from, who we truly are, is total freedom, joy, and unconditional love. It's not just a nice-sounding fairy tale or something. It really is the real substance of what we are. And I'll just have to say up front that these things really cannot be spoken about with words. It's a disclaimer that I think is important to make every time we try to talk about these topics.

We're living in a world right now of form, duality, and symbols. And who we truly are vastly transcends those symbols of Earth. You can't possibly quantify or name or give word to what we really are. So, we're just using some words. Love, joy, and freedom are the closest English words I could think of.

Consciousness itself—who you are—is the spirit that is listening today, not the human character. The human is just something that we experience being. It's like a character that we take on for a while or a shirt that we wear for a while to have a very unique cognitive perspective. But that really is the most important message.

Of course, there are all sorts of things tied to that, but I really am passionate about hopefully reminding people that they are more than the human character. And because of that, there is nothing to fear. There's nothing in this world that we need to actually fear. Fear is something that we experience very deeply here because this is a very constraining state of separation by comparison. So, there's a lot of opportunity for fear to arise and for the ego to rise because the ego comes from fear.

When we're afraid, when we feel separate, our egos rise up and try to fix the problem. But in the end, there's no reason to fear because even this state of separation is an illusion. It's not fundamentally real. What we really are is consciousness itself, awareness itself, that is connected with all things, with each other, and with all things. We are never truly separate. We are never truly without that power that seems to have been lost. So, there really is never any reason to truly fear.

Janet: Exactly. So, I notice in your book that you mentioned overcoming fear is an important part of the spiritual journey. Is that what you just were talking about?

Christian: Yeah, overcoming fear is a very important part of the journey. I think Tom Campbell's work speaks to this very well. But in short, our true nature is love. So, when we come to an experience like this that is so highly constraining, the experience is giving us an opportunity to integrate this level of context in this specific perspective.

What we are is integrators of experience. That's really what we are. It's really what spirit is. So, when we can come into an experience of extreme separation, extreme denseness, extreme consistency, maybe even extreme pain, and if we can meet that and process that, then there is this incredible growth of being.

If we can come vibrationally far away from source, from what we really are, and if we can really meet that experience fully and integrate it and come to terms fully with it so that we know it and bring love through it and make loving choices through it, then there is this profound expansion of being—an expansion of what we are, an expansion of love and joy.

So, fear is just a word, but it's the best word we have to summarize that which is not really an opposite of love because love is what's fundamentally real. It doesn't truly have an opposite. But from this perspective in duality, fear is what we could say is love turned around. It's not a second fundamental power, but if we turn it around and if we get lost inside the illusion of separation and if we get lost inside the negative self-perceptions that can arise in this kind of situation—like the perception of powerlessness or shame or unworthiness of love—those are some of the big ones we deal with a lot as humans.

When those negative self-perceptions are taken on, we experience a lot of fear. So, if we can really meet and process and heal that fear, then there is a deep integration that occurs, and that is an expansion of love and joy. So, conquering fear—maybe conquering is not the right word—integrating fear, fully processing fear, fully healing through all that, is synonymous with an expansion of love and joy because joy and love are what we already are.

So, when fear is not hindering us, when we're not buried underneath it, buried underneath all the suffering and the story, then the love that we really are can just shine forth, and it can do it in a context that was previously very daunting. So, yes, it's synonymous with what we're doing here in one way.

Janet: Yeah, I think they call that false fears, false ego appearing real, but it's actually an illusion, like you were saying.

So, I can say that after my near-death experiences, my fear was transformed into excitement because now I wonder every day what's going to happen and what's laid out for me to learn. It's a great mystical adventure here in this world. I remember coming back to my body excited. I was so excited to get back in my body. It was amazing.

Christian: That's awesome. Yeah, I resonate with that because it very much speaks to what I felt before accepting this life, before incarnating. Even though I knew that it was extremely dense and could be extremely challenging for me, there was so much excitement. It was such a precious opportunity to be able to do this, and I was just incredibly excited to be able to undertake this journey.

So, it's really great to hear you say it from a perspective of having already lived, then visiting the other side, and then deciding to return to the existing life in a similar way. That's wonderful. I mean, I feel like when we know the truth of who we really are—the love, the joy, the power, and the immortality of what we really are—it's very natural for us to be excited, even with the things that, from the human perspective, may seem very dense or challenging.

Janet: Yeah, because I sat down in my body. I sat down and put a spirit foot into each of my legs and put my spirit body back on. I rocked back and forth until I could get up enough momentum to lay down in spirit form and help my body sit up and gasp for air.
So, I'm going to hold the suffering for a little bit because I'd like to touch on the purpose of the physical universe. What's that all about?

Christian: The purpose of this—and we touched on this a bit—is still beyond language. It's almost impossible to state succinctly, but we can say that the physical universe is a place that has been created for the opportunity to make choices within a rich context so that we can integrate experience and grow towards joy and love.

It's an experience integration playground that is meant for the expansion of love and joy. It is also a great creative project. It's like a creative game in which we get to dive deeply into these discrete perspectives and then see how we can actualize our true loving nature through these perspectives. Can we do it even here? And what is it like to experience being this?

This is a place where we can come to experience certain perspectives that are not possible in other higher systems, especially certain limitations. There are certain limitations available on Earth, and not just Earth. The whole physical universe offers the opportunity for experiences of relatively extreme limitation. And that can be very valuable to the spirit, to the soul that wants to experience these things, know them deeply, integrate them deeply, process them, and take that with them forever.

There's so much to that. We summarize the integration experience and the expression of love and the growth of love, which means so many things. Being loved means so many different things. It means how we meet each moment. Do we meet every moment of our lives with openness, acceptance, humility, bravery, compassion, and kindness? Or do we feel the fear and then just kind of...

And it's okay if we find ourselves unable to escape the fear circle. That's okay. That's part of the journey. But if we can overcome that fear, like we said already, then that is such an awesome opportunity.

So, that's a part of it too because, basically, if we want to bring it down to just one root idea, it's how we use our intent. We're refining the way that we use our intention, our choice-making. Tom Campbell has a great term for this. He calls it "quality of intent." It means, in any given context, can you make the loving choice rather than the fearful choice?

And so, this universe is a high-constraint, high-contrast context in which we get to test that and develop it.

Janet: Great. So, in your view, do we incarnate because this one's been floating around in my mind? Do we learn for us as spirits, or do we learn for the collective, or both?

Christian: It's like that, yes. But the learning is not intellectual learning or behavioral learning. Those things happen within a given life. The learning that we're doing is experiential growth. It's a growth of the being.

So, reincarnation doesn't mean different people. It's just that you—whoever you are listening—that feels like you to you is knowing this experience, and you will know future experiences too if you so choose because it's valuable to have different experiences.

We very crudely might say you can go do one thing Monday night, another thing Tuesday night, and another thing Wednesday night. They're all you. You're just learning and having a different experience. Maybe you go to dinner one night, maybe you go hiking, and then maybe you go to a movie. They may all be very different experiences, but it's still you having them.

Kind of like, where is the five-year-old you right now? The five-year-old you is gone. It's died, so to speak. That form is gone, but you're still here. And it will be exactly the same when the body is gone too. It doesn't matter if it's five or sixty or buried in the ground. Your consciousness will remain seamlessly passed.

In fact, in that state, once the body is gone, the constraints are lifted, so you're much more free. But it's still you. And so, if you choose to have future experiences, that's great if you wish to do that.

Janet: Yeah, I took care of my parents during their last five years of their life. There was one night, one afternoon, I came into the living room. My mom was in her recliner, and she was a strong Lutheran. Reincarnation was not in her sphere of religion.

She sat up in her chair and said, "I finally get it." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "We're eternal beings because we go in and out and in and out." I said, "You mean reincarnation?" She said, "Yeah."

Later on that day, she said, "They're showing me naked bodies—naked bodies of men and naked bodies of women." So, I believe she was picking out her next body during that afternoon.

Christian: Interesting. Yeah, we do pick our lives. I've shared this in other videos at length. I think it's important to speak to other topics too, so if someone's interested, they can look up my other videos. But yes, I remember choosing this life and knowing it in great detail beforehand.

I knew that it would very much help fulfill an intention I had for growth—a specific intention in my case to process a deep fear that had bested me in previous experiences. I knew this experience would be very valuable for that. So, we do choose.

I was aware of my parents, for instance. I was aware of many things of the context of the life. In fact, I reviewed millions and millions of possibilities that might happen in this life. So, yeah, we do review ahead of time.

Janet: Yeah, my daughter was in my first near-death experience when I was 15. During my third near-death experience, I was told they were showing me these moments in my life—some were in the future that hadn't happened yet—and I was told to understand these moments because they matter.

When I started to sit down and analyze all these things and then wrote about all of it, the beautiful lady in the music box—I also thought of her as Daddy's little girl at one point because she had moved up in a way, and I thought Daddy was putting her up on a pedestal—but it was many years later that I looked at my daughter's picture, and it was exactly what I drew of that time frame. So, she was coming because that was my first near-death experience. She had come to make sure I got back in my body so that she could be born 15 years later.

So, yeah, higher time and linear time—I don't understand how they interrelate, but they're not the same.

Christian: Yeah, I know that the viewers are very interested in what you have to say about hell. Can you go into that a little bit?

Christian: Yeah, so we experience hellish experiences on Earth and in certain non-physical reality systems potentially due to our own fear. So, it's not that there is a fundamental place called hell, just like there's not a fundamental place called Earth. There's an experience of form, an experience of Earth, or an experience of another reality system that is thought-responsive.

In both cases, form is not the fundamental thing. Consciousness, spirit, is the fundamental thing. And so, if consciousness has not yet evolved to meet a certain constraint set optimally with love, then fear will be present. And when there's fear, fear can give rise to all sorts of hell—both for others through fearful choices, hateful or egoic choices, and also for the self because fear is a hell.

Living in fear is a hell. It is painful, and it can actualize things in one's life experience that can be hellish. The context itself on Earth is not a hell. It's actually neutral, even though there may be very rigorously extreme moments of sensation. We apply the meaning to what we experience on Earth. So, it is through our own fearful interpretation and the fearful stories and the ego that we suffer.

And that can also be true in a non-physical environment that is thought-responsive. If someone brings a lot of fear and negative expectation or negative belief into that environment, the environment can rise up in a way that reflects that quite quickly, immediately.

It's interesting because on Earth, we very rarely talk about the importance of belief and expectation, and it's very important because we are powerful creators. So, let's just take an example of the belief in hell—the belief in eternal punishment. That's one heck of a dualistic belief. We're really working with the most fearful type of beliefs we can think of, and people really believe in it.

Then they take that belief with them, and they may almost inadvertently, for a time at least, actualize quite hellish environments because of that belief. But fortunately, we are guided and helped. So, if we are assisted and generally speaking, we will be assisted and shown that we are creative, we are powerful. We don't have to focus on the negative. We don't have to believe in that. We have the power to choose what we wish to believe and how we wish to use reality.

And that's true not only there, it's true here. We don't have to choose to meet our lives in fear. We don't have to choose the path of suffering, even if there's pain. And I'm not saying it's easy. I've had tons of physical pain in my life, and I know I'm not making light of it. But we apply the meaning. We choose the beliefs.

There is no belief that you really, really, really need to grip onto with white knuckles. You get to choose how you interact with even your own beliefs, and you are free to do that and to choose how to interpret life. It seems like you can't when you have a lifetime of momentum built up in a certain direction. Our parents teach us a certain way of interpretation, and then as we grow, it becomes who we are.

And then reality itself appears that way. That's the thing about Earth—one of the things about Earth that's very interesting is that what we believe about it, it seems that reality itself is that way. It's like a big mirror that reflects back to us what we believe about it and about ourselves.

If we believe that we're not worthy of love, for instance, we will see all sorts of evidence that we're not worthy of love. We will actualize all sorts of events that show us that we're not worthy of love. And we're doing it almost without knowing.

So, yeah, I think it's very important that we focus, that we become aware of how important our own beliefs and expectations are so that we don't create a hellish situation for ourselves or for others. So, we can choose to create a better future.

And it takes a little bit of effort because you do have to constantly think about changing your old viewpoints and manifesting them into a new point of view, kind of like doing a vision board and trying to create a new future.

Christian: Right. Yes, we absolutely do have the power to create a better future. I don't simply want to make it sound like an action, though. It's not that we need to just perform one action to manifest a better future. The most important thing we can do is to grow in love and face our own fear. If we do that at the deepest level, then the deepest part of us will automatically be resonating with that and helping to create that.
A lot of people will create some type of manifestation tool, like a vision board, and they say, "I want this certain thing," and they say it in their mind, but what their energy is really saying is, "I'm afraid of not getting that thing." There's a difference. And so, what the universe is listening to is not primarily the surface thought. It's primarily your deepest intention—what's really going on inside you.

I've heard it described like a soundboard. I kind of like this metaphor. Each one of us is like a board, not just one pitch, but producing hundreds of pitches or something all at once. Each person is very complex. So, I'm putting it that way because it's not just that we focus intentionally on positive outcomes, but I would like to look even deeper and focus on the root.

What is your deepest fear? Where is the ego arising from? And what can you do to heal your own fear and to own your own crap? It's not about avoiding your own stuff. It's about going towards your own stuff, and that takes a lot of humility, a lot of courage, a lot of work, so to speak.

He said it takes effort because we need to be willing to really own ourselves. It's not so much that we each need to worry about changing the world. If we focus on growing ourselves towards love, conquering our own fear, then we will very naturally be a part of the solution. And that's something we can each do.

Work on yourself. Don't worry so much about the whole world. You don't have control over the whole world anyway, but you are responsible for what's in you. So, focusing there can be very, very powerful.

Janet: So, it's accepting the responsibility of who you are and what you do, basically.

Christian: Yeah, and knowing that you can do that without fear because it's not just like, "Oh, when you go look at who you are, you see, 'Oh man, I'm a big mess.'" It's okay. It takes humility to see that you're a big mess. That's fine. Go down and find what is the actual fear. What really are the negative self-perceptions you're holding onto? Feel them—not the story. You can think about the story later. Let yourself feel what's within you because, underneath all of it, at the deepest, deepest, deepest level, you are love.

You are not a fearful story. You are not shameful. You are not powerless. You are not unworthy of love. You are love.

Janet: Wonderful. So, people often ask, are demons real? And are evil spirits real? If we're all love, which we are, then what are demons and evil spirits about?

Christian: Okay, so they're breaking into two categories. First of all, our thoughts have momentum in thought-responsive realities. So, things that we think and expect and believe here have a tangible mass to them in higher systems, in the astral plane.

So, on Earth, just believing in something called a demon and having images associated with it and ideas gives life to a thought form that is what we've been thinking about demons. And that can actually be experienced in a non-physical system. You can interact with thought objects.

In this first instance, is that a really free-willed being? No, it's not. But it can be very real, very tangible. You can even interact with it. It's a form, but it's not a free-willed form. So, I'm just pointing that as one category.

I'm not an expert. I'm just saying this is the way I understand that we give rise to thought forms—not just negative thought forms, but all sorts of thought forms. Take just the idea of Santa Claus. Millions of people have put a lot of energy into this idea, and when you say Santa Claus to a small child, I feel like they almost just ping the database and get a connection with that. They can already sense what's the energy of that idea, and they haven't even interacted with it.

Or they see one image of the man in red, and they feel that feeling of Santa Claus. So, we do that with negative beliefs too.

Okay, so that's the first category. The second category is, are there beings that are free-willed and choice-making personalities like you and I who are demonic?

Well, the thing is, the question really is, is fear-based decision-making possible? Yeah, it's possible. I mean, there's fear-based decisions happening on Earth right now. But are those people love at the very root? Absolutely, they are love at the very root.

Similarly, it is possible in systems of form, even certain thought-responsive systems, for there to be fear-based intention being wielded. And where that is, it's possible for what we might call a negative interaction.

But again, who is the soul playing that character in that system? We like to think of the other side as like one other place, like we're human or no, we are the soul. We're the higher self who plays characters in many different systems.

And if it's a system of high constraint, relatively high constraint, and if it's an experience that has not been yet fully integrated, and if the being is carrying a lot of fear in that personality, then it's possible that fearful choices can be made that could hurt others.

So, I don't think we need to focus on that whole idea too much, though, because it's transient. It doesn't have true power. And like here in the physical world, it is possible for someone to kick in your front door with a gun and take physical power over you.

Okay, but what is that real power? No, it's not real power. The only power that fear has is in the local, very limited sense. It's just a play. It's a dream. And beyond that, it has almost no power at all. The true power is love.

So, similarly, fear-based intention, even in other systems, is very limited. It's not the true power. It's like a twisted, temporarily twisted something occurring within a given server. It doesn't have true power. True power is life itself, spirit itself—the love, joy, peace, freedom, and goodness of what is at the root of all beings everywhere.

And it's good for us to focus on that. That doesn't mean ignore the places that need to be healed, but it does mean that we do not need to fear those things. In fact, when we encounter negativity like that, it can be very important for us to meet with love and fearlessness.

You know, like one person once asked Tom Campbell—I'm a big fan of Tom Campbell; he's a physicist and consciousness explorer—someone asked him once, "Well, what should I do? I wanted a body, and I saw this demonic figure." And he said, "Give it a hug."

And it's not just a quaint comment. It means overcome your own fear. It very well may just be a thought object, but if you meet it with love, fear can't. It has no true power. So, if you meet it with love, then that is powerful.

Janet: Christian, you mentioned out-of-body experiences. Can you tell us a little bit about your OBE experiences and what you learn while you're out of body?

Christian: Yeah, so I consider my out-of-body experiences quite limited. I've had a number of them. They happen occasionally. They're much less alien now. When I first had my first non-physical experience, it was ridiculously jarring and worldview-altering—scary, you know, like it really freaked me out because it's so real. It's not like a dream or something.

I have different kinds of experiences occasionally. Sometimes, I will be meditating, and I will enter a state that I would describe as non-local, like I'm everywhere. The body is just like one point that's within me, and I'm huge. It's just I'm not the body. The body is happening within me, and I feel it tangibly.

Other times, my body may be asleep, and I may engage like if I start an elusive dream that I find is a good stepping platform to go from. And I might experience certain environments that are just breathtakingly beautiful. The colors are so alive and so rich, and you're a part of them, and they're part of you.

I mean, I feel like there's one where I remember looking at the green of the grass in this one reality, and I was like, "The grass is so green. I feel like I could just stand here and look at the grass all day, and it would be the most wonderful experience you can imagine—just looking at the grass because it was so green."

So, that type of experience is possible. And I've had certain instances where I've met people that I know physically who are alive in a non-physical environment. And when I do, I like to try to—this is just a little hobby or something—but I like to try to prove it the next day that we actually met in the non-physical environment.

So, usually, I try to get their attention and try to get us to remember some things that I call them in the morning. They can tell us. It works sometimes. I've had four successes so far. I probably had five or six failures. That's okay.

The successes are just to my own satisfaction. It's not like a scientific study or something. But I find that very fun, and now it's very normal to me. I don't feel like, "Oh my gosh, wow, that's such a special thing." It's very normal.

All of us actually engage the non-physical very commonly. We do it, I feel, when the body is asleep. It is very common for us to venture out, and it's just because of the veil that we tend not to remember it. The veil is pretty good at keeping us focused on just the earthly context and the earthly personality.

I feel it is very likely that when we pass and when the veil is lifted, we will become aware of many more activities that we participated in while we were alive and sleeping, maybe even when we're not sleeping potentially, that we just didn't remember at the time.

Janet: So, you mentioned the veil. Can you explain exactly what the veil is?

Christian: Yeah, so the veil is a heavy one. It's just hard to have language to describe it, but I think the simplest way we can put it is it's a consciousness technology.

What I mean is, your consciousness pre-exists. It exists before the human experience. I know you may not remember before the human experience, but that's why you don't remember because we have to agree to be bound to the constraints of the physical experience—the biology, the linear time, and the discrete location. And those constraints are what we call the veil.

And when I accepted the veil for this life, it was like being at a place of very, very high vibration where I was connected to everything, and I had all knowledge available to me. And I like to describe it like an amplifier—a sound amplifier that produces a pitch.

And then you turn it down when the veil comes over. It goes down, and then when it gets to the bottom, you just keep turning lower, lower, lower, more lower, lower.

That's what it felt like. Just this ridiculously huge drop in vibration and having all my knowing be cut off. Having all my connectedness be cut off. Feeling all all of a sudden very alone and in the dark and super dense. The body is so dense like a heavy metal object and being feeling alone.

So, the veil is a consciousness technology. It’s what allows us to have this very dense, constrained experience here on Earth. When I accepted the veil for this life, it felt like a massive drop in vibration. I went from being connected to everything, having all knowledge available to me, to feeling very alone, in the dark, and dense. The body is so dense, like a heavy metal object or something.

So, the veil is just that. I like to call it a technology that facilitates this experience of denseness so that we can integrate this type of experience. It’s an additive, facilitative creation.

Janet: So, did you feel the sound going down when you entered your body? Do you think the physical body is the veil that separates us?

Christian: The veil is in consciousness space. The physical body is not a fundamentally real thing. The physical body is an experience. It feels like a real thing—it’s close enough—but it’s an experience happening on and within consciousness. So, the veil is something that applies to consciousness itself.

It’s necessary for consciousness to surrender part of itself to the veil because the spirit is sovereign. It’s all-powerful, part of Source. There’s no greater authority, so it has to allow itself to be veiled. It’s like a subset of the self that is being wrapped within an organic blanket of restriction. That’s kind of what we might say the veil is like.

So, it’s not a physical thing. However, it is very much associated with the physical body and with the limitations of being physical. When the body passes, the limitations immediately relinquish because the veil is part of what allows the actualization into the physical form. So, they are tied together somehow.

If you modify the physical brain, you might change the constraints of the veil in certain ways, but the veil is still on you as a consciousness.

Janet: I said I was going to wait to talk about why bad things happen to good people. People always say, “Why do bad things happen?” But that is for our experiential experience, right?

Christian: Yeah, so we are so loved that we are permitted to enter and experience a context in which fearful choices are possible. It’s not that we’re being punished or something. It’s that we have entered into an extreme level of constraint, and now we’re all operating from ego. And when we do that, we hurt each other. So, a lot of bad things happen.

Some pain is associated strictly with just being physical at times. If you get stabbed, you’re going to have a physical sensation. But like I said, even that is neutral. You get to assign a meaning to it.

But all of that contrast is valuable. The entire system is a creative tool. Think of it that way. Contrast is a way that spirit can know experientially certain depths, and when it does that, it is an expansion in being.

For instance, how can the spirit know what total freedom means except that it chooses to know not freedom for a while? Well, now that it knows that, it really knows it. If you come into the human experience, you really know what it’s like to be you. You really know it. It’s not a joke. You are really you. So, whatever perceptions and experiences you’re having, that acts as a very valuable point of perspective that is very helpful and additive to the totality of the soul.

So, I’m saying that in the context of the question because even the great challenges of life can potentially be very beneficial and additive, especially if we allow them to be. Especially if we allow ourselves to grow through them rather than just wail and rage. And I know it’s not easy. Wailing and raging is what the ego does, and it seems like there are many contexts that very much deserve that. I’m not making light of that.

I’m just saying that all experience, even though very constraining and high-contrast situations of life, have the potential to be very high-growth, useful, even very loving, wonderful experiences, depending on how we use them.

Janet: And so, we choose these growth factors, correct? That’s what you’re into?

Christian: Yeah, we choose. We choose a life context. In my case, I chose to engage a very specific fear. So, yes, in my case, I chose to be challenged in a very, very specific, deep way.

Absolutely. And I suffered post-traumatic stress disorder for seven or eight years after a trauma at the age of 22, which was foreseen. I didn’t know it at the time because my pre-birth memory had left me by the age of five or six. So, when I was 22, I didn’t know. But before I was born, I knew that this was very likely to happen, and it was a really exciting opportunity to re-engage this very low vibration and to see if I could process it, meet it, integrate it, and do that.

And I knew there was so much growth and just huge potential available even through that, that I was excited to have the opportunity, even though I knew it would be very difficult potentially. And it was plainly seen. It was known it would be very challenging.

But we’re so ambitious and creative and desiring to grow in love and joy and in our creativity that we sometimes do bite off a lot. So, anyway, we do plan certain things. Not every single thing, but there are usually themes that run through the life. If there’s some kind of revisiting perception or revisiting challenge that seems to be constantly with us, and by the time we’re to a certain age, we’re just freaking sick of it, and we’ve got to deal with it.

Not always, but sometimes that is the thing that we came to deal with.

Janet: Yeah, that’s true. When I was four, I had another experience. I was with my mom, and she was talking about adoption on the phone with somebody. I was bored because I wasn’t in school yet. I was too young, so I was waiting for everybody to come home from school.

When she got off the phone, I asked her if I was adopted because I still had a sense that there was something bigger that I was missing and that this wasn’t my real family. But she said, “No, you’re our little girl.” But then I told her, “Okay, but I’m going to die young.”

And when I said that, I had visions of three ages go through in my mind, and those were the three ages I had my three near-death experiences. So, I was seeing portions of what was planned ahead for me. Lord knows why I chose that kind of life. I obviously chose it for a reason, and I think it was for the book that I was told to write too.

Christian: Yeah, awesome. Yes, thank you for doing that. It’s been a very real and amazing journey that you signed up for.

Janet: And you talk of the out-of-body experiences. My dad, during his final days, woke up one morning, came out to the living room, hobbling with his walker, and he said he was looking confused. I said, “Are you okay?” And he said, “I don’t know. I just came back. I just flew back through a tunnel. I was standing with some people in a white area, and then I flew back over the fields and through a tunnel.”

And he said, “I just don’t know what’s going on.” But he had come back to his body before he passed.

Christian: That’s so awesome. Yeah, we kind of explained that to him, and it made sense. I feel like I miss that so much when I hear that. I just get it. It was fascinating. I feel my own ego respond, but no, that’s really beautiful.

Janet: So, is there anything else that you’d like to touch on that’s important for our audience to know?

Christian: Yeah, I think we already touched on a lot of very important points, but one thing I’ll just say is this thing about you not being human. The life that you’re experiencing right now is a story and an opportunity.

So, this is just another comment about the idea that you don’t need to be afraid of your life or what the world is offering you. But specifically, we tend to have a relationship with the story of our life, and I think it’s very powerful if we can learn to take a step back.

Meditation can be extremely helpful for this—not because you’re trying to escape the story, but meditation is helpful just because as you spend time with your awareness itself and not thinking, you grow in familiarity with your awareness itself, and the thinking loses its oomph.

This is very important. It’s very meaningful and liberating because as we do that, we find that we aren’t the constant thought stream. It’s not what we are. Thoughts are like little dreams that are hitting you in the face all day.

Dream, dream, dream. Gotta do this, gotta pay this bill, this person said this to me, I don’t feel good, I want to eat chicken fingers—whatever the thoughts are, they’re just constantly arriving in your mind. But while you’re doing that, you’re asleep in this constant thinking rather than being fully alert and aware.

So, as you learn to work with your own story, take a moment to just be fully alert and aware in your life. I call that mindfulness, but allow yourself to be mindful of whatever context you’re in—washing your hands, putting on your clothes, talking to somebody, or just looking at the sky.

Give yourself permission every once in a while to put down all the thinking and put down all the stories and just be present. Just be fully alert and aware, and when you do that, it naturally clears the leaves away, and the deeper parts of yourself can rise up on their own.

And that is a most beautiful thing because if you even get the smallest, tiniest, teeniest little glimmer of the pure peace and joy of what you really are, it fills you with strength, and it helps you to meet not just that moment or that hour or that day but really your life with more love, more joy, more freedom, more openness.

And when we can do that, that’s awesome. So, just to comment, don’t worry about the story. All the things in your life seem so serious, but it’s okay to open your hands and put them down.

I like saying it’s like we’re in a play right now on a stage as actors, and we’re carrying around these heavy rocks everywhere we go, and they’re keeping us on the stage. These rocks are our association with the thoughts and the story.

But we think they’re really important, so we keep holding onto them every day. We trudge along, holding these heavy rocks every day. But you have complete and total permission, no matter how important they seem, to put them down. And when you do, there is a peace and a lightness that can return to you on its own.

Anyway, I just think that’s an important thing to say.

Janet: And do you have a special meditation practice you use, one particular way, or does it matter how you meditate just as long as you go within?

Christian: Well, different people will benefit from different practices. I do have one practice that works for me. I share it in part four of my book. By the way, my book is available for free. It’s not about money. I want it to be available for everybody.

If you’re interested, my website is walkingthephysical.com. I have a book page. The third link down is a link to the Google Books entry for the book. Just click “Read for Free” on the Google Books page, and it’s all there.

In part four, I describe the meditation exercise that’s really helped me. It seems very simple on the surface, but the action itself is not the active ingredient. What’s important is your intention.

So, I like to just pick a simple shape in my mind, like a square, and trace my attention with full attention along the shape without breaking my focus on the shape. And then thoughts will come, and that’s okay. And then I come back and continue.

The idea is you’re using your intent to not pay so much attention to these super important thoughts but to focus on something neutral that you’re choosing. And as you do that over time, it can be very empowering because then, eventually, when the thoughts are not arriving, the momentum of the water has slowed, and you can drop the object of focus and just be present.

Feel what it is to be alive. Feel the awareness. Feel the aliveness in your body. Just dwell in it. Don’t judge. No story. Just be alive. And I find that to be an incredibly empowering, liberating process.

It helps to eliminate all the stress from the day too. It’s a cleanser. It also feels very good because if you truly can even touch a bit of that view beneath the thinking, it’s full of joy and peace always, no matter what.

And it’s just so worth doing. I like the sentence, “You should meditate for half an hour a day unless you don’t have time, and then meditate for an hour.” Or maybe it’s, “Meditate for an hour a day unless you don’t have time, and then meditate for two hours.”

I like that because it’s like, you don’t have time to go find peace and to feel good? It takes practice, though, and you don’t approach it with some expectation. You just do it with openness, full humility, and allow yourself to do it over time.

I found that after just a few months of really being committed to meditation, that was really what opened this awakening for me. I started having non-physical experiences. I wasn’t trying. I was just meditating, and I started having non-physical experiences. My pre-birth memory started arising very naturally. It wasn’t like a big epiphany. It was just like it was always there, and now suddenly I could see it again.

But more important than that, it’s not important that you have these amazing experiences. It’s not what it’s about. What’s important is that you find the peace and the joy and the love that you are because that’s wonderful. And then you can share it with others, and that’s wonderful.

It’s a process for which the rewards are not immediately apparent. You sit down and meditate for an hour, and then you do it a few times, and you’re like, “I don’t know. I was doing it, but...” Most people don’t have the patience or the persistence to do it.

But the rewards are very real. Don’t judge it too quickly. Just set aside time, like for three months, and say, “I’m going to meditate for 40 minutes a day.” And then don’t even judge it until after the few months. Then you can think about it.

Just think of it as your own bubble bath—your own “me time.”

Janet: Yeah, you say bubble bath because a bubble bath is one of those situations where you are in “me time,” but it’s also a release and letting go—a place to put aside all the thoughts and be present with the warm water and the sensation of this place.

It’s the same in a way. Of course, you may still be focused on thinking, but I just mean it’s similar in that it is a state of non-resistance and acceptance of the present moment, which can be done anywhere and at any time.

Christian: Yeah, true. Either out in nature or at home in your bedroom or in the corner—whatever is more convenient for the person.

Janet: So, Christian, this is wonderful, and I have no doubt that your story is giving the listeners much to ponder. I’m so thankful and grateful that you’ve agreed to be here today. So, I’m honored.

Christian: Thank you, Janet. Thank you very much for being back. And whoever is listening today, thank you for being human. Yeah, I know it sounds strange because that’s all you remember—being human. But you are very brave to be here. You’re doing it. You are a brave, powerful spirit who will even do this. You’re here. You’re doing it. It’s awesome.

So, congratulations. And whoever you are listening, thank you for doing this today, for being you.

Janet: Wonderful. So, you’ve already mentioned that your website is walkingthephysical.com, and your email is walkingthephysical@gmail.com if people would like to reach out.

Yeah, so I’ll put all of Christian’s information and the link to the free book in the description area under the video, and you can reach out to him if you choose and enjoy his book. It has tons of wonderful information because I’ve already dove in, I guess you could say. So, grab it and use it to make your future a better place and a better life.

As we head out for the day, I like to ask you to wake up each day with a sense of wonder on where you’ll be guided and what you’ll be shown and who will be placed in your pathway for you to learn from because life is the most mystical, magnificent adventure of souls working with souls that you’ll ever have.

Have a great day, everybody. Bye!

Christian: Bye!