There's More to Life Than This: Healing Messages, Remarkable Stories, and Insight About the Other Side from the Long Island Medium

by Caputo, Theresa

  As a medium whose job involves meeting a lot of devastated people, I’ve found that when there’s a sudden death, like a car accident, families and friends connected to those who passed are so shocked, confused, and heartbroken that they don’t know where to funnel their energy, so they look for a person to blame. When this happens, Spirit always urges me to talk about how we make choices in the physical world that lead to the time of a death. During a show in Atlantic City, I read for a girl who lost friends in a car accident—four people died, but four others lived. Later that day, during the very next show, who comes but the family of one of the boys who died. (When I started channeling, I was confused; Spirit’s a big fan, but souls rarely attend more than one show at a time!)

  In both readings, the same departed souls stepped forward to talk about how much finger-pointing was going on between the families of those who survived and those who didn’t. The overwhelming message from the dead was: “Stop blaming the survivors. We all made choices that day.” The car wasn’t made to fit eight people, so every person in the accident decided to pile in. The souls also kept showing me the passengers switching seats, and those who lived had survivor’s guilt. The destiny theme also couldn’t be clearer—that some died that day and others lived, yet all made choices that led to their fates.

  I really love how Spirit brought all these families together so they could hear messages that could help their anger and sadness. Actually, a similar thing happened during a show in San Diego. I learned that a boy crashed his car while driving next to his girlfriend in her car. The boy died, but the girl lived. A friend of the boy’s mom was at the event, sitting orchestra center, and his soul told me to say that his mom was still so angry and blamed the girlfriend for causing the crash. But the soul said, “It wasn’t her fault. It was an accident.” Suddenly, another woman stood up in balcony house right. “It was an accident,” she echoed. “He’s talking about my daughter. She didn’t do anything wrong.” It was the girlfriend’s mom! She projected so clearly and loudly that she didn’t need a mic! What are the odds? Pretty good, I guess, when Spirit wants to make a point.

  This Ain’t Your First Rodeo

  Though you can’t fully remember them in your conscious mind, Spirit tells me you’ve had many lives before this one. Once you’re in Heaven, if your soul decides to reincarnate, it will choose where, when, and who it wants to be in the physical world, for the purpose of learning another lesson and helping others. Again, we reincarnate so our soul can grow in a way that aligns with God’s; understanding, appreciating, and experiencing different types of lives can help us achieve spiritual balance.

  One way to learn about your previous lives is through a regression that’s done through hypnosis. This method helps relax the conscious mind and allows access to the memories of your previous experiences in the physical world. Just as your life now is full of positive and negative decisions that impact your health and psyche, so were your prior choices, and these memories are ingrained in your soul. Some people do regressions because they’re curious about who they’ve been in earlier lifetimes and want to meet their guides and angels, which can be done this way. Others explore past lives to find out why they repeat certain habits or to help them understand and heal chronic fears and phobias. Once you recognize old patterning during a regression, it helps resolve that issue in your present life.

  Current relationship issues are also seen, understood, and released. I remember one reading I did with a client who told me she obsessively watched over her daughter when she was near water, especially their pool. Spirit told me that in a previous life, the woman lost her eleven-year-old child to a drowning, and her child in this life was approaching that age. That’s why her soul was becoming increasingly worried—it remembered the incident. I suggested she revisit her past life with a hypnotist, and when she did, she left all of her fears, emotion, and energy in the past. Pat, who conducts past-life regressions, says you can even have an illness with no obvious cause (chronic pain comes up a lot) that’s rooted in things that happened to you in a prior life.

  Because of my Catholic upbringing, it took a minute for me to accept that we used to have past lives. I just thought we died, went to Heaven, and that was it. And whenever I heard about regressions from others who’d done them, I wondered why they always sounded almost too dramatic or fascinating to be true. You were Amelia Earhart in a past life? A Trojan warrior, really? But if you think about it, we all have a story. It’s funny to consider your life now, or even a friend’s, and how it would sound as a past-life regression narrative. You married a soldier who was the love of your life, but he died young. Or, your father was a wealthy businessman but you never knew your mother. You later had three kids, and one passed in a car accident. Or, you never had children but married a celebrity and had many loving pets, and this fulfilled you in every way. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such a leap of faith, right?

  The first time I had Pat do a past-life regression on me was to overcome some phobias, and I was just blown away. I learned that in one life, I was a boy searching for my younger brother in a house fire, and when I looked into his eyes, I saw my daughter, Victoria; she played this role in that lifetime. I think it explains why I feel an overwhelming need to keep tabs on her more than my son. I’ve also been a princess kidnapped by pirates on a ship, during a wild rainstorm. Here I was held prisoner, raped, and murdered. I believe this contributes to why I was afraid of rain for so many years—because really, who’s afraid of rain? And to understand why I don’t like enclosed spaces, I was told that I was an Egyptian queen who was buried alive with her husband. I’ve also been a medicine woman and an Indian chief, which makes sense since I’m inexplicably drawn to Native American culture. This is also interesting to me, because when I look at a photograph of an Indian chief in a full headdress, I can stare into his eyes and feel a kind of familiarity and kinship—as if I’d done the same thing as him at some point.

  More recently, I did a regression to shed light on why I’m doing the work I do. We put this on Long Island Medium, so it may sound familiar. Pat did the honors, and she brought me back to lifetimes that were very tragic. I learned it’s because I overcame these events with the ability to still love unconditionally that I was given the gift I have. In these lives, I was an official during the Roman Empire who was killed on my son’s wedding day, a young girl who was held prisoner in a jail for a crime that wasn’t her fault, a child with a joyful soul despite a crippling disability, and an orphan in Russia. This last one had a tremendous impact on my soul. After the man who ran the facility took me in, I stayed on to work with him and care for the other children. I overcame my struggles and paid it forward. In this life, the man who ran the orphanage is now my son, Larry, and a child who did not want to leave when he was adopted is my nephew Jason. I believe this moving lifetime is one of the reasons I get along so well with kids, and why the souls of children who’ve passed say they like channeling through me. If you’re interested in knowing about your past life, I say go for it. But before seeing a specialist, be sure to learn more about the topic first to put your expectations in check, and research trustworthy recommendations before choosing a hypnotist.

  You can also catch a glimpse of your past lives on your own and without a regression, which is called déjà vu. This is when you remember something your soul did in a previous life. It usually comes as a familiar and seemingly inexplicable feeling: you’re in a house, town, neighborhood, or another country that you’ve never visited before but everything seems familiar. You might not even recognize the aha! moment right away; you just know that you feel calm and settled while you’re there.

  You can feel déjà vu with people you’ve never met but who don’t seem like total strangers. I’ve been close to my friend Eileen for twenty-three years, and I’m sure we had other lives together. She stuck by me as I figured out my phobias and gift, with devoted friendship. I’ve wondered if I was helpful to her in a past life, a
nd if being there for me in this one was part of her lesson, because I trusted Eileen in situations where I wouldn’t have trusted many other people, and she understood me in ways that few friends did.

  So why don’t you naturally remember your past lives, especially if they can teach you so much about yourself? Spirit has said this would hold you back; if you have a foot in each journey, then you won’t make the most of your life this time around. This is also the reason you forget what happens in Heaven once you’re born—so you can stay in the moment here. And since the spiritual point of life is to learn lessons, I think you also learn better when you start fresh. You’re meant to make freewill decisions, and when you’re up against temptation, negativity, or unfairness of any kind, your choices would mean much less, and you might not even try as hard, if you remembered how good you have it in Heaven. It’s like you need the spiritual amnesia or it would be tough to prioritize what mattered in the past and what you should pay attention to now.

  I also think spiritual memory loss is a little like how you don’t recall the pain of having a baby. If you did, women would think much harder before growing their families. But if you really think about it, how do women forget what the feeling is like? My husband had intense brain surgery to remove a tumor, and he will never forget that pain. How can he recall what it felt like to have his head cut open, but I can’t remember what it’s like to push a small human out of my body? The answer: because amnesia is part of the procreating process, and it’s to your benefit to forget. If you did remember, you might get so focused on all the gory details that you wouldn’t be able to lose yourself in the moments that help make babies in the first place, if you know what I mean.

  When I was twenty-eight years old, my guides told me that this is my soul’s last journey in the physical world. After I die, my soul is going to stay in Heaven. It made me a little sad to hear that I wouldn’t be coming back, but I’m not going to worry about it. Maybe I’ll be a guide, or do another job that doesn’t require a physical body. If it is my last hoorah, I can’t complain. This has been a really good life for me.

  What Goes Around, Comes Around

  I’ll be honest: I don’t know how much Karma—the laws of cause and effect that are said to dictate our lives—determines our good and bad fortune in our many existences. People who believe in Karma, even casually, think that the way we treat others, the mistakes we make, and the successes that we have will impact both this life and carry into future ones when we reincarnate. If something seems unfair or hard in this incarnation, they say it may be your Karma balancing itself out. Karma is the result of the negative and positive actions we demonstrate; it implies that we can’t escape from our past, especially when we harm others, and that everything will catch up to us in this life or future ones.

  We like to say that Karma’s a bitch, but it also can be a blessing. Karma isn’t only about punishment and reward, but yet another way we’re supposed to learn lessons, exercise free will in a good way, and have positive behavior reinforced. We have the ability to make corrections and changes in our life when we suspect we’re off, and our Karmic patterns adjust accordingly. So if you bring your neighbor soup when he’s sick, the good Karma may help you live a long, healthy life; or if you’re a selfish wife who never spends time with her family, you may have to care for a sick husband when he’s old. Of course, a Karmic payout may not happen in this lifetime. You could hurt your brother tomorrow and learn what it’s like to be at his mercy two lives from now. So if you believe in Karma, then we are all here to balance it—to right our wrongs and enjoy the full circle moments of our good deeds. What I’m very sure about is that Karma is not the result of God turning on you. He doesn’t punish you for gossiping by giving you cancer. Getting sick may have a reason, but it’s not God’s vengeance.

  I also believe you’re here to pay it forward and teach by example, which can lend itself to positive Karma. There’s nothing I love more than being on the receiving end of a good deed and then repaying it to others. It reminds me of those news stories about coffeehouse customers who pay for the order of the person in line behind them, and then the next person pays for the guy behind him, and so on, until the trend continues for three hours and hundreds of customers. They always say the best part isn’t the “free” coffee, but how good it felt to do something nice for a stranger.

  Soul Connections

  You know how I said that when you die, you’re greeted by Spirit that meant a lot to you in this life? Well, I’m told that for most people, your family and friends wait for you to gather, reunite, and then enter new physical bodies again, if the soul doesn’t choose to stay in Heaven. (I have channeled infant and child souls that reincarnated in a parent’s lifetime, but that’s happened only a few times.) From what Spirit suggests, people in your immediate circle travel the most with you through time, as both relatives and friends, but your relationships to them change, based on what your lesson and soul’s purpose is.

  I picture life, and the people in it, like an episode of Saturday Night Live—and I’m not just saying that because they do an awesome impersonation of me and Larry! On SNL, the actors put on different costumes, talk in a bunch of accents, and play a new role in each skit they’re in, and those skits make up an entire episode. The cast overlaps in most sketches, but not all of them. This is similar to how the souls of our family and friends reincarnate. Some people call it a soul group, but Spirit’s never used that term with me, so I like to call it a soul circle—like a circle of friends, or family circle, that is bonded by a never-ending loop. They’re like a cast that plays different roles in each of your lives, and the sum of those lives creates your soul’s total experience in the physical world. As on SNL, you don’t always play the same role in every life or skit—you’re not always a mom or wife, for instance. You also do a lot of “costume changes” with races and new bodies (my guides joke that it would be boring to always come back as the same type of person). Because souls don’t always choose to reincarnate, you might not be in every sketch with the same performers, but they’ll join you again before you no longer reincarnate and your episode is over. When we greet each other and reunite in Heaven, it also reminds me of the end of SNL, when all the cast members hug each other and laugh. They act so happy to see each other, as if it’s been years and years.

  People who aren’t in your immediate soul circle make cameos in your lives too. Acquaintances can reincarnate with you, but I’m not sure how far-reaching this is. I do know that people in your inner circle don’t surface as acquaintances in other lives. So your husband in this life wasn’t your butcher in a prior one, but he could be your cousin in the next. A lot of clients who grow their family through an egg donor, sperm donor, or adoption also ask me about soul circles since all or some of a child’s DNA can come from a “stranger.” But Spirit insists these souls are as much a part of your circle as when they come from your family tree; what matters isn’t their genetics but that their souls chose you as their parents and have been connected to you in past lives. You pick your mom and dad before incarnating, and the choice helps you learn or teach a lesson or grow in some way. So if dear old Dad drives you up the frigging wall, how you choose to manage his behavior is likely part of a greater plan or possibly even a Karmic payout. The good news is that you, he, or both of you will benefit from this in the long term.

  Soul circles also help explain relationship bonds or tension that you experience in this lifetime. For example, the lingering chemistry you may feel with an ex can make it really confusing when a relationship ends. You might think, I thought we had a deep connection . . . Well, guess what? You probably did, but in another life! And if you don’t get along with someone, like a boss or in-law, that can also be traced to a previous experience. However, prior lives don’t influence every nook and cranny of your casual relationships because you do have free will, and you need to take responsibility for your choices and behavior. It’s not a good idea to use a past-li
fe excuse to be a creep.

  Before we move on, let’s talk soul mates for a minute. Most corny books and rom-coms would have you believe that your soul mate is always a romantic or sexual connection, but I don’t believe this. I think a soul mate is someone who completes your being and is really easy for you to be around. You feel deeply connected in a visceral way. If we want to keep going on the SNL metaphor, I suspect Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are soul mates—they’re like two peas in a pod, those two. I once read a woman whose sister died, and her soul had me say, “The day I died, you lost part of your soul.” The girl thought it was a little creepy that I basically called her sister a soul mate, but it’s very natural. A lot of us feel that our closest soul mate is our spouse or partner, but for plenty of people, it may be another family member or close friend. It could also be a child. It doesn’t matter how long the person is with us on earth either. You can tell who your soul mate is by the impact this person has, or had, on you while you were both here. I think my cousin Lisa is a soul I’ve traveled with through many lifetimes as family or a friend—and absolutely, I’d call her a soul mate. We finish each other’s sentences and just when I’m about to pick up the phone to call her, she rings me first. But you know, I don’t think I have only one soul mate. I’m not sure if this is typical, but I feel deeply connected to a lot of people in my life, including Larry, Pat, and my mom, so I can’t name just one person. And I’m not saying that so they don’t kill me!