By Joanna Bristow-Watkins, Harmony Healing, 23 rd April 2025
It began, as these things so often do, with a Roman boy and a basket of herbs.
No, I hadn’t been daydreaming through a BBC costume drama. I was standing in the kitchen of a charming homeopathic vet named Susan, fresh from qualifying as an Egyptian energy-healing
therapist (as one does), when things took a metaphysical turn. We’d just done a bit of energetic
Feng Shui—placing sacred symbols into the ether to encourage a long-departed resident to take
their ghostly baggage elsewhere—when Susan gasped and announced she was no longer herself.
“I’m a young Roman boy!” she declared, eyes wide. “We’re in a field, picking herbs. You’re here with
me. It’s a beautiful, sunny day.”
She may have gone on to name the herbs, but by then I wasn’t listening—I was busy having a minor
existential crisis. Could this really be a spontaneous Past Life memory? Had I signed up for this when
I began energy healing? And more pressingly: what did she mean we were there?
It turns out, yes, that is something that can happen during a healing. And no, there’s no module on it
during your standard practitioner training—something of an oversight, if you ask me. That moment
opened a can of metaphysical worms, and I’ve been happily wrangling with them ever since.
Childhood Clues and the Emerald Buddha
To be honest, I’d never given reincarnation much thought. I wasn’t a fervent believer, nor a
hardened sceptic. Raised in the Church of England with a distinctly open-minded streak, I’ve always
considered myself a sort of spiritual diplomat—respectful of all, beholden to none.
Still, the signs were there. Aged nine, visiting Bangkok with my sister, we confidently insisted to our
baffled father that we’d already seen the Emerald Buddha Temple. We even knew the layout.
Spoiler: we hadn’t.
Then there was the time I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem at 18 and cried the whole way
through, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of emotion I couldn’t explain. Odd, given I hadn’t yet
developed the habit of weeping at historical sites.
But it was that afternoon in Susan’s kitchen which truly tipped the scales and sent me tumbling
headfirst into the rabbit hole of Past Life exploration.
Of Mary Sutton and Reincarnated Romans
To understand what I was getting myself into, I did what any sensible woman would do—I hit the
books.
Take Yesterday’s Children by Jenny Cockell (Piatkus, 1993). Jenny, a quiet woman from
Northampton, spent her childhood haunted by vivid memories of a previous life as Mary Sutton, an
Irish mother of eight who died in the 1930s. She drew maps of Mary’s village before ever setting foot
in Ireland and eventually located two of her ‘children’—both of whom instantly recognised her and
confirmed details no outsider could possibly know.
Or consider the astonishing work of Dr Ian Stevenson, the Ivy League-accredited, bowtie-wearing
scientist who decided he quite fancied spending his academic career interviewing thousands of
children—mostly in India and Lebanon—who recalled past lives with unnerving specificity. As
documented in Old Souls by Tom Shroder (Simon & Schuster, 1999), some children identified old
friends, recited intimate family secrets, and even bore birthmarks corresponding to the manner of
their previous deaths. One boy insisted he was a man named Rashid, remembered his own car crash,
and even gave the offending cousin a telling-off years later. As you do.
It wasn’t just eccentric eccentrics reporting this phenomenon. These were ordinary people
experiencing the extraordinary.
Bringing it Back Home (with Crystal Skulls and Angelic Contracts)
Having opened Pandora’s Box (with only the mildest of regrets), I began encountering past life
glimpses more frequently. Sometimes during healings. Sometimes in dreams. Sometimes while
brushing my teeth.
I started seeing patterns—connections to Lemuria, Atlantis, ancient Egypt, the Essenes, Templar
Knights, Middle Age herbalists, the odd Sumerian priestess. I even consulted with clairvoyant Edwin
Courtenay (whose waiting list is longer than the average Tudor war), and through his Crystal Skull
Readings, unearthed what may be my soul’s membership in the fabled Order of Melchisadec—an
interdimensional LinkedIn for healers, if you will.
Was I imagining all of this? Perhaps. But the consistent metaphoric resonance these past life
scenarios had with my clients’ current struggles was, quite frankly, uncanny. It was like therapy with
props—and far more interesting than the DSM-V.
So How Does It Work?
People often ask how I access this information. “Do you Google our chakras?” they jest. If only it
were that simple.
I describe it as offering a telepathic contract. With permission, I ‘tune in’ to the person’s energy
field—a little like sending out an energetic WhatsApp from my heart to theirs. Once connected, it’s
as though a dusty time capsule washes up on the shore of my awareness. A “message in a bottle,”
bobbing through the ethers, just waiting to be decoded.
From there, I experience a snapshot: a sensory film reel that might include images, smells, sounds,
or physical sensations. Sometimes it’s dramatic—being hung, drawn, and quartered (which, as it
turns out, can correspond with throat issues, digestive woes, and a tendency to juggle too many
projects). Other times it’s hilariously mundane, like being a 19th-century cobbler with an unresolved
fear of shoes. (Yes, really.)
Interpretation requires a blend of intuition, energetic sensitivity, and a healthy pinch of chutzpah. I
must speak the unspoken before it fades—whether or not it sounds completely bonkers.
Tales from the Timeline
There was the woman whose eyes were pecked out by birds in a past life. (Don’t ask how I knew. I
just knew.) She happened to be terrified of birds and heights—phobias which made perfect sense
once we explored that memory together.
Then there was Claudia, the self-described “headless chicken” perpetually juggling life. During our
session, I theatrically sewed her head back on (energetically, of course), and she later emailed to say
she finally felt grounded—both figuratively and cranially.
Maria, emailing me from Mexico, had a peculiar link to the grotesque English tradition of hanging,
drawing, and quartering. Her email aura suggested she bore emotional and physical echoes of that
trauma—throat constriction, gut issues, fragmentation. Astonishingly, she confirmed all of them,
including having been dragged by a horse in this lifetime. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps healing
from that trauma in this life was precisely the point.
But Wasn’t Everyone Cleopatra?
Ah, the sceptics’ favourite. If I had a crystal coin for every time someone asked me how so many
people can claim to have been Cleopatra, I’d have enough to fund my own pyramid.
My answer? If we are all aspects of Unity Consciousness—as many esoteric traditions suggest—then
it stands to reason that we may all carry a facet of iconic figures. Or perhaps, when someone
identifies with a Cleopatra, it’s the archetypal energy of leadership, sensuality, or sovereignty they’re
accessing—not necessarily a literal royal pedigree. It’s also entirely possible that we’re accessing a
shared soul group memory, like plugging into a spiritual streaming service.
Far from being about ego, these regressions often illuminate the mundane—lives spent as potters,
peasants, or the woman who forgot to lock the goat pen. They’re valuable not because they’re
grandiose, but because they reveal the patterns we carry, the wounds we repeat,
and—crucially—the ways we might finally let them go.
Past Life Readings: Healing, Not Hype
Whether metaphorical or literal, Past Life Readings can be astonishingly useful. They offer an oblique
lens through which to view a current struggle—transforming it from a personal failing into an epic tale of karmic evolution. Suddenly your fear of water isn’t silly; it’s the echo of a life lost at sea. Your
chronic indecision isn’t laziness—it’s the residue of a life where wrong choices proved fatal.
It allows us to explore our stories without judgement. It’s therapy with a feather boa and a few
ancient scrolls thrown in. And in this life, that might be exactly the kind of narrative reframing we
need.
Curious? Intrigued? Just Plain Baffled?
A Past Life Reading with me won’t guarantee you were Cleopatra, but it might help you understand
why you keep dating narcissists, why your left shoulder aches for no reason, or why you’re
unreasonably terrified of libraries (true story: a former monk trampled during a medieval book sale).
Sessions can be done in person or remotely—soul codes, it turns out, are not bound by geography. If
you’re ready to untangle some of your soul’s stranger threads, I’d be delighted to help you make
sense of the tapestry.
Because whether or not you’ve been here before, one thing is certain—you’re here now. And that,
dear reader, is where the healing begins.
For more information, visit: www.harmonyhealing.co.uk
Email: jo@harmonyhealing.co.uk
References
- Yesterday’s Children by Jenny Cockell, Piatkus, 1993
- Old Souls by Tom Shroder, Simon & Schuster, 1999
- Essenes: Children of the Light by Stuart Wilson & Joanna Prentis, Ozark Mountain Publishing,
- 2005
About Joanna Bristow-Watkins
Joanna Bristow-Watkins is a Holistic Therapist, Intuitive Energy Alignment Specialist and Practitioner Trainer, with a passion for restoring harmony through nature connection, ancient wisdom and spiritual alignment. Co-founder of Harmony In Nature and facilitator of Reyad Sekh Em® Egyptian Alchemy Healing, Joanna leads transformative experiences including forest bathing, guided meditations and seasonal retreats. Her work gently weaves earth-based spirituality with celestial rhythms, empowering others to rediscover their innate balance and soul purpose.