“Edgar Cayce said we pick our parents. Before our birth, as we are planning our incarnation, we choose the parents who will be best for our purposes and mission in a particular incarnation. When I speak around the country and mention this Cayce fact, I half expect some tumult: ‘What? How is that possible? Why would I pick them?’ I have also wondered about this concept. What I do with many of Cayce’s concepts is ask myself, If that were true, what would it imply?
As I look at my life now, I see how my choice of parents was critical. What I learned of psychology in childhood is key in my life now as a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and past-life regressionist. My Catholic upbringing gave me an appreciation of faith and spirituality, which is my deepest connection with the Cayce readings, and my great grandmother’s influence set the stage for the Cayce work on all aspects of the unseen worlds.
But what about those with parents who don’t appear to be a clear-cut constructive choice? A woman who came to me for a regression session last year began with this: ‘I’d like to believe I picked my parents, but they were drug addicts. My father killed himself when I was 4, my mother was psychotic, my brother killed himself at 16, and I have battled depression, anxiety, and almost every addiction you can name. So, let’s find out why I picked these people.’
Why would someone pick a situation to experience suffering? In trance, this woman was able to come into the presence of her guides and ask them why she chose her parents. They communicated with her telepathically, and she relayed this message to me: ‘They are telling me that I really wanted to learn in this life, and they are telling me how much I have learned. My life is an incredible success!’
I was reminded, once again, that the soul view is very different from the ego view. The soul comes to work, while the ego wants a pina colada in Barbados!”
Excerpted from REFLECTIONS – “Peter Piper Picked His Parents” by Peter Woodbury, MSW, EdgarCayce.org.
