Walter was a sales representative for a large company. He was extremely handicapped by the fact that he was terrified of elevators. He even had difficulty riding escalators and dealing with anything which involved rapid up and down moves, such as alpine skiing or traveling in a car over hilly or mountainous roads.

This caused an unending series of problems for Walter. When possible, he would climb numerous flights of stairs to avoid an elevator. If he could not avoid use of an elevator, he would dose him-self heavily with tranquilizers and then not be alert for his business meetings.

Walter had tried several approaches to solving the problem, but there always seemed to be something that eluded him about the fear and kept the treatments from being really effective. About the best he had achieved was one untranquilized elevator ride when he didn't go into complete trauma and scream or throw up.

Walter overheard two strangers in a coffee shop discussing how one of them had overcome a disabling fear of fire through past life regression. He didn't know exactly what past life regression was, but he was ready to try anything. He interrupted the conversation, and briefly explained his problem. He was given the name and phone number of someone to arrange a regression for him.

Walter was regressed back to a lifetime in which he was an out-of-work mining engineer spending his time prospecting.

He and his partner had found an old commercial operation that had been abandoned many years earlier. There was a large amount of rusting machinery. Walter and his partner had been exploring the old shafts by means of an ore bucket and a winch powered by their pack mules. One afternoon Walter had been down and was coming up in the ore bucket. He was almost to the surface when something went wrong. The ore bucket broke loose, and plummeted to the bottom of the shaft carrying Walter with it. He survived the impact by only a couple of minutes.

"That feeling," Walter said. "Oh, how I know that awful sickening feeling of having the bottom drop out from under me. That is what I have felt or anticipated every time I have gotten on an elevator, and to some degree an escalator. The best I can describe it is to tell you to remember the feeling that happens to your stomach when you hit a dip or sudden steep drop in your car. You get that funny lurch in your stomach and a thrill of fear between your shoulder blades. Well, magnify that about a hundred times, and add to it the certainty that you are about to die, and you'll understand what I have felt all these years."

Walter was given positive suggestions at the end of the regression relieving him of the negative emotional, physical, and psychological responses to the events of that past lifetime. (Often just understanding what has caused the phobia is enough to eliminate it, but positive statements made at deeper levels of mind are a good reinforcement.) Walter felt a little nervous the first couple of times he rode an elevator, but within a short while he was using elevators without a second thought.

One additional interesting note: during the past life regression Walter discovered that his partner had found a rich pocket of ore. Being greedy, he had cut the ore bucket loose with the intention of killing Walter. Walter recognized his old partner as a respected businessman in the town where he lived. "Funny," Walter commented, "everyone in town likes him and thinks he is just about perfect. I've always felt kind of strange because I felt like he was a dishonest bastard, and I have been afraid to do business with him or even turn my back on him. Maybe I can be objective now, and find out what he is really like in this lifetime."

Walter's experience brings up another point to be considered as far as karma and free will are concerned. Sometimes we are affected by decisions and actions of others that are beyond our control. How we deal with those situations is up to us. We can fret and fuss, we can turn it to our advantage, or we can do something constructive to change the situation.

A middle-aged lady with grown children tells this story of one of the most special episodes in her childhood. During WW II, when she was about 5, she and her family were moving. They were driving across a desolate area of the Southwest when a tire blew out. Tires were rationed, and it was extremely difficult to get good ones. They were about 50 miles from the nearest town. The father had to leave them (wife, daughter and 12-year-old son) and hitchhike into town to see if he could find a tire. They had very little water and food. It was hot, and the only shade came from a few scraggly bushes. All of the components for a really miserable day were there. The mother allowed the boy to use some of his scouting knowledge to look for water. She used a careful system of checks to make certain he didn't get lost, but still allowed him the adventure of roaming the wild country alone. He was eventually successful in his search for water. Presenting his full canteen, he felt ten feet tall and brother to every famous mountain man of old. Meanwhile, the mother and little girl had spread a blanket under the bushes, and had begun making an elaborate farm in the dust. Fields were fenced with tiny sticks and pebbles and plowed with fingers. Tiny green plants were placed in the rows. Houses and barns were built from stones and tiny `logs.' Some of the water was used for a little lake. Bugs and ants were used for cattle.

It was a lovely, magical day when it could easily have been a miserable experience. More than 40 years later, those two children remember that day as one of the very special times of their child-hood. It is easy to visualize a completely different day: everyone hot, miserable, complaining about the discomfort and inconvenience, children nagging the mother, mother angry and distraught. But this young mother made the decision to have a wonderful adventure, and created more than she ever dreamed.

We always have the choice as to how we deal with the situations that arise in our lives, whether those situations are the result of our own actions, or the result of other people's actions. We always have the choice as to how we deal with the karmic aspects of our lives. We can flow with the tide and usually not be pleased with the results, or we can make the decision to use every situation as a learning experience, to turn it into a positive constructive time.