Overwhelmed by experiences

Soul Reasons for Life Challenges

Without the meaning that flows from a higher view, we remain stuck in our human experience, believing--understandably--that these things should never happen. For trauma survivors on a healing journey, we need to consider the broader vision to find purpose in our suffering, and step into our soul warrior authority.

Reason 6: Overwhelm

We are overwhelmed by experiences more difficult than our soul expected

Robert Schwartz explained to me the previous five reasons a soul might plan difficulties in the lifetime. There are at least two more reasons for traumatic events which are not planned on the spiritual level, but still ultimately lead to greater wisdom and strength.

Author and spiritual regressionist Dr. Linda Backman spoke with me about the problem of overwhelm. She shared from her wealth of experience that when we are in soul-state, we can be ignorant of how difficult it is to be in a body on Earth. As a young soul, we have not built up our incarnation ‘muscles’ yet. Even relatively mild challenges can get us stuck in traumatic reactions; simply turning up in the general environment of earth has us stressed already. Everything is a challenge, so it doesn’t take much to tip us over the line and into overwhelm.

Another possibility for overwhelm, Linda suggested, is that the traumatized person, “is not an earth-based soul. They are an interplanetary or an angelic realm soul, and haven’t been in body many times on Earth.” These mature—but earth-school inexperienced–souls might have “thought it would be okay and they’d be able to manage the trauma.” Their guides too might have thought they were savvy enough to cope. But once here, the circumstances became overwhelming; “Not to be flippant, but it’s like, “What was I thinking!””

In his latest book, Your Soul’s Love, Rob Schwartz writes that “earth is the most difficult planet in our universe on which to have an incarnation.” It is known that it takes enormous “courage both to plan great challenges and to learn and heal from those challenges.” While the growth rewards are potentially high, the risk profile is high too. If we pull it off, the gains are significant. If we get overwhelmed, we can get stuck in the mud. Recovery can take much time and effort. Thankfully, we always get another chance in our ongoing adventure as eternal beings.

These elements of soul immaturity and earth inexperience may sometimes explain why one person winds up traumatized from a certain experience, while another person does not. But a caution here: do not assume you or anyone else were just not up for the challenge. We simply cannot make any judgments without soul level information. Be aware there are many variables around trauma, including age, nature and severity of the stresses, personality structure, and so on. There are also many life experiences that would overwhelm any soul who went through them.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Trauma Survivor to Soul Warrior: Reconnect With Your True Self (due to be published in September 2025 by Manuscripts Press LLC).

I am looking forward to sharing it with you.