The Manifestation lab

Unlocking the Mysteries of Past Lives and Akashic Records with Metaphysics Teacher Rhonda Leifheit

• Kelly Howe • Season 1 • Episode 25

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Ever wondered how your past life could be influencing your present and shaping your future? Brace yourself for a fascinating journey into the mystical realm of Akashic Records and past lives as our guest, a proficient Akashic Records reader, helps us unlock the power of the past to transform our future. From an engaging discussion on the role of free will and karma, to a captivating exploration of past life regression therapy, this episode is a goldmine of wisdom and intriguing revelations.

 Unfolding my personal story of overcoming a block through guidance from the Akashic Records, we also discuss the importance of trusting your intuition and how it can lead you to seek out unexplored resources. A riveting case study of a man battling depression and diabetes who found solace through regression therapy offers a glimpse into the transformative power of this process. 

My guest Rhonda Leifheit shares her enlightening journey of tapping into intuition and her experiences with past lives personally and professionally.  We also discuss the influence of past lives on our current existence, the role of our emotions, and the impact of astrology in the journey of our souls for seekers on a quest for self-discovery and spiritual growth.

To connect with Rhonda visit www.rhondaleifheit.com

Connect with Kelly @kellyhowecoaching on both IG and FB and @this.is.howe on TikTok or visit www.kellyhowe.co

I'd love to hear how your spirit team get's your attention and redirects your action.  What signs do your loved ones or spirit guides use to communicate with you?  Drop me a DM to share your story and you may be featured on an upcoming episode of the podcast!  I'd love to connect so don't be shy:)

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Kelly Howe:

Welcome to the Manifestation Lab. This is your host, kelly Howe. From the grounded science to the mystical and unseen, we're investigating this big experiment we call life and finding what really works when it comes to manifesting a life that sets your heart and your soul on fire. Welcome to the lab. So I'm curious have you heard of the Akashic Records or have you had an Akashic Records reading? I recently had one with my guest today. It was incredible. It was so helpful. It is definitely helping me move through some blocks that had been getting in my way, and I want to share with you how I actually found the guest that I have on today. My spirit guides have a super cool way of reaching me and guiding me to the right people at the right time, and it's just really cool. So I'm going to share how this works for me.

Kelly Howe:

Oftentimes, when I'm stuck and I feel like I can't move through something, like I was really dealing with some frustration in my business and feeling like I was just on the hamster wheel, I'm not reaching enough people I feel really frustrated about that, and I was frustrated with the fact that I was frustrated about it, because I reach a ton of people, I do a lot of amazing work, but I could tell that I was really getting in my inner critic about it and feeling like, ugh, I should be doing more, I should be doing this, I should be reaching more people, I should be having this, that and the other, blah, blah, blah. It's so annoying. We all do it right, but I was really feeling stuck. I couldn't get out of this mental loop and my spirit guides basically have this thing that they do, where they wake me up in the middle of the night and it's like I instantly have this knowing ugh, this block that I have. I need to reach out to this person. Sometimes it's a specific person, sometimes it's somebody that I know, sometimes it's a family member that I know I need to reach out to, because either they're struggling with something similar or I'm struggling and I just need to be heard, need to talk through what I'm doing. Maybe it's a friend, and sometimes I have this knowing that I need to reach out to someone new. I need to find a new type of practitioner, I need to try a new type of tool, and it's like I instantly just have this knowing that I need to get online.

Kelly Howe:

So I roll over in the middle of the night, after I've been awakened, it's like I'm automatically moving, I'm not really thinking about it, I pick up my phone and I just instantly will start searching something. So in this case, I had this knowing that I needed to do some past life work around the block that I was feeling and, like I said, I had been mentally rolling this over for weeks and not really knowing how I was going to move through this. And of course, I've been trying things and just still continued to be blocked. But after I got this knowing, I just instantly picked up my phone. I typed in past life regressions in Missouri and of course I get a whole bunch of people that pop up and I was instantly drawn towards one particular person. And when I can feel that something is aligned and it feels right for me, it's a full body, yes, right. It's like I feel my body relax, I feel expansive, I feel excited to talk to this person. I will read a little bit about them and it's like my heart is just saying yes, I can literally feel an expansion from my heart reaching towards that person, towards what I'm reading, and it's like I can feel myself being pulled forward towards that. And that's exactly what I felt with this specific person and, lo and behold, I just continued to feel that in the morning. So I reached out, got a session set up with her and it was incredible.

Kelly Howe:

And so I wanted to share that story because it's happened so many times where I've found the right coach, the right healer, the right person to take me through whatever that next level is, to move through the current blocks and sometimes it is a new person. So I want to go ahead and highlight that. I want to acknowledge that sometimes we are guided to find a new person because, for whatever reason, we just need a fresh energy, we need a fresh perspective. You may work with amazing healers or therapists or coaches, and or maybe even the podcast. Right, it's like you've gotten a lot out of the last several episodes, but all of a sudden it's like you're it's just falling flat and you want something new. By all means, please follow that, acknowledge that. Let your inner guidance system help you find the next podcast, the next person that is going to take you to that next level of expansion. So give yourself permission to do that, to follow that into. Let go of the guilt of moving on. Please let go of the guilt. I'm giving you permission right now. Let go of the guilt, find a new person if your guides are leading you in that way, and that's exactly what happened for me.

Kelly Howe:

It was very, very divinely timed. I got the exact information that I needed to to move through the block I was sharing about and basically what I learned in this regression I'm sorry, not in this regression, in this Akasha greeting was that I had a past life where I was very successful in creating circumstances where I did a lot of teaching. I was, of course, teaching about mystical things, about spiritual concepts, about philosophy, about healing very much the person that I am today. It was clear that I have really just picked up on this past life and continued the work of her, and the thing that was really so freeing about hearing about this past life was that, while it wasn't a super traumatic past life which I was like thank you, rhonda this is like the first past life I think I've ever visited where I wasn't horrifically killed for speaking my truth. There's been a ton of those. I wasn't hung or shot in the head or the face or brutally killed in a mob of people because I spoke up about my spiritual beliefs.

Kelly Howe:

Gosh, I can't imagine a lot of you have probably been through the same thing, but this past life was very different. I had a really delightful life of really pushing through boundaries. It was at a time when it wasn't really common for women to go to university to continue their education. I went ahead and did that. I married late. I found a partner who was very much interested in the same things, and I was able to carve out a space where I was able to teach about these topics and really make a difference in a lot of people's lives.

Kelly Howe:

But I died feeling like I hadn't reached enough people, like I had a desire and a craving to take it bigger, to reach more people, to travel the world, and that is exactly where I am right now. So hearing about this past life did a couple of things for me. A, it really helped me understand that the energies, the emotions, the feelings, the intuitive hits I'm having about my life and about where I want to go are really an extension of this past life. Wow, amazing, right. And the second thing I think it did was it's helped me to release some guilt and to just allow this desire to reach more people be less, I'm gonna say like in my head, feeling like that was coming from an ego place, or, yeah, just questioning like, why, like, why can't I just be happy now? I am happy now, but I've just acknowledged that this is really a sole desire of mine and this is an extension of this past life. I do have a desire to travel the world. I need to let go of any guilt I have about that. That is like one of the things I'm here to do. So I'm gonna be traveling more. I have several trips already planned and in fact, I'm planning a trip to Italy with my son. He's going with his orchestra, his high school orchestra, and I'm gonna be tagging along as the chaperone for that and that, like, oh, makes me so excited I want to cry, even telling you guys about that, because that's fresh, like that decision has just been made, like minutes ago, so gonna be making that happen.

Kelly Howe:

Anyway, having a past life reading, having a past life regression, akashic reading, is so helpful for helping to just understand where you are, where these blocks are coming from. Because, guys, yes, a lot of this comes from this life, a lot of it, but there's a ton of baggage of information, of gifts. There are gifts in our past lives that we have access to and when we can find conscious access to that. We have access to rapid healing, to rapid access to those gifts. So definitely lean in if you're feeling stuck and consider doing some past life work, maybe doing an Akashic reading. I'm really looking forward to sharing my guest with you today.

Kelly Howe:

Her name is Rhonda Lifehite. She is, of course, the woman I found in the middle of the night and was drawn towards reaching out to her. Reaching out to. She has been a reader of the Akashic records since 1980 and her interest in past lives began at 14 years old when she read a book about Edgar Cayce. By the way, if you're not familiar with what Akashic records are, why they're important, we're going to talk about that in just a few minutes.

Kelly Howe:

In the episode, she began her six year study of metaphysics in Columbia Missouri after an astrologer encouraged her to record her dreams and to lean into her intuition. I had no idea, by the way, when I reached out to her, that she had any history in Columbia Missouri, which, of course, is my hometown it's where I live now. She studied at the School of Metaphysics, which is literally just right down the street from me, and studied a wide array of spiritual topics, including daily practices of meditation, dream work, study of reincarnation, mind body work and so much more. I'm sure she became a teacher and was soon the director of the School of Metaphysics here in Columbia. With additional training, she began giving past life readings decades ago. She's been doing this for a very long time and she is incredible. Rhonda has since gone on to give thousands of past life readings in all 50 states and several foreign countries. She also guides clients to discover their own past lives through past life regression, and we talk about what the difference is between an Akashic records reading and a past life regression.

Kelly Howe:

Rhonda is certified in hypnosis, transformational imagery. She teaches classes in meditation, reincarnation, death and dying, developing intuition, dreams, empaths, the I Ching and emotional freedom technique. They're beautiful synchronicity that she is an emotional freedom technique practitioner. I had no idea about that. It's probably one of the other reasons that I was completely energetically drawn towards her, because we both are really really so passionate about that technique. Since 1985, the name of her practice has been the Source Life Enrichment Center.

Kelly Howe:

You can find Rhonda online at her website. I want to go ahead and give you that now so I don't forget later. You can find her at wwwrondallifeheightcom. I am going to go ahead and spell that for you, because it is spelled a little bit different than it sounds. So wwwr-h-o-n-d-a-l-e-i-f-h-e-i-tcom. So if you want to find out more about her, about her work, she teaches several classes in the St Louis area, so if you're around those parts you'll want to check her out, and she also does work over the phone if you want to do a reading over the phone. So, really looking forward to you getting into this conversation with us, I knew as soon as you started doing my reading, I was like, okay, now I need to pick her brain and find out more about your life and how you do this and what this looks like for you. You know day to day. So I'd love for you to just start with talking about kind of what you do as far as readings go and what are the Akashic records.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Okay, the Akashic records, essentially, are thought of as being a vibratory level that records all of our actions and thoughts and it's like a storehouse and can be accessed, is everywhere around us all the time. Theoretically, when I first learned about it was compared to radio waves that are around us, but unless we turn on the radio and dial in the frequency, we don't hear it, we don't tune in. So my training and practice was designed to help me tune into that. Now, these days, instead of the radio waves, that kind of talk about it like it's the cloud, that information is out there, we know it's there. We don't know what it looks like or that sort of thing.

Kelly Howe:

but it's there. Okay, I love that description. That's beautiful. So I once heard someone talk about the Akashic records like it was a giant library of everything that's ever happened and I think everything that will be as well. Does that resonate, or you?

Rhonda Leifheit:

know the will be. I'm not sure about what I know is. We create momentum, we create tendencies, but because we have free will and everyone has free will, there are so many variables that the will be, I think, is very much in our hands. I love that, okay.

Kelly Howe:

I love hearing that, because that was sort of when I hear that I'm like wait, what about free will? And you know, I know in any moment infinite possibilities exist, so I you know I can't really wrap my head around what that would actually look like as far as you know the will be, but I love hearing that. It's like you know what, we have power over this and we have our intention and we can steer the ship where we want it to go, so to speak. At least a little bit, I like to think.

Rhonda Leifheit:

At least a little bit. I mean, there are factors that we sometimes just don't understand and certainly, in exploring the idea of past lives and the actions we took, the beliefs we formed, the traumas we experienced and how we interpreted those, those are all part of our history, sometimes buried deep in our unconscious, and it's why learning about past lives, I think, is helpful, but also the reminder that the very purpose is not to just say, well, this is my karma or my fate, but rather, okay, this is what's brought me to this point and where do I go from here? And, by the way, let me say right away that karma so often is only thought of in terms of negativity, in terms of bad karma, and it really should be thought of as a neutral law, cause and effect for the purpose of our learning.

Kelly Howe:

Oh, I love that. I love that because we've all been through so many lives and we have karma, whether we like it or not. It's just. I love that you say that it's just part of like the experience. It's just a law of the universe or whatever is bigger than that even. And yeah, looking at it like it's a negative thing, I think really holds us back and can create some judgment towards ourselves and other people.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Absolutely. I think that is sadly far too true. You know where people will be hard on themselves or other people, and it really is. The longer I do this and the more I see of the effects of past lives and karma, the more complex it is and the more of a sense of wonder that creates.

Kelly Howe:

Yes, I totally agree. I can't even tell you how transformative past life work has been for me. I'm sure you know, because this is the work that you do. But could you talk to us about the difference between, like, an Akashic reading and a past life reading and why someone might choose one or the other? So say, like someone decides, you know what I want to go reach out to Rhonda and do a reading. What's the difference between the two and why would they choose one or the other?

Rhonda Leifheit:

Okay, let me make this distinction. To me, a past life reading is done by I'm getting a little notification there A past life reading is done by my going into a trance state, into a meditative state and tapping into the Akashic records. So for me, a past life reading is and the Akashic records are somewhat simultaneous. But I will also make this distinction because I do the readings where I go into trance, I tap into the records and ask to be shown the most significant past life for the person right now, knowing all of our lives have some impact. But the other piece I do is regression, past life regression where I take the client back to their own past life. So they also then are tapping into the Akashic records.

Kelly Howe:

Okay, beautiful. Yeah, because it's the same information, right, it's just a different pathway to get there, different pathway.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Right and people find different paths all the time. Sometimes it's a dream, sometimes it's walking into an antique shop or traveling to a different country. That kind of brings those echoes and memories from the Akashic records into us.

Kelly Howe:

I love that because it's all. I look at it like everything that we're experiencing now is just an extension of everything that's happened in the past, like whatever our soul is experienced in. I don't know about you, but I feel like when we decide to come into a body, we inherit the energetics in the past of our ancestors, right for thousands and thousands of years. As well.

Kelly Howe:

Yes, so that's a question I had for you. When you're tapping into the Akashic records, is that, can you be tapping into? Ancestral, like more of a dense energy, dna type energy, that like maybe something that your soul didn't directly experience but an ancestor did?

Rhonda Leifheit:

Wow, that's an excellent question, because and I don't know that I could answer that you know precisely but what I'm increasingly aware of is the sense that we have a dual heritage. We have the DNA, our genetics, our ancestors and everything that they went to and fought for and struggled with. Yeah, all of that's a part of us. And then we have our soul heritage, and what that dance is like is pretty amazing, because I think we're dancing with both. And but then you look at the notion that our souls have chosen to be born into a certain family, into a certain DNA ancestry, and so that kind of brings it together and again it makes for some complexity, which is as it should be. We don't want to oversimplify, you know, this spiritual journey that we're on.

Kelly Howe:

Yes, I love that we're talking about this because I feel like so many people on their spiritual journey, as they're healing, as they're learning more about their self and tapping into their soul and learning about past lives and starting to do this work, there can be sort of a frustration that comes up initially, where it's like oh, I thought I thought I dealt with that, I thought I understood that, and then boom, there's the next layer and I feel like that just happens infinitely throughout our life and I know people I work with and I know I've been there in times where it was like I just really thought I dealt with that. And then there's this whole giant issue, this whole shadow issue that emerges. And I just love to like bring a little bit of awareness and compassion to that intense complexity that really there is and it's if we can just love it and embrace it and be like, wow, this is way more complex than my human brain can wrap around, then we can have some fun with it.

Rhonda Leifheit:

You know, sorry because I've heard and experienced that same thing. I thought I've dealt with this, and the way I think of it now is and I'll sometimes say this to clients is like look, you've maybe been dealing with this for many lifetimes and maybe you didn't have the tools, the opportunity, the knowledge or understanding to even deal with it, and then you had to get through and cope. You just had to get through and survive. So any progress is progress. And the other way I look at it is this is our soul's work. These wounds are, in part. What we came here to do is to heal those wounds. So that is sacred work. And instead we kind of get with like, oh, I thought I'd dealt with this, I'm so sick of this, what?

Kelly Howe:

have.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I not been doing right, but it reframes it to be able to look at it that way.

Kelly Howe:

It does. And when I did my session with you, that was one of the things that you said to me. And I have to say you have such a gentle grace to the way that you deliver messages, not only when you are tapped into the Akashic records but also just afterwards when you came out. It was just so gentle and the way that the energy hit me just I think it really impacted me in a way that wasn't necessarily like brand new information, but it resonated on a deeper level and you said that to me.

Kelly Howe:

I was talking about I've been working on healing my throat chakra for all these years, and I mean really deep, intense healing work for probably 12, 13 years and really probably being very conscious of opening my throat up, probably for close to 20 years. And that feeling, that sort of like what am I doing wrong? Have I not tried the right thing? So I've, I've tried this and this and this, and that was what you said to me was like you know that you have lifetimes of throat chakra wounding and you said, maybe this is the lifetime that you have the opportunity to take the space to heal all those lifetimes of wounding.

Kelly Howe:

And there was something about the way you delivered it that it just immediately brought tears to my eyes and it felt so incredibly true, Like it still makes me want to cry talking about it, Because it just I don't know why you saying it in the way that you did I mean something about your energy just was able to penetrate and it was like that's right, Like I can't rush this, I can't be upset with myself because I've tried these all, this and this and this and this and it still hasn't gotten there because I have been healing my throat chakra. I wouldn't be able to sit here and talk to you if I hadn't.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Right, exactly, I mean, I've come so far. The best example of that, yeah.

Kelly Howe:

I mean, I can actually sing now and I used to have like a horse raspy voice. So I know I've done an incredible amount of work and I just want to thank you for saying that in the way that you did, because it just oh, I like sat right there in my heart, chakra and um, and I carry that with me now, Like it's like okay this is the life, that I have the opportunity and I have the tools and I have the space to do that.

Kelly Howe:

So just having a little more gentleness with myself and a little more compassion has been really, really huge. So that kind of leads into my next question, or what I want to talk about, and that is you know, do you have any past life experiences or healing stories for yourself or clients that were just really stick out as like, wow, this person learned about this thing, or I saw this in myself and everything changed after that, or, you know, everything looked different after that. Yeah, there are so many stories. There are so many. We have tons of times we have tons of times we have tons of times.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Um, yeah, it's. It's hard to know where to begin and then sometimes the healing is very subtle. Sometimes it's really just a shift in how people can view things and see things differently. Certainly, um, I can think of a couple um regressions that people did where the physical healing was dramatic and I know we all like dramatic stories that sometimes the drama is is a much more internal thing and, by the way, many lifetimes are not grandiose or dramatic in a world. You know a way that we might think. But, but sometimes, just as the observer to people's past lives, it's just beautiful how a simple life can be so profound in the way people give up themselves and do things.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Um, I can't think of a regression I did for a man who came in. He'd been suffering depression, uh, he was experiencing diabetes and he'd been treated for both, but he felt this incredible sense of guilt that he wanted to address, and really, guilt often seems to be a big one that people carry over. Anger is another one, but there are those themes. Maybe it's rejection or whatever. Um, and the other thing he described before we got started is this tight sensation around his abdomen, as if there was just something squeezing on him around his waist and rib cage and he said it was there 24, seven. Um, so this was a regression. So I was helping him to go back into this past life. He pretty quickly saw himself as a warrior, like medieval warrior, wearing this big leather belt around his waist and wielding a sword and killing men, women and children. He was very quickly horrified by his actions and, um, it was pretty horrific, you know. So my job is go, okay, where do we go with this? You know, that's, that's a different level of intuition. I'm doing the reading, I'm allowing those images to just flow and trusting what's there, um. So I asked him cause. We needed to find some compassion in that and some healing.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I asked him how it came to be that he was in that situation and he went back to his childhood as maybe a 10, 12 year old boy, when his village was being attacked and people were being slaughtered and the only way that he could survive was to demonstrate that he could be a warrior, that he could join forces with them, and I think he had to kill someone, like in his own tribe, to prove that. And so with that came this tremendous element of compassion that he was where he was because it was a survival tactic and many things in our lives can be survival tactics in order to get through. And what was beautiful about that regression? Because in a first time session my desire is to be able to help them see the past life kind of then step back from it to see how they came to be influenced by it and the guilt that he had carried from that, because some part of him recognized how terrible it was but then to go beyond that.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So when he left that physical life, left that behind, we go into the spirit world where he has the opportunity to see it from a different perspective and to accept healing. And it was just so liberating for him and he had this unique experience everybody's experience is so unique. So and I get to go on their journeys just being a bird, soaring free and liberated from that. And indeed when he came back that sensation around his waist was gone. It helped lift that sense of guilt and that remained the case. Now I will say sometimes people will see and get information that brings them a level of intellectual understanding, but it can still take some time for that to bring up about a deeper healing.

Kelly Howe:

That was gonna be. My next question was did he have a big emotional purge when that compassion hit him, when he was looking at that past life? Do you remember?

Rhonda Leifheit:

Not deep. Certainly there may have been some tears rolling down, and that varies with people as well Some people really. There was a woman recently I'm not sure I'm gonna remember all the details, but she came in. There was some block that she was trying to discover and release and some heaviness she felt that she was carrying. And she was in a new project, building a new business for herself to help facilitate people's own growth.

Rhonda Leifheit:

But what came to her was a life where she was so beloved and she was just sobbing. So sometimes people think oh, people will sometimes tell me I'm kind of nervous about what I'm gonna see in a regression or what I'm gonna hear you say, and I always try to reassure them that this is coming from a place of compassion and understanding, never from judgment. So sometimes people, instead of seeing maybe some horrific thing that they did, they will see something as beautiful as she did and got that feeling of being so loved. And shortly after that she had an open house for her business and she was hoping to maybe get a dozen people there and visualized 20 people and I think 25 people showed up. It's just that feeling like her business was really gonna be able to take off because she had that new dimension, that expanded sense of love that she knew. That's why she's here.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yes oh, I love that.

Kelly Howe:

I love that I don't do a ton of past life work. I don't know. It goes through phases where it's like suddenly I'll get a patch of clients and they all show up and it's like they're ripe and ready for it. And I use tapping with the past lives to help release that emotional content that comes up and to do the same thing that you're doing and to kind of help them see that compassion and let them embody that and open up to it. But I can tell you, just going back to what you were saying, you never know where it's gonna go and sometimes people see really beautiful past lives and sometimes people see really horrific, horrific things. And it is kind of a dance of trying to figure out, like allowing your intuition to show you. How do I help this person actually heal this while we're here and not retraumatize themself and take that back with them. But I just think it's so profound.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I'll usually tell them ahead of time. When doing a regression, I said if you come to something that is traumatic, you have some options with the regression. When they're under, they're not under that deep, I mean, there is a level of conscious mind that still remains, which I prefer, but that leaves them in control. So I'll say you can come out. If it's too much, just come out. And I had that happen once with a woman who was aboard a ship and pretty soon she's like going this is a Titanic and I know where this is going and I don't need to see it.

Rhonda Leifheit:

She came out, that's all she wanted Understandable, yeah, but I'll let people know also if you can detach from it and gain some objectivity and go through it, because your soul has survived anything, everything, so that can help you heal it.

Kelly Howe:

So man, I think for people listening my story with past life work started really when I had done a ton of digging, investigating, doing tapping, meditation, hypnosis, different types of things in this life, and there were still issues that it was like they just weren't budging.

Kelly Howe:

And it wasn't until I did the past life work where I started having shifts, and so for anybody that's listening that feels kind of stuck if you haven't gone back and done past life work. I believe that everything we're working on in this life I think we already touched on this is an extension of what our soul is working through. So even when we're doing healing on just this life, we're still doing past life healing. Yes, absolutely.

Rhonda Leifheit:

That's a good point that we don't necessarily have to know the past lives, that people shouldn't think, oh, I'm missing out, or that because we are the sum total of those things Right. But the beauty of it sometimes and for example, one of the readings I do is specifically called the crossing of paths between two people, and very often that puts them in a different setting. Now I may be only doing it for the one person, the other person may not be here I'll say is this other person gonna be listening? Because if so, the reading can give them advice. Sometimes that's the case and sometimes it's like, oh no, they wouldn't have any interest in this or I don't even see them anymore.

Rhonda Leifheit:

But the fact that it can put them in another time period, another place, another dynamic allows for objectivity, allows for compassion, and it's interesting that sometimes in the crossing of paths always the reading will focus. If it's just one person asking for the information, it's gonna focus on the advice for them. But there are other situations where the description is so much more about the other person so they can understand where that person is coming from in their history and their challenges. And so I've had people do crossing of paths with spouses and exes and siblings and bosses and parents and children, and that adds a whole new dimension.

Kelly Howe:

That sounds amazing. Oh my gosh, I'd wanna do that with everybody in my family and everyone I know, because I just let me not everybody, but you know, there's those people that you know you're like, we've done this together before. There's just a certain feeling, you know, like I feel like when I met you I was like yep, you're one of those.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I have a feeling we've talked before and Well, I'll say this too, when I you know, I started teaching really early. I was in my mid-20s and I hadn't been studying metaphysics for more than a year and I was encouraged to begin teaching before I really felt I was ready. But and I can tell you the past life story, that kind of was the indicator that.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I was.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yeah, but two things about teaching.

Rhonda Leifheit:

One was I started thinking Well, let's just imagine that everybody I meet in this life is somebody I've known in a previous life, you know, because I'm a true introvert and I mean I love the connection but I need my alone time and the inwardness, and so if I could think about everybody I was meeting was somebody I'd met before, that made a little easier.

Rhonda Leifheit:

And the second thing, for the purpose of teaching because I was so anxious and self-conscious and do I know this stuff and there was so much to know and I realized it wasn't about my what I know, and I adopted the notion that instead of thinking of myself as a teacher, I would think of myself as an educator, because the root of educate, the Latin is edukary, to bring forth. So my job as an educator is to help bring forth the wisdom in other people. It's not about pouring what I know into them, and that has served me well, because the more I've taught, kind of, the less I know. And classes also, you know, are such that everybody brings in their experience and their insights and wisdom.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah, oh, I love that. How long have you been teaching now?

Rhonda Leifheit:

I began teaching 1975. So you can add that up. So I was teaching metaphysics while I was still in that school in Columbia. That's how I got started.

Kelly Howe:

Yes, okay, so I saw that on your website. I didn't realize that you had spent time in Columbia, so how did you end up here? Okay, I think that's an interesting story.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Well, here's how I ended up there. A little bit of a long story and I'll try and condense it. I grew up in Northern Illinois on a farm up there and when I was 14, I started getting. I worked after school for a woman who was a photographer, who lived on a farm close to us, and that woman, for some reason I don't know where she got this book about the life of Edgar Cayce and his exploration of past lives and his work that he did throughout his life, and I was fascinated with it. It explains so many things because there was this whole cosmology of our soul's spiritual evolution and how past lives tied into that and all of that. It just answered questions. It never felt like it conflicted with my Protestant upbringing. It was just like, well, now we're getting some more answers here.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So then, moving on, by my early 20s I moved to California, palo Alto area, and lived there for a year. But I started having dreams about this old boyfriend and some kind of unresolved issues about him and the dream I remember he had moved somewhere south from where we had grown up or where we had been together. And then I learned he had moved to Columbia, missouri, got in touch with him, moved across the country, not to be together, even necessarily, but just from the dreams, from the reconnection, I knew I needed to be there and really, when I looked back on it, he was a symbol, because he'd also had spiritual interests and all that sort of thing. That got me to Columbia. And then I found the astrologer who is still there, bill Herbst.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah, Herbst, I didn't know that. So for our listeners, I live in Columbia, missouri, I mean. I'm sure some of you know that, and Rhonda lives in St Louis, right.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So just a couple hours away.

Kelly Howe:

It's just two hours away, but I didn't realize that you had had time here. So what was his name? Bill Herbst, bill Herbst.

Rhonda Leifheit:

H-E-R-B-S-T.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Okay, I'm going to have to look him up, yeah, and what he was able to do in looking at my chart was to put into words what I knew about myself but was never able to verbalize. And one of the things he said to me right off the bat was you have to start recording your dreams. He says you have a very active subconscious mind. He had no idea that it was my dreams that had compelled me to move from Palo Alto to Columbia. He also knew that I needed you know before the term introvert was known, or empath or sensitive or any of that. He's saying you need time alone, you need to make sure you have time for meditation, time in nature, and but it was his encouragement to record my dreams that got me into classes in metaphysics.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So, interesting yeah.

Kelly Howe:

So how did your intuition start to open up from there?

Rhonda Leifheit:

Well, because of the exercises. I mean, the beautiful thing was there was a discipline of concentration exercises, meditation exercises, weekly classes with dream work and all those things. But I'll say this when I had been studying all of that for about five years and I'd been teaching, I was the director of the Columbia school.

Kelly Howe:

That school, by the way, is like a half a mile from where I'm sitting.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yeah.

Kelly Howe:

It is, it's like right up the road.

Rhonda Leifheit:

It was a wonderful foundation for me and then later, as I made to St Louis, it was kind of like you know you get vehicles for a while and that it was time to move on. But it gave me a good foundation because it also as director of that location I was running a business essentially and coordinating because at that time it was big, it had grown quickly. It was. I was in the first class in that Columbia school in the mid-70s and there were probably 50 students within a few years.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So but when I finally felt like because I loved hearing other people's readings we could sit in on other people's readings, we would transcribe people's readings. So that was an additional education and just hearing not only about the past life, because that's just one small part. People need to understand. How is that integrating into the past, into the present, and that's such an important part of the readings, is such an important part of regression work. But I was hesitant to do the training, and rightfully so. I mean, it was like hypnosis training.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I was a terrible subject. I came up blank time after time after time and I see it now there as a valuable experience because two things that got in my way. One was this thing of like well, I should know how to do this. I've been training, studying, meditating for all these years, so I was getting in my own way by trying too hard. And then also I had this notion that I would see the whole life laid out in front of me and I would just describe it. And instead, what I learned about the intuitive process is you just have to wait, let it come and then trust what's there. And that's a challenging part. And still, to this day, there is that element of you know, every reading I do. It's a matter of turning it over, trusting, asking for divine guidance and going from there.

Kelly Howe:

So did you have a moment where you did a reading with someone else or had a moment where you're like, whoa, okay, this is finally happening. Or was it like a slow, gradual process? Because I feel like my intuition has been so slowly unfolding that sometimes I'm like come on.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I think it's a slow, gradual process indeed, and there are still times you know that there is that sense of I don't know if it's just reverence or gratitude to know when the reading has spoken to someone and when it's right on. Because I have to separate the conscious mind, that part of me that wants to be right I mean the soul level of me wants to be right too, but the conscious mind and the ego has to like step aside because it might be wrong, and because I do teach classes on developing intuition, that's the main lesson is for people to not try too hard, to not be afraid of making mistakes, to just kind of let go and trust what comes, because if people will trust their first instinct, they're often right on.

Kelly Howe:

And do you ever get messages from people like a week or two or even a month later that maybe felt like it didn't resonate or that it wasn't spot on, but then all of a sudden they get some new insight and they realize that it was exactly spot on?

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yeah, Sometimes it does take a while for people to do that, and I've done readings now long enough that I've had people contact me after decades the joy of having done this so long to say how it played out or how significant it was. It's just a little thing like I ran into a woman the other day at the botanical garden and she's taken classes with me and I've done some readings for her. She called me the next day and she goes. I have to tell you this story that had to do with the past life. Reading you did some years ago, and in the past life she had been an artist in Renaissance Europe, but a female, when female artists weren't really permitted. But she had these male friends who took her under their wing and let her paint in their homes or studios or whatever.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So then fast forward present day. She was taking some classes at a local art supply place and the young man who was teaching it she said he was about 30, she's in her 60s. Afterwards he goes. I know you, somehow she's like I know you look familiar too, but they could not figure out anyway they would have ever met. She came back the next week and she handed him my card and she goes I know how we know each other past lives and he's like, oh, that makes sense. I mean he just took it right. Oh, I love it. So there's just so many ways that these kinds of things can integrate.

Rhonda Leifheit:

And there was another woman I heard from years later. She told me her husband who had been working at Boeing here in St Louis doing computer work or something like that the past life reading I did for him was as some sort of Chinese healer in the ancient past and I saw her years later. And she goes oh yeah, he quit that job and became a chiropractor and started doing that. So you just never know how it's going to impact or unfold. And sometimes, again, I think that there are other stories. I don't know, they're just out there. Sometimes I hear them, sometimes I don't.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah, I love it.

Kelly Howe:

I you know the reading that you did for me was going back to what you said about like people expect these big, grandiose, you know dramatic past lives and I have certainly done a ton of those where I was hanged or my head was chopped off or a baby left in the wood. I mean, I've had so many like really, really dramatic past lives that are still influencing me. However, this one was really delightful, the one that you that you did for me in the Akashic Records. Oh yeah, that's intense. What was so beautiful about it was that not only was it not like hugely dramatic, I didn't have a really painful, awful death, you know, it wasn't something that I needed to do like trauma healing on which, to be honest with you, is like completely new and different. I've never had a past life reading that wasn't like okay, there's some serious healing work that needs to be done here. But what was so beautiful about it was that it was very much I could see so clearly how this was just me in this life, picking up on where this past life left off with my teaching, with my studies around spiritual topics, around metaphysics, around different cultures and the way people heal and learning about manifestation. It was like in this past life, that was the work that she was doing and she never had the opportunity to really spread her message as far as she wanted to go. So she was very happy with her life. She felt like proud of what she had done, especially in the time period I don't remember right now when it was, but a woman, teaching at that time was not common and somehow she made it work, you know, and she, the only thing was that she really felt like she didn't get to spread her message and to teach as much as she wanted to to as many people and so, and she didn't get to travel like she wanted to, along with that teaching and what that did for me and again it's makes you want to cry. So I know it's, I know it's so true and so spot on is that I know that that is where I'm picking up in this life, is that I meant to reach a lot of people. I am meant to travel and teach and do that and have fun, and I can tell so beautifully how that just is an extension of that past life. And it's also so wonderful knowing that, like I'm not learning everything in this life. Like you were saying, I'm, I'm bringing it through, I'm delivering it, and I'm delivering it from directly from her sometimes.

Kelly Howe:

And I think it gave me permission to have the desire. Not only, you know, one have the desire to want to reach more people, because sometimes I get in my head with like, oh, that's just ego. Like you know, it feels like that desire feels somehow not authentic. However, it shows up in all of my charts. It shows up, you know, in these past life ratings.

Kelly Howe:

So I know that it, I know that it's beyond just ego, it's actually a sole desire. So I think it helped me lean into that a little bit harder and go, okay, like this is just something that my soul has wanted for a long time is to reach more people and also to to travel and be completely guilt free about that and know that that really is a sole desire. That's not just ego, kelly, being like I want to get out of here, you know it just. It was like this really gentle permission slip to just be where I am and and say, yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to reach a lot of people, I want to travel and I want to teach and I want to keep learning and I think that past life is like yeah.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yes, really, and it is that nice reminder that I always think of our sole purpose kind of at three levels. There's the small P purpose, which is to do the healing, maybe, of the wounding from past lives, and then there's a purpose to carry forward and expand upon our gifts or talents and our strengths, and then there's that capital P purpose, which is spiritual evolution or wholeness or enlightenment, or getting off the wheel, if you want to think of it that way. Yeah, yeah, and I mentioned my first past life reading, which maybe had a similar tone you were saying reminded me that the first reading that was done for me described a life in Atlantis and I was studying whatever spiritual teachings were being presented at the time, preparing to teach, and instead got caught up in the cataclysm and drowned, wow. And so from that standpoint it was picking up where I left off all those years ago. And it's not to say I wouldn't have done something like that in between, and I'm sure I have in different forms. But it is interesting how it really spoke, because I started teaching like a year later and I've done that ever since. So I really did speak to that and I wasn't so much conscious of that at the time.

Rhonda Leifheit:

The other piece to that life that I think I only appreciated some years later was that the reading described that when I died I was so angry. I was so angry that I immediately wanted to reincarnate and the reading indicated that I reincarned right away but it was a wrong time, wrong place, too quickly and that I died shortly after. I don't know if it was a stillbirth or what it was, and there were several pieces to that that I still find kind of intriguing, because I do think the soul's journey, once it leaves the physical plane, at best travels into the spirit plane, greeted by loved ones, and processes the past life in order to make a plan for the next life, the best opportunities. But I also think that that momentum and free will gives us permission to do things otherwise, and it also was a lesson in anger powerful that anger energy can give.

Kelly Howe:

Yes, I wanted to come back to that anyway. How do you see that happening? Because one of the things I do with people I do so much emotional healing and we try to go back and figure out where did this really come from. And that's one of the things that I ask people if they have an emotion that just has been around for a long time. It's like can you remember a time before this motion felt like it was just so big and so sometimes it is like anger, sadness or grief and it's like they'll be like you know what it does feel like. I came in with that.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yes.

Kelly Howe:

So I try to sometimes figure out how that works. Is it because the soul just remembers and so it like translates through the current body that that same kind of anger? How do you see that working?

Rhonda Leifheit:

I wish I had a clear answer to that. Yeah, I'm with you in this kind of like. How does it all come together? As also, just astrologically, I've got a lot of Torian energy and so let's say that piece of anger I don't get angry a lot, but the Torian bull you know, who can be very calm for a long period of time and then see red. The other analogy I heard for Torian energy is the volcano, where it can stay buried, you know, or calm for centuries and then explode. So you think, so did my soul. Was the momentum of my lessons, Was that part of it? Did it show up in the astrology? Because also in the Torian energy is the groundedness, is the earthiness, and I've got a 12th house son for anybody astrologically inclined. But basically to me it meant it means kind of practicing spirituality and the occult in a practical way.

Kelly Howe:

Yes. That's how I was looking at it too.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So how does all that work? Right Is the soul is there, like you know, I imagine these master teachers and astrologies in the spirit plane if we're willing to like take their advice and guidance, who might say okay, for your soul's best learning. Here's a good opportunity astrologically and here you can reconnect with these souls. And the vastness of that kind of plan seems incomprehensible until you think of the analogy of internet connections and the vastness of how that works. If those connections can be so vast and complete, then how much more so. Divine mind in putting these things together, and that's where I think my little pea brain simply has to give up.

Kelly Howe:

And I can get. I love to think and think and think and try to figure this stuff out and just ponder it and read about it. But yeah, I think there is a point where it's like our little human brain is like I'm tapping out. I don't know that.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I understand ever. And it is interesting because the why of this is what has driven me all along. And that's great because it keeps us asking questions, opening doors, staying curious, which is far better to me than having all the answers. But it also means I'm a little bit more comfortable with not knowing. I was like oh yes, it is so vast and just being able to wonder is kind of delightful.

Kelly Howe:

It is. It's so interesting and going back to that huge divine complexity, that we're working with the astrological influences, with our past life and our soul influences and our soul desires, like what do we want to get done in this life? And then again going back into the physical body and I really believe that one of my soul really soul lessons in this life was to learn how to balance fear and be okay with it and know that it's a human emotion and expression, but also have a tool and know how to work with it and help the body feel safe and decondition fear. So I believe that I decided intentionally to step into a body and to ancestry that had a lot of fear. On a really root chakra level. I think I've been deconditioning really, really, really ancient fear. So, yeah, so complex, so fascinating.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I love thinking about it all.

Rhonda Leifheit:

And really to imagine that again, as you were saying earlier, where people will say I feel like I've had this feeling ever since I came in, or they may say I can't think of anything in this life that would cause me to have this level of fear or guilt or anger or feeling of rejection or whatever it may be. And those often are the clues that this has been carried and so the setup kind of began in childhood and sometimes too, I think there's a grace period or a readiness that we're building certain strengths and readiness, Though sometimes you think of a situation people have in childhood where it seems like, wow, they weren't really ready and things hit hard, and it does kind of boggle the mind to imagine it does it definitely does how all that comes together.

Kelly Howe:

It does, and if there's anybody listening that's curious about past lives but maybe a little bit skeptical. One of the ways I like to tell my clients if it feels like a past life experience would be beneficial, it's like when I'm talking to somebody and they describe certain things, it's like there's certain patterns that almost like light up when it's like there it is, that's the ancient thing that we need to look at. But I always tell my skeptical people if they're just a little bit like I don't know, I'm like listen, if you set the intention that you want to investigate and heal this issue and you feel like your mind made up a story, it's still showing you exactly what you need to see to heal that issue. So, whether it's past life or just your higher consciousness showing you all the pieces of the puzzle, putting it together, just trust what you're seeing and usually that helps people. That little bit of skepticism, it helps it sort of melt away and they're like okay, Listen, I do believe it's past life.

Kelly Howe:

I've also had experiences where sometimes, where I'm like this doesn't feel like a direct past life, it almost feels like a melding of several Like my mind kind of puts together a different story that brings together a lot of different things. I'm like I don't think I actually experienced this. This feels more like a collection, yeah.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I don't know if that makes sense. And I will tell people the very same thing. I'll say look, especially if they're doing a regression, because they have to get their conscious mind out of the way. And so I'll say you know, because a common question is well, how do I know? I'm not making this up. And I'll say you don't. You don't Exactly, I said.

Rhonda Leifheit:

But think of it this way you can think of it as a metaphor, think of it as a dream. It's a story coming from somewhere inside of you that has a story to tell, and in that sense then it can be valuable. And for that, for that matter, I don't know either, when I'm doing the reading and I'm telling the story, that it's not just a good metaphor. But that's why, afterwards, I always like to have time with the client. I'm not just saying goodbye or hanging up the phone when I'm done with the reading. I want that time to dialogue. What parallels did you see? How is this similar to what's going on in your life now? So that they can make those connections, and that often it's little things that give validity to the past life, phrases that they use or ways of thinking about things.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah, there were several little things like that that just resonated so deeply, one of them being that in that past life that you did for me, I grew up with all brothers and I was very comfortable around men and again, going back at that time period it wasn't common for a woman to teach. So that kind of mirrors that past life for you too. And I have three sons and I now have two male dogs. I'm just really comfortable around male energy. I always have been. I've always had a lot of guy friends and just get along with guys really well. I have my dad used to joke that my little sister and I, when we would start burping and farting and like God knows what he would be like the boys are back.

Kelly Howe:

We just just very comfortable in that side of the face.

Rhonda Leifheit:

So yeah, love that. It is fun to see how those things come through. Yeah, it really is.

Kelly Howe:

So, Ronda, do you have any classes that you're teaching right now? Anything going on that if people are interested in you know connecting with you, what's up?

Rhonda Leifheit:

for you. Yeah, I'm just finishing up two different classes on the same topic. There was enough interest in a class I was teaching in my home, so it's a small group preparing for the world beyond. It's a class on death and dying. So we talk about various aspects of how can we know what's on the other side People who've had their death experiences, mediums, people who have channeled from the other side and that sort of thing and then we talk about what are the things that help us literally prepare our minds and our souls, through meditation and soul work, to leave. How do we assist in the dying of others if we happen to have that kind of opportunity and privilege to be with someone who's dying? So we cover a lot of topics on that grieving as well and we just are finishing up. It's a five-week class and we're finishing up and I'm like you guys, I think next time I've got to teach this in eight weeks. There's just too many.

Kelly Howe:

Too much yeah.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Because you know when you're talking about, well, where do we go after we die? It's like we're going into that spirit plane, but what's happening is there we're envisioning and preparing our next life, and then that goes into reincarnation and all that sort of thing. So that's one class. And then this weekend I have a class starting at the community college called 10 Clues to your Past Lives. So it'll help them to go explore that. So yeah, and just regularly I teach a variety of classes, from dreams to developing intuition, meridian tapping.

Kelly Howe:

Oh, that's right. Yes, so you do tapping as well. How do you use that with clients? What does that look like?

Rhonda Leifheit:

Well, it you know, it's just one of the tools in my toolbox, so sometimes it may be with somebody with a past life issue that's stuck. Sometimes it's just a present life kind of issue that they want to deal with. Either they'll come in directly for that or something will come up and I'll say you know this, this sounds like a great opportunity to use meridian tapping. Yeah.

Kelly Howe:

I don't know about you, but I feel like tapping while somebody's working with really old stuff sort of helps something our mind and body separate and recognize somehow like oh, that is in the past. It helps us stay grounded in our body and helps us recognize like okay, that is a past life.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I don't need to like activate in a nervous system way around this, because it it is actually old, whether that's like five years old or a thousand years old, a thousand years old, beautifully, beautifully said, because that's what I when I learned it, that's the piece that I loved about it, because otherwise, how do we move past these patterns? You know, just saying affirmations or wanting to believe differently, you know, sometimes the knowledge itself can provide a remarkable shift, but very often it doesn't. And that's what I liked about meridian tapping is like. Now we're getting into where it feels different, because people will go well, I know where this comes from, you know whether it's an issue from childhood or a past life but until they feel it differently, until it shifts at like a bodily level, it kind of persists there.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah, and on a really grounded level. If our nervous system is activating and going into, you know, fight or flight or freeze, then it's shifting our biochemistry right and like down, regulating our healing abilities If we're getting activated in our nervous system all the time. So if we can just ground our nervous system and feel safe in our body, we instantly up, regulate our well-being and on an energetic level, I think when we do tapping on these issues and we're working through fears and these like root chakra issues, I feel like we are clearing such old stuff, yeah, and like letting go of vibrational stuff from God knows where you know Right, but I love that aspect of it when I start thinking about, you know, when we're working on really making the body feel safe at that root chakra and those lower chakras, like we're really doing some profound energetic work at a really dense level, which I think is so cool.

Rhonda Leifheit:

And it's so nice to see people just kind of feel a sense of a shift so quickly, I think sometimes and sometimes I don't know about you, sometimes that'll maintain and sometimes it doesn't. But you know, when I teach them those basics that they have on hand as well.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yeah, and I love that about meridian tapping is like this is something that people have for themselves and something they can learn and use easily. But the other piece that I've discovered about that is, you know, people will learn it and forget it, forget to use it, like probably all of the spirit, wonderful spiritual tools that we learn, and then sometimes people maybe won't stick with it on their own, but in a session, you know, you can mirror to them well, what I'm hearing, or let's try this, or let's go at it a little differently, so that that's helpful.

Kelly Howe:

Yeah, I love that you're using it. It's just such a powerful tool that can be applied in so many different ways and, as you mentioned, just being able to have that to take with you to work through your own anxieties and fears is just, I feel like I mean, I know it was life changing for me, so I love that you're using that. I so appreciate you being here, Ronda, If somebody wanted to reach out to you for a reading. How do they find you?

Rhonda Leifheit:

The best way is to call me, and this is a landline, so it's just leave a voicemail 314-644-0641. My email is the other way and that is awaken the light eight number eight, at gmailcom. So it's a w a k e n t h e l I g h t at gmailcom.

Kelly Howe:

Perfect.

Rhonda Leifheit:

And now my website. Also my name, and be sure to put the www to get directly to my website Rhonda life height, and I think you have the spelling there.

Kelly Howe:

I will drop it in the show notes as well so people can access this information there. But yeah, we'll get them your website and I'm glad you gave them your number and email so they can just reach out directly to you, because I know there's going to be people really interested in doing this work with you and I thank you for coming on. It's such a pleasure to talk. Like I said, I feel like we've done this before.

Rhonda Leifheit:

I know it's so fun, yeah, finally, after all these centuries, all these centuries right back together, so I love that you're just a couple hours away.

Kelly Howe:

I really think I'll probably be exploring a past life regression with you at some point, and I would love to do that. Crossing the paths. I'm such an addict for knowing about myself, so you're going to see more of me, I'm sure of it adds dimensions of understanding.

Rhonda Leifheit:

Yes, wonderful. Well, thank you so much, kelly, this has been so great.

Kelly Howe:

Thank you so fun. Thanks, Miranda.

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