The Purpose of Life: The Unpopular Truths You Weren’t Supposed to Hear - Classic

Welcome to Classic Skeptic Metaphysicians! We're re-releasing some of our back catalog so that these gems can be re-discovered!

This week: The Purpose of Life: The Unpopular Truths You Weren’t Supposed to Hear

Featuring Dr. Toni Reilly — Past-Life Regression Expert, Bestselling Author, and SoulLife™ Creator
 
Everyone wants to know the same thing: Why are we here? What’s our purpose? But what if the truth isn’t blissful, glamorous, or even pleasant?
 
In this mind-breaking episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians, Dr. Toni Reilly reveals a shocking spiritual awakening insight: We don’t incarnate to be happy. We incarnate to feel, especially pain. The soul’s mission? Emotional experience, including grief, heartbreak, shock, and the exact challenges we try to escape.
 
Brace yourself. You won’t get spiritual comfort here. You’ll get truth. ]

Episode Highlights

• The real purpose of life isn’t learning, it’s emotional experience
• Why grief is the most important part of your spiritual evolution
• Why free will is mostly an illusion (and why that’s liberating)
• Karma isn’t punishment, it’s experience unfolding
• What happens between lives & how soul plans are made
• How to visit the afterlife without dying
• Why you are never “off your path” no matter how disastrous life feels
• Why Earth is a “difficult incarnation” compared to other dimensions

About Dr. Toni Reilly
Trained by the legendary Dr. Brian Weiss, pioneer author of Many Lives, Many Masters, Dr. Reilly is one of the world’s leading experts on past-life regression, reincarnation research, in-between lives, and soul purpose planning. She is the bestselling author of Awake: The Purpose of Life and Why You Are Here, and creator of the SoulLife™ Coaching Program, a revolutionary approach to emotional healing through consciousness work.

Who Should Listen
This episode is perfect for:

• Seekers on a spiritual awakening journey
• Anyone struggling with grief, pain, or trauma
• Curious skeptics and spiritually homeless explorers
• Students of consciousness, reincarnation, and metaphysics
• Therapists, healers, coaches, empaths & energy worker

Discover the unpopular truths behind your soul’s mission and redefine everything you thought life was supposed to be.

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!
 
Subscribe to The Skeptic Metaphysicians on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for more deep dives into spiritual awakening, consciousness, spirituality, metaphysical science, and mind-body evolution.

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Karen. Yes, what's the number one question everyone has about life?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Why are we here? What's our purpose?

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yes? Exactly, what's the meaning of the purpose of life? Yes?
Nice job. Well, today we get to talk with someone
that believes she has the answer what. But the question
is will you like that answer? Yeah, we're diving.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Into the scaring me.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
We're diving into five unpopular truths about the purpose of
life and answer once and for all what the actual
purpose of life might just be. I'll strap on your
seatbelts because this one's going to be a bumpy ride.
My name is Will and unlike Boulder and Scully, want
to believe. So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
We can just skip the posicians classic You are listening
to Classic Skeptic Mephysicians. Welcome to our version of a
walkdown Memory Lane as we present classics from the Skeptic

(01:12):
Metahysician Library, warts and all. Hey, guess what.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
The Skeptic Metaphysicians has a new five star review. This
time it's from Gotta Have FS and Gotta Have FS
as in the United States, So thanks for leaving us
review Gotta have now They say it's a great resource
for spiritualists of all types, and goes on to say
I love this podcast so much. There are so many

(01:48):
podcasts around now that explore similar topics, but the Skeptic
Metaphysicians offer the material in a lighthearted and curious way.
The hosts have such a great dynamic together, and the
assortment of guests is beautifully all over the place. This
is such a great resource for any spiritualist, no matter
where they are on their journey. Well, Got to have FS.

(02:10):
We can't express how grateful we are enough to you
for leaving us a review, especially because it's a five
star review. And if you'd like to hear your review
read on the show, please feel free to go to
Skeptic Metaphysition dot com. You can leave us a review
directly on the site, or you can always leave us
reviews on Apple Podcasts and Podchaser as well. Whether it's

(02:31):
five star or not, we really really love to hear
from you. The only way we can learn is when
we get feedback from the audience. Thanks again, Got to
have FS. We hope you continue to enjoy the Skeptic Metaphysicians. So, Karen,
I've been asked a lot about my experience at the
ashroom that I went to heavy Yeah a lot, actually

(02:52):
a lot. Yeah, surprisingly, so I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
But you just don't seem like an ash found ten guy.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I do. You're right, I don't. And after being at
the ashrom, I think that there's parts of the ashrum
that I really resonate with in others that I really
don't like. I'm a on the clock type of guy, right,
if something starts at eight, I expected to start at eight,
not at seven forty five, okay, And that was a
little frustrating because they're kind of loosey goosey at the asherals.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, they're going with the flow of the vibrations and
the energy.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, but you got to warn a guy. So a
lot of people know. Not long ago, I won a
meditation retreat to an ashroom in Central Virginia and spoiler alert,
it was amazing. But the first day was tough because
they don't tell you anything. They just kind of throw

(03:43):
you in and expect you to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, you also have to let them know that when
you signed up for this, you didn't realize it was
going to be a silent.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well that's true.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, there's a bit of a rub there.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
That is true. So when I got there, I learned
that it was a silent retreat and that they gave
me a schedule, and so I expected that this is
the schedule to follow, and I soon learned that that
was not exactly the schedule that they one hundred percent
struck to. So my first experience in the meditation retreat

(04:14):
when I went to the meditation hall, I got there
right around four four thirty five o'clock or so, and
the meditation was at six, and on the schedule it
says that it was a guided meditation. I was very.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Excited about it.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
So I got to the meditation hall and I got
there probably fifteen minutes early, ten minutes early because I
was excited, only to find that there was nobody there.
So I just you know, the doors were closed to
the hall, so I just sat and waited patiently until
someone would open the doors. I would assume that the
doors would be open and you'd know to walk in.
And as I'm sitting there, someone walks in, takes off

(04:46):
their shoes, puts them in a cubby, and opens the
door and walks in. So now I'm going, m okay, well,
I guess maybe I could do the same thing. So
I did that, only to find that there were already
several people in the meditation hall. So I get myself
settled on the floor and I'm excited for my first
guide of meditation at this ashroom. And as I'm sitting

(05:06):
here looking at my watch, I realize that it's already
six o'clock and we haven't started yet, so I'm trying
to be patient. I just sit there for another few
minutes and suddenly decide, well, heck, i'll just start on
my own and when the guided part starts, I'll just
follow along. So I started meditating on my own, and
after twenty minutes or so, I realized it's probably been

(05:29):
a long time and I don't hear anybody guiding anything.
So I broke my meditation to look at my watch
again and realized it was twenty minutes after six and
there was no one guiding, So maybe something happened, maybe
I misread the schedule. So I continued meditating on my own.
So at the half hour mark, someone walks in and
rings a little well no meditation bab a meditation bult

(05:51):
bing bing that signifies the end of the meditation. So okay,
I guess I must have read it wrong. It's not
a guided meditation. So I leave and go to have dinner,
and of course I'm silent, because this is, after all,
a silent meditation retreat. But I'm seeing people, I'm hearing
people talk, and I'm thinking, wow, how rude these people
are talking to each other.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
That's so unsilent.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Unsilent. And in the schedule there's a would consider the
it's a pooja. It's a ceremony they do in the mornings,
and it's except for eight o'clock. There's a lady there
who is talking to me about the pooja, and she
invites me to go to this ceremony at eight o'clock
in another location. So I was very excited to go. So,
you know, seven forty five, I drive myself to the

(06:34):
other location and I sit in the car for a
little bit because I'm early again and they want to
be caught.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
It was this in the morning the next.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Morning, Yeah, the next morning. So I lolligag around and
five minutes to eight or so, I walk into the
area only to find that there's a lot of people
already in there performing this ceremony. So I sit thinking, well,
maybe there's something before the pooja that is happening pool yeah,
pre pooje. Yes. So I sit outside, I'm waiting, and

(07:02):
there's a glass door. I see the lady that invited
me in to the pooja sitting there, and she sees
me and she weighs me in. So okay, I walk in.
I sit next to her, and she immediately comes over
and shares her program with me. And in the program
is a whole bunch of chants that they're doing. She's
full on expecting me to follow along with these chants.

(07:25):
What my first thought was, I'm supposed to be silent,
but if she expect me to, maybe maybe chanting doesn't qualify.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
So the second thing is, I have no idea how
to pronounce these things. This is a Hindu, right, I've
gotten no clue. So I'm just following along. And as
I'm chanting, eventually they repeat the same chant over and
over and over again at one point, so I'm I
got it, I got it. I'm chanting along.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh, I'm shantiba. But I am full on, like full
on change. I am chanting like nobody's chanted before. Only
the find that they know when to stop. I did not,
so I can't did to the tune of one for
a little while.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Oh my god, I wish I would have been there. No,
I would have been laughing.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
It would have broken the silence. Well, the next thing
I know, she goes, she gets me my own book,
and then she gets me a little bell to hold.
So I had this little bell and I don't know
what it's for.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Boy, So I was the last thing I would give you.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, no, right, especially because I just chanted way after
everyone stopped. So at some point people were ringing the bell.
So I took my bell and I'm sorry ringing it.
And then of course they stop. They'll tell me when
to stop, so I'm continuing to ring the damn bell.
So it goes on like that so repeatedly. So they're
doing some things and I'm just not getting it. So

(08:46):
finally I'm just like, okay, they have to they have
to forgive me. So after the pooja, we're outside of
the hall and she's talking to me about these offerings.
You want some because of whatever, and I'm just like mmmmm.
She goes, are you are you being silent? Well, yeah,
this is a silent retreat after all, isn't it. She goes, no, No,

(09:07):
that doesn't start tonight at seven o'clock. So I spent
an entire day and a half silent, unbeknownst to me,
not having I could have been talking and yelling and
shouting at the top of my lungs and that wouldn't
have broken the code.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
So that's so funny. Yeah, well, I remember you texted me,
and I'm like, that counts that you can't because you
told me you're going to surrender your phone.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I was going to surrender my electronics, but he said, no, no, no,
go ahead. You don't have to surrender them. You can
keep them in your room, just don't use them during
the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So I get this text. I'm like, oh my god,
you're totally cheating. But I'm going to respond, and I
think I said, you're a really long one with everything
I'd done, you know, since the day before when you left.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
You're catching me up and on everything in one shot, and.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
One shot because that's it. After this, I don't respond.
You know, you've got to follow the rules. And then
you call, and my first I wasn't even know. I
was like, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Can't call?

Speaker 5 (09:53):
Me.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yes, it doesn't start tonight yet, So it was an
interesting experience, probably one of the most amazing things about
it they have. But it's a lotus for a sense
of purposes it is. It's a lotus. Is people go
into the lotus to meditate, and it is gorgeous. It
was under construction unfortunately, so the exterior wasn't as beautiful

(10:14):
as you see in the pictures, but the interior was
still absolutely gorgeous. It was only open twice while I
was there. The first time I walked in there, I
was just in awe. Right, you feel the energy as
you're walking into this lotus, and there's this, for lack
of a better word, it's not an altar, but it's
it's something in the center that looks like an altar
with a tube of light pointing up towards the ceiling.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Does the tube go the whole way up?

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, it goes all the way up, And as you meditate,
the energies go into this altar and goes up the
tube and into the ether. At least that's that's the
thought that and it was amazing. Well, the second time
I went to meditate in the lotus was the day
that I was leaving, the lotus was filled, probably forty
to fifty people. We filled that lotus incredibly. We all

(11:00):
all started meditating, and as we got into it, five
minutes into it, maybe not even remember, there's a construction
outside the lotus, all of a sudden, this wind picks
up all the construction stuff outside and starts battering the
outdoors the outside really strong, like it waited until we
started menacing to do this, but this incredible feeling of

(11:24):
I understand, no matter how much the elements are trying
to tear us down on the outside, if we maintain
our silence in our meditation, our internal calm, it can't
touch us. It was so symbolic that it literally brought
me to tears. It was amazing, amazing the energy that
was developing that was inside of that room. It felt

(11:46):
like we were all of our energies were intermingling and
flowing together and rushing into that altar and rushing up
into the ceiling and then circling back around, and it
was like we were all just energy beings together. It
was unbelievable, truly incredible. Everything silent. No one was saying
it was, no one was guiding us. It was a

(12:06):
silent meditation, but we all were focused on the same thing,
and that was peace and love into the universe. And
it was all so palpable. I just can't even explain it. Incredible.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I can't wait to go and try it out for myself.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yes, yes, we've got to go back, because I think
that you would get a lot, especially since I know
what happens when you meditate, Miss Angel, you would get
a lot out of it. I can only imagine what
you would feel. So yes, we're on our way out.
I know it's a very long but short conversation about
what happened at the Ashroom. I hope that if you
have any of the questions about the Ashroom or what
I experienced there, please reach out let us know. I'm

(12:45):
happy to correspond with anybody that wants to know about
this amazing, amazing experience. Hey, guys, wanted to let you
know about another show that you should be listening to.
If you're like our show, we're sure you'll like this
one too.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
Welcome to the Reluctant Medium, where we cover the gamut
of out there conversations with an open mind and a
curious heart. We want to talk about it all from
psychic phenomena to beings from other star systems, from energy
medicine to out of body experiences, and much more. You'll
find a great balance between grounded science, back topics and
others that science hasn't quite.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Caught up to yet.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
From the explainable to the miraculous. We want to know
about it. I'm your host, doctor Maria Rothenberger, a psychotherapist
by trade and a reluctant spirit baby communicator. And hey,
even though I'm a medium, I'm not buying everything folks
are selling. I just have a voracious appetite to know
more about what I call the world of the weird,
and maybe I'll try a few things.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
On for size.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
Join us on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube.
At the Reluctant Medium, We'll see you there.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Welcome to the skeptic and physicians. I'm will and the
time has come to dive into the main topic of
the episode. Doctor Tony Riley is Australia's foremost internationally recognized
past life and reincarnation specialist who trained with renowned psychiatrist
doctor Brian Weiss in New York, and she explored mediumship

(14:22):
development at the prestigious Arthur Finley College in the UK.
She's got a diploma metaphysics and a doctorate of divinity
and she comes to us to discuss the purpose of
life and why we are actually here. Doctor Tony Riley,
thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Thank you for having me Karen and Will. I'm excited
to talk about this.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh boy, do we have a lot to talk about.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
A little nervous now? Will you got me thinking?

Speaker 1 (14:47):
I'm like, oh boy, well, that's my job. My job
is to get you thinking. So it's perfect, that's true.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Not just about laundry.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
No, I'd rather not think about laundry.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Actually, so you make me think about it. Oh well,
how I wish you would do. That's a that's another.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Oh well, doctor Tony Riley, thanks for coming on the show.
To you, so let's just put it all out there.
We'll go back to you in a little bit. But
put I know I would be banging at the door
asking the question why are we here? What's our purpose?

Speaker 3 (15:17):
The dumbed down version of the purpose. Our purpose in
my twenty odd years of researching and working in these realms,
is that we are here to experience emotion. Emotion and
the other senses that a physical body allows. When we
leave our body, which of course we'll all do it death,

(15:41):
we go back to a space where there is no
body and it's just energy. Therefore there are no emotions
and there are no physical feelings. There's no physical touch,
there's no hearing, there's no sight, there's no sound, there's
none of these magical things that we get to experience
in a body. We don't have a mind either, so

(16:01):
there's no thought. Even so when we're here, we have
all of those faculties at our disposal because of our body,
so we automate yourself.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Though, I need to stop you because if you're only
listening to the show, you're not watching the video on
you too, you are missing Karen's total look of agastness.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
There's no love, or well, actually the feeling when you're there,
at least when you visit there as a person, which
we can facilitate, it does feel like it's all encompassing loves.
It feels like that whole thing we've been sold that
there's nirvana and heaven, that that beautiful unconditional feeling or sensation.

(16:46):
It does feel like that nothing.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Okay, so you just said a couple of things there
that I've got to point out. First, we talk to
a lot of people who say the same thing that
you have said, that we are love. That's what we are,
and when we move on to the next life, we
experience who we truly are, which is actually complete embodiment
of love. But you said something very important that I've

(17:09):
got to come back to really quickly, because you said
that you can facilitate others visiting the afterlife. Yes, I
need to know how how can you view that well.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
In a way that's legal and that prominent and does
it take a lot of drugs.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
That's so funny because back in the day when everything
for me started as past life regression, but in that space,
people rarely are just communicating with their soul. So what
transpired over time was people would go beyond the past
life will actually a big, massive, important part of their
past life therapy is when they die, is that's when

(17:48):
we're truly talking to soul and we're going into that
pure energy. So there's also a lot of work done
on that in between live stage, but home or where
everything is completely unconditional, that's what I call home, and
we still can facilitate that you take a visit there.
I call it a check in, so some people are

(18:11):
allowed to check in. People have it sporadically. Actually, if
you ever hear people talking about their near death experiences,
that's when it's happening to them sporadically or out of
their control. It didn't come along for a facilitated session.
It's just happened. But these we can facilitate all of
these things, and it's always always the most beautiful experience,

(18:35):
and it's personalized. So I think whatever we're doing here,
it's always for now to make now better. So whatever
each individual is doing here or needs to know or
needs help with, needs some clarity around, needs some healing around,
then they will get what they're given in that space
because it was planned before we came. So there's solmost

(18:59):
exactly what to tell hell them, do for them, adjust
their energies, what if it's needed for them.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
That whole plan. Right, We've spoken to people that have
used quantum mechanics to talk about the moment of you
doing something now also happened at the same time three
thousand years ago. It's amazingly interesting. Now you started with
doctor Brian Wisse, who super famous for writing the epitome
of books on past life reincarnation, many lies, many masters,

(19:28):
and you mentioned past life regression, but you also mentioned
in between life regression, which is what happens when we're
I mean, would you say it was in heaven that
you go to heaven you have them visit there, or
the place we go when we die.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
As far as defining the difference, I would say that
the between phase is the plan to reincarnate. So it's
a bit of both. It's a bit of the all
encompassing home and that space where we're planning to come
here or it's so different to planning, but in human

(20:06):
con human terms, we need to hear it in that
way and perceive it in that way. So that's the
way I describe that in between phases planning to incarnate.
And this is where you no doubt you've heard people
talking about what goes on there and old people have
a review of the life they've led, or they meet
with counsel they're doing, they meet their sole family. So

(20:28):
that's because it's that that place where our lives are
being planned, or we can look at them from they're
in that space, but actually beyond where we're talking about,
where it's absolutely all love for what of a bit
of a word, and we're all purely enlightened that I
feel like is beyond. I just call it home.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
And like that home.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's what it is. And in fact, we've talked to
people who said that the exact same thing. When can
I come own again? Right? So we've heard the past
life review and all that kind of stuff happens immediately
after death. Now it sounds like you're seeing something different.
Sounds like you're seeing that happens after you've gone through
the time and you're ready to come back in. So
it bears a question, do we die just to immediately

(21:14):
reincarnate right away or is there time in between? Or
do we get to choose.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
I think it's a it's a little bit difficult to
give a cut and dry answer because there's no time.
The moment that we leave this body, it's timeless. There
is no linear time. So working in these our past
life space and the reincarnation space, there are people who
are back in our terms of linear time almost immediately,

(21:42):
and then there maybe there's been a certain amount of
time in our linear timeframe that it takes them to
come back. So there's no defined time frame. But certainly
that review and the light that goes on, I totally
feel like that's even for our humanness to try and
understand why we're here. I think that's why we get

(22:04):
access to it and people can get some comfort while
they're here that they're Yes, we tell with these other
souls and got a soul family, other people who love us.
We've got this guide energy. We need to know that
here to help us not feel alone, I think in life.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
So, how do you know this to be true?

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Well, no, you actually can't. So my answer is when
you have the experience yourself, there's no question that it's real.
And I don't know any better way than to say
that the experience trumps science or logic or philosophy, It
trumps everything. So it really, I suppose, is something that's

(22:43):
difficult to actually prove to someone who hasn't had an experience.
So that's the answer. I don't know if there's an
actual way to prove it outright.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
You just can't. Once you've experienced it, you just can't
deny that it's a result. It's true, see it. I
don't understand that.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, And like you say many times, Karen, even if
it's not real, but it feels really good. What's the difference?

Speaker 3 (23:10):
That's a little a lot of in the in the
science world and all the you know, the researchers that
went on to prove reincarnation, they often come back and
talk about that past life regression isn't isn't actually provable
because we could imagine it, we could make it up.
But if you do it, if you do past life

(23:31):
regression and it's facilitated, you know that you did not
imagine it. It's not like imagination. These scenes, the thoughts,
the knowing, they drop in over your humanness. They drop
in over your imagination. They're coming in if a facilitators
saying to you, go to a certain point or a time,

(23:52):
something's flicking immediately in your awareness. That your human awareness
of course, for what happened in that past life. So
when they talk like that, it makes me think, you've
never had a past life. Yeah, you've researched fantastic, brilliant,
but you've never had one. And it's something that I
found a lot with a lot of people that work

(24:13):
in this realm. So that's why I say, experienced Trump's science.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Can everyone have a past live progression? Does it work
for everyone? For lack of a better.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, yes, that's the short answer. And if there's any resistance,
it will be personally. In my practice, it's almost happens
every single time for no matter how skeptical the person is.
Even but maybe with facilitators who are new at it,

(24:44):
then maybe for them, the trick is only that you
need to get that person to give up control. So
they just need to relax. They need to give up
control and relax because I think the moment you're trying
to control what's happening, which is like, oh I want
to see a past life. Too much thought in there
and shumanness, I suppose, but you are still very aware

(25:07):
as a person when you are doing past life regression.
But just giving up control is all. That little bit
of control is the only thing that would I'm gonna say,
hinder it because it will never stop it. It's achievable
no matter what, because we're from there. We're from there,
we've been there, so it's accessible.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
That's probably our biggest worry, I guess, is we go
into a past life regression and something it's like, oh crap,
nothing's coming now. See Yeah, No, you're right, you're right,
you're right, But but I guess you have to really
go into a deep, deep hypnosis in order to relinquish
the thinking part. That's hard to do sometimes.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Well, a lot of people do past life progressions. I
guess they can do them. You can do them virtually,
but is it better to be imperson or doesn't make
a difference.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
From a therapeutic perspective or from the from terms of
someone being able to relax enough. It works as well
online on zoom or the phone as it does in person,
So yeah, you can access it from anywhere, but I
think I guess in person's got a bit of a

(26:15):
different vibe to it, just because you're sitting there together.
But yeah, as far as the efficiency of it, it
works just as well virtually.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
I assume you just have to make sure you're some
place where you're not going to be disturbed or because
that would be my mind, my kid can walk through
the door in a second, they start barking, right.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
You know what's interesting, even if your kid walked in
or the dog started barking. First thing is when you're
in there, then you still might hear the dog barking,
but not usually. But it's it's kind of at a
distance from what's going on in here. But if your
kid walked in and interrupted, you would it would be
really quite simple as once they go, you'd be like,

(26:54):
close your eyes again. I would be or the facilitate
close your eyes again and you go back in again.
So it's real. It's it's not rocket science, it's it's
really it's just amazing, really, right, what's easy?

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Right?

Speaker 1 (27:12):
I want to get this is fascinating, But I want
to give back to the topic that we started talking about,
which is the purpose of life, the meaning of life?
And you mentioned that emotions, that experiencing emotions is the
reason why I work here. But you also in our
pre interview information that we exchange, you mentioned that grief
was one of the most important ones to experience. Why

(27:35):
would that be.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
I sink in the cycle of life? What Obviously we
have birth and death, which is our start and end
to each incarnation. But the middle at the point where
a person experiences grief and I and grief is something
that could set off from various things for each individual.

(28:01):
But I suppose it's most often associated with the loss
of someone to death, but there are so many more
things marriage, break ups, relationship, breaks up. For some people
it's the loss of a pet. But one way or another,
at some stage in each person's life, they will experience grief,
which is this uncontrollable sadness, anger, depression, the whole gamut

(28:26):
of what the grieving process entails. And you do not
get to control it. You don't get to control it.
You can't help ay you feel. And I guess that's
the epitome of grief, is that you cannot make it
go away, and it lasts for as long as it lasts.
But when we come through the other side of grief,
and we do, we're different. It's not that we'll ever

(28:48):
have forgotten our person, but we are a vastly different
individual after that. In that mostly if I also would
dull it down, we're more compassionate. We get at that
stage that people do not get to control the feelings
of grief, So depression and things like that. Do you
know before that people are like, oh, if they've never

(29:10):
felt depressed or really sad, they're like, just get over it.
But when you feel it, you have no control. You
know then that people are not making this stuff up.
So it makes you a much more empathetic individual. So
that's what changes. It changes us for the better, I suppose,
makes us just more tolerant of others, more compassionate, more empathetic.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Sure, right, I.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Would assume the same thing could be said about trauma. Right,
going through some sort of trauma, I would actually serve
the same purpose. Is trauma and grief the scene or
are they two different?

Speaker 3 (29:45):
I think I think that it would be fair to
say that grief is the process of processing trauma or
working through trauma. So yes, they're entirely you know, knited together.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, gotcha? All right, Well, we have to take a
but we have just barely scratched the surface of this conversation.
When we come back, I know we've touched on a
couple of the unpopular truths behind the meaning of life.
But when we come back, we're going to dive into
the remaining unpopular truths about the purpose and meaning of life.

(30:18):
Stay with us, you don't want to miss this. Welcome
back to the Skeptic Mate Physicians. We're talking to doctor
Tony Riley, who is a past life progression therapist as
well as many many other things, and she's explaining to

(30:40):
us the meaning of life. At long last, we get
to understand why we are here. Finally, before we left,
we talked a lot about past life progression. That we
talked about life in betweens and being able to facilitate
visits there and boy are we going to talk after
this for sure. But we also touched on a couple
of the unpopular truth about the purpose of life, and

(31:03):
she mentioned Doctor Tony Riley mentioned that we are here
to experience emotions, including and especially on one would say, grief. Now, Doc,
what else is there that people don't want to hear
about the meaning of life?

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Okay, well, it's a big claim, isn't it. Oh, I
know the meaning of life, it sure is. Yeah, But
I see a few of the things that I heard
in particularly when I first started in this, there was
a whole well there has been this whole New Age movement,
which in some ways had its own take on these concepts.

(31:44):
But one of them is that we have a life path,
which numerology depicts, astrology depicts, and it's true we do.
But what people like to do is excuse or make
an excuse when life goes to shit, and it does.
Nobody wants to feel an emotional turmoil, but we get

(32:05):
there for whatever reason that stages of our lives. And
then what people do is they've come into victim mode
and they're like, I went off path, must have done
something wrong. But it's like the more you feel like
you're off path, the more you're exactly where you're meant
to be. But nobody wants to believe that the shitty
parts of life are part of the path, but they are.

(32:27):
They're intrinsic to our path in life or our mission,
and I call it the mission in life. So that's
one of the unpopular truths, is that you're never off path. Ever,
that's one thing, and.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
That's a nick claim that you're never off path. And
I guess, I guess it could be equal to people
saying everything happens for a reason. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, that's another sealtar noise.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Pi.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yes, how does that concept walk with people having free will?

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Like, if there's already this pan of this path, you
think you have free will? And that's what it sounds
like to me. Is that true?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Yes? So free will's another thing I talk about. It's
another one of the unpopular truths. People they can't stand
it when I say free will is a human concept,
so we only have it here, it bears it has
no bearing on what we plan to do when we're here,
because it was all it's all, it's all planned to

(33:26):
the nth degree before we come here. So when we
think we had free will and we chose this and
it was a great decision, or we chose that it
was a terrible decision, we beat ourselves up about it,
it's it's not actually free will except for yeah, of
course we made a choice while we're here. So yes,
it feels like we've got free will here, but it's
not going to change what the actual plan was. And

(33:48):
really we were only ever going to choose or the
outcome was only ever going to be what it was
or what it ends up being. And so really I
say that to people to make them feel better. Some
people they feel worse because they feel like we have control.
But it's like, actually, if you ease up and realize that,

(34:11):
stop beating yourself up and having regret, it's pointless. But
it's part of this emotional feeling that we're supposed to have.
That Really, if you start to think about, well, what
if I had chosen this, things could have been better,
but you go, well, I never was going to choose
anything different to what I was, what happened, what I
did choose, stop being mean to yourself. You can start

(34:32):
to make peace with the choices that you made and
start to look at them a little deeper for why
you made them and what transpired because of them. Is
always good when you look for it as to why
you didn't end up with that person or but you
did end up with this one. Is there's a deeper

(34:53):
purpose and meaning behind all of it, and it's easy
to look for it.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
I want to dive a little deeper into that because
I want to tried it understand it better. Is it
like a science fiction time travel movie where people are
trying to change the past, but no matter what decision
they make, they end up in the same place. Or
is it that every decision was exactly what you were
going to do no matter what.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yes, And I guess on that note, it also includes
when you do question it, it's all it's all part
of what was meant to happen, So what was meant
to go in your questioning? So yeah, it's really just
all part of the mission and the plan.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
So now do you find that people can kind of
use it as an excuse, you know, forel like working
extra hard. I'm not going to journey through the gate,
but hey, this is the planet.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
See Karen, I was supposed to do the laundry.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
I don't like the plan, but then Karen's meant to
feel that frustration so that you didn't do.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
No, let's watch another talk.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
But it's so simple when we talk keep about the washing?
Do people think it's such a big thing? But the
purpose of life is the frustration that might be feel
felt by I'll say the kids, I'll go away from you, guys.
The kids didn't point the washing out, and now you've
got to run late getting them to score because they
didn't say they needed that jacket. Today. You know, all

(36:20):
of those things, they they're emotional feelings that set off
in us that and everyone's going to feel something from
it that's playing out. So it's just so much simpler
than people realize the purpose of life, those emotional things
that are going on in our existence, probably almost every

(36:40):
moment that we're here.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Then what's the deal with m paths? Are they're just
like fast tracking and feeling?

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Are the emotion? They have a role here, We all
have a role here. But as an mpath, which you
would be well, I certainly am. I think that there's
a role that we are playing, or there's a role
that we have to achieve or that we are achieving,
not have to that we're achieving here. And I think
the role of empaths personally for them, it's going to

(37:07):
be what's mine and what's theirs? Because even with empaths,
they can be escaping their own turmoil I'm going to
say and be like, well, I'm picking up on everyone
around me, or they can be feeling like it's their
turmoil when it is others around them that they're picking
up on. So there's a personal thing for them to experience,

(37:31):
which is discerning what's mine and what's theirs. And there's
also with an empathetic person, there'll be a beautiful aspect
to them because they make the most natural counselors. And
when I say counselors, of course they might be professional counselors,
but most likely within their family unit, with their friends,
people that they know, their colleagues, they're most likely this

(37:53):
person that people goes to that can speak to someone
or someone's going to listen to them. So the EmPATH
has many roles and experiences and something to give while
they're here.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
That sounds familiar with you, just a little bit, just
a airright, all right? Well, are there more untruths that
are uncomfortable or have we covered them off?

Speaker 3 (38:18):
They're pretty much you're never off path. No one else
is ever off path. So a little side note if
you're off path when people feel like their relationship. I
don't deny that people have hard times. I truly am
not doing that, but often it's easier to blame that
other person and or feel like they did you wrong,

(38:42):
and maybe they did. But people also default to their
off path, but they're not. So it's like no one
else is off path. You're not off path, it's just
poor and experienced. The free will thing is one of
the big truths that people dislike, that it's really just
a human part. And also the one other thing karma.

(39:03):
People perceive karma, that there is also human concept. Can
I just say that that's the baseline is also human
thing part of what we're here. But people like to
believe that the shitty stuff's happening to them now because
they're bad in a past life they've brought up with them,
but really it's actually just part of what's going on

(39:24):
in your life now part of the experience that you
came to do. So those are those are the main
unpopular truths that I discovered.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
How does that feel, Karen? Yeah, she's gonna yes, yes,
listen to the past episode you'll know.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Exactly what it's had some debates about karma, what.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Karen believes about karma. So all right, well moving on.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Well, just before we move on, I have a question.
So you're supposed to learn and feel emotional, what about
the bad guys and people just come and they commit
these horrible crimes, they don't really seem to regret them,
and then they die. What are they learning or experiencing how.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
To be shooting? Yeah? I think I also think this
concept that we're coming to learn is a little bit
humanized as well. I feel like it's better to say
that we're here for an experience because those people who come,
I know that we're going to the absolute worst of people.
So I mean, if we think about a serial killer,

(40:31):
for example, so we'll go as far as we can
go with the depths of bad. But when they come
here and commit their crimes, what happens is the people
that they affect is who it's for it's for their experience.
So imagine the family of the victims of this person.

(40:56):
Imagine the turmoil that they go through, the grief, the guilt,
whatever turmoil that they go through is what is actually happening.
It's rippling out to affect so many people. Of course,
it's dangerous. It's going to affect the people who investigate it.
It affects so many people with those terrible travesties that

(41:16):
go on. The actual person has doing them. To be honest,
I don't know that there is something for them to
learn per se. It's more like they've come as this
person who's going to be so hated, so hated by
everyone they've affected, but they've come to make that reper

(41:40):
effect to create this emotional experience for everyone who feels
it from what they did.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
That's a hard pitill the swallow. Why why do we
have to agree? Why do we have to go through
these traumas in this life? Can we just come down
and hang out for a while and come back out.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Well, I guess that's what the ones that come without
the feelings, which are very very rare, someone like a
serial killer, for example, that's good, but part of it's
part of the experience too. I think you don't know.
I think you don't know what it feels like to
be truly calm and at peace until you've felt what

(42:24):
it's like to not feel like that or so it's
really just to experience the whole gamut of emotions.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
That are possible because we can't experience it in the afterlife.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
We don't experience it in the afterlife. No, it's sorry
from you two.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
In order to experience these emotions that we can't experience
other ways.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Yeah, and look, this is unique to Earth. I'm not
so much into the Dolores Cannon out this stuff, but
I can absolutely tell you that fearful who come for
pastlife regression, they definitely they go elsewhere as well. So
it hasn't been the focus of my word, but they

(43:01):
do go elsewhere. And where they go elsewhere is not
like oh as in, it's a much different experience, and
it's not harsh. Earth is the harsh place. This is.
This is you know what in religion we were told
about heaven and hell. This is it here. It's hard.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
I have heard that we're living on the hell planet.
I have heard that before in prior interviews, so Okay,
So I've got to ask you a questions that I
need to ask much more or many more people that
we interview. But do you ascribe to the theory that
we are all one?

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Yes? And when we say we going home? When you
experience that space, that's when there's everything but nothing. So
it's where people get this concept that we're all one.
You can feel it.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
So then if that's the case, and I buy that,
I believe that that's my belief system. But then your
past life aggressionist, right, this is the perfect person to
ask this. When you regress someone, could they be tapping
into someone else's lives? I mean, since we're all one,
don't we all just experience all the lives?

Speaker 3 (44:11):
Maybe? Can I say this? Maybe? And I hear people
in other focuses within these realms talking about it's all
happening at once. In my work, it was a little
bit more structured in that we're doing past lives. So
if you're remembering your past life, it's very human. You
were there as a human in a past life, and

(44:32):
there's a time frame and there's a generation that you're in.
So from my perspective, when people are recalling their past lives,
it's not all happening at once. It's in a timeline,
like we're here now in twenty twenty three, and they're
going back to another time in humanity history.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
So yeah, it's easy to wrap that around that if
you put it on the timeline. And I don't think
that's timeline. I think got beyond though, no time, which
is not easy to wrap your head around. Well, you
have written a best selling book called A Week The
Purpose of Life and Why you are here. This is
one of the reasons why we have you on the

(45:14):
show today. I'd love for you to tell us a
little bit about the book, what prompted you to write it,
what brought you to this entire category of modalities, because
it's a very specialized field.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Oh gosh, I'm going to try and keep this short.
I'm going to try and keep this short because I
can ramble on about it. But briefly, I was a
very very mainstream person until this all came into my
awareness in my mid thirties. So before that, mainstream person
married three kids, working with computers, so programming and administration

(45:50):
type stuff. But at that point, when I had an
emotional turmoil I left my marriage. Was the cataly and
I'm like, I realized that there's intuition, and I became
obsessed with finding out about if I have this, why
am I? You know, in my thirties and I never knew.
So that's what started. And as part of developing that intuition,

(46:14):
the serendipity or synchronicity as it would come to pass,
is the lady who taught me to enhance my intuition.
She told me to read Many Lives Mini Masters, doctor
Brian Weiss's book, and it absolutely changed me in that
I never heard of past lives before, if I'm honest,
and I'm like, I've read the book and I thought, oh,
and this is what I'm here to do. So it's

(46:36):
like everything has changed almost overnight for me, and it
took off. I cannot tell you the people that I've
met who came across my path, the people who came
for past life regression. It was crazy. And it's like
this has to have been planned because there was no
marketing or anything back then. It was just all happening.

(46:57):
So as part of becoming aware of past lives and
starting to work with people in that process and of
trying to build my intuition, I was meditating and I
realized that I was messed up. So it was a
bit of a culmination of self awareness was coming to

(47:18):
me at pace, and I thought, I never knew I
was messed up. And then it was like, you're so
messed up. All this stuff was talking meditating, it was like,
what's going on here? And I mean, I found it
just entirely liberating, but it was hard. And because of

(47:39):
that human aspect of awareness and self awareness and who
am I culminating with? There was this whole other space
that we could access for our past lives or even beyond.
That's why this work came together for me as using
that space and that access to our soul to make
now better and realizing also that none of us get

(48:01):
out of the human experience. We are coming here. This
is all my research, but we're born with We're coming
here to do certain insecurities. We will not get out
of it, every single one of us, no matter who
you are here, you're coming to do a certain insecurity,
emotional bruises I call them, and we're coming to experience

(48:21):
certain things. So back to the book, That's what I
tried to cover in my book. So I tried to
show how our lives are planned and why they are
so to have a certain emotional experience. So that's why
I wrote about myself and or my life, which is

(48:41):
pretty It's pretty pleasant, can I say, compared to some.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
People's child words group.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
So, and I'm sure some people read it and roll
their eyes and you like, she didn't really copy that hard.
But I can tell you when we feel grief over
trauma or do loss of our catever, it is, that
feeling is the same and it is all encompassing and
it's not nice. So but to showcase that, I had

(49:10):
to be really honest about some things I'd done in
my life as well. One of the things I talk
about is love at first sight because it actually happened
to me, and it's one of the.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
Things that that people if they're in a relationship already
and the morals say you're not to be seeing anyone else, Well.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
When that love at first sight comes in, no matter
what you've been taught, it's coming and you cannot resist it.
It's so extraordinary if you guys have felt it, beautiful,
But I don't think it's like grief. People can't comprehend
it unless it's happened to them. The power in it,
it's really special. Actually, it's like God. I hope everyone

(49:52):
gets to have that. And it doesn't mean it lasts
forever even but it certainly comes in and it's extraordinary.
But I wanted to talk about how those things happen,
and they defy they define morals, actually because they're part
of the plan. They define morals. They defy how we
thought things would end up for us as a person.

(50:14):
And that's what I did in that Oh wait, the
purpose of life and why you were here? I try
to showcase all of these things. You've open up a
whole other can of worm that we can't go down.
So you actually created the Soul Life Coaching program, and
this is the program that helps people.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Why don't you tell us what that.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
There's a soul life Coaching program that's the culination of
these twenty years of research and observations in my own,
of course experiences. This program that I developed, I call
it a new psychology because that's what it is. But
what we did is we absolutely take notice of that
we're a soul here. And so it's definitely it's beyond clinical.

(51:01):
It's well beyond clinical. We are always going for a
more energetic approach, and because we know that the life
is planned, whether people believe it or not. When you
do this training, and it's also not rocket science. We
can tell where a person's at. You can tell it
by their data birth for goodness sake, it's really quite simple.
And people are not necessarily at the stage in their

(51:25):
path or or their mission to know everything. So part
of being the solo coach is knowing what to do
with your person at the stage that they're at, and
not forcing is do you know, like I digress slightly
to say to someone that was meant to be or
this will turn out better than you think. That is

(51:46):
not comforting in turno Oil, it's not comforting at all.
It's something that we have to arrive at ourselves. Part
of why it all happens, that we arrive at that
philosophical outlook of what's happened to us ourselves. But this
soul life coach, it really is the most extraordinary support

(52:07):
if for people who want to help people, for people
who are intuitive, they'll feel drawn to it rather than
we have to sell it to them, but they can
come along and learn it to be a really unique
and effective therapist for now. You know, therapy sometimes it's
really just that someone needs to feel that they trust

(52:29):
this person enough they can talk to them. It's really
it's a beautiful modality.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
It's beautiful thing to learn.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
It's a lovely thing for people to do. And of
course our main the therapy is going to a past
life or beyond wherever they need to go.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
And you do these nde leg experiences that I'm just
so in transpired. So we're going to talk after this
for sure. If you are interested in the Soul Like
Coaching program or in the book that she wrote a
week The Purpose of Life and Why You are here,
We're going to add direct links to those on our
show notes. So all you need to do is go
to Skeptic medposition dot com, go to the episode page

(53:08):
and you will find the links there directly. We're also
going to add links to your website as well as
your social media, so if you want to reach out
to doctor Riley, this is the perfect opportunity for you
to do so. Tony, thank you so so much for
coming on and sharing of your wisdom and your expertise
with us. We've got a lot that we've got to
think about after.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
This one, well whole lot.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
It's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Thanks so much for having me well.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Thanks for coming along on this journey discovery with us.
We'd love to continue our conversation with you on our
website at Skeptic Metaphysician dot com or on Facebook and
Instagram under a Skeptic Metaphysician podcast. If you know someone
who would benefit from hearing the messages we're sharing on
the show, do them and us a favor and share
the show with them. It will help get the word

(53:51):
out about us and it may just change someone's life
for the better. And if you're listening to this on
the radio and you missed something, well not the word.
All of our shows, including this one, can be found
at Skeptic Metaphysician dot com, where you can also watch
the videos or even send us an email or voicemail
directly from the site. We absolutely love feedback and would

(54:13):
appreciate hearing from you. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this
episode as much as we have. That's all for now.
We'll see you on the next episode of Dyskeptic Metaphysicians.
Until then, take care,