In this article I’m going to go into the theme of life lessons in depth, and talk about 3 common life lessons that I have seen a lot amongst my clients, as an Akashic Record reader.

This article is the first in a series. In the next article next week I’ll talk about several more common life lessons I’ve seen.

But first, a little bit of background on Akashic Record Readings and how life lessons fit into all of that…

I’ve been doing Akashic Record Readings for many years. These are readings which draw on the wisdom in the Akashic Records that is available to us.

What Are the Akashic Records?

The Akashic Records are a repository of information about our souls — every soul that is in existence has its own soul record in the Akashic Records, and this soul record contains information about the soul since its inception — where we came from, all the earthly (and non-earthly) lifetimes that we have experienced and the skills and talents we’ve developed along the way.

My work in the Akashic Records has shown me that one of the key motivations for souls coming to incarnate here on Earth is for spiritual evolution and learning. And souls who are here to learn have one primary life lesson which they are exploring in this lifetime. Our primary life lesson is like the ‘golden thread’ that runs through most of our life experiences, and we usually attract people, situations and experiences which help us to explore that lesson.

Why do souls explore life lessons?

The purpose of exploring life lessons is wholeness.

As souls, we naturally have within us some energetic qualities, but not others. For example, if you are someone who is a dynamic go-getter, who likes to do things fast, you may excel in dynamism but you also may lack patience. And exploring a life lesson of patience could mean that you have many experiences here which teach you the value of patience, so that this is an energetic quality that you begin to incorporate into your being, on the soul level. And so the experiences you have around this theme of patience, change you slightly on the level of your soul, bringing you slightly closer towards wholeness.

When we are changed by life, and become more whole as a result by the experiences we have, and the energetic qualities we integrate, it is also thought that we also accelerate the evolution of, and raise the vibration of the planet, too.

A few other things to note about our life lessons:

• It takes at least several lifetimes (and sometimes longer) to thoroughly explore one life lesson
• We do not have to consciously ‘try’ to learn or explore our life lessons – we naturally attract and subconsciously choose experiences in life anyway which help us to learn them – no trying necessary
• When we complete our primary life lesson, one of our secondary ones replaces it as the primary (we usually have on primary life lesson and several secondary ones.)
• We learn our life lessons (in this article I will abbreviate life lessons to ‘LL’s’) through both positive and challenging experiences.

There are around 88 LL’s that I have come across in the past. In this blog post I am obviously not going to go into them all — instead, I’m going to look at several of the most common LL’s I have seen recently among my clients. Let’s begin with the first common one:

Surrender

The LL of surrender reminds me of the saying: ‘God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’. (The bolded part of that saying encapsulates this life lesson rather well.) People with a LL of surrender are learning acceptance and letting go of trying to control everything all the time.

They may be called upon to live a faith-based life as opposed to a life where they endeavour to be and feel in control, every step of the way.

This life lesson is also about surrendering control in your relationships. Some souls do have a tendency to make projects of other people and can become very attached to other peoples’ outcomes (this is usually linked to a soul-level gift).

And so when a person is learning this LL in the area of their relationships, they are being called to let go of situations that they cannot control in other peoples’ lives — even those where the other person is hurting him/herself or self-sabotaging. They are learning to ‘live and let live.’

To give an example, perhaps you have someone in your life who lives in ways that negatively affect their health, and you love this person and worry about them, but you cannot change their ways for them and it frustrates you. That is a common example of how this LL might manifest in peoples’ lives — learning to navigate those conflicts that may come up around other peoples’ choices, and ‘staying in your own lane’.

If you have this life lesson of surrender, you may have a past life background of being an authority figure or a high status individual. You have had many lifetimes being the one in control and calling the shots, or you have historically been someone who is uncomfortable accepting the role of the Universe and the Divine in your life. In this life, you’re being called upon to only focus upon that which you CAN personally control, and to surrender the rest.

(If you are exploring this LL, you may also belong to a particular soul group – Sirian – which likes to make projects of other people – this is the one I belong to!)

Let’s have a look at another life lesson that comes up sometimes for people:

Moderation

A life lesson of moderation is about learning to take the middle path, and so the client with a life lesson of moderation will be learning about not going to extremes, whether that is in patterns of thinking, emotions or in behaviour. Usually the client with this LL has had areas of life where they have gone to extremes that have not served them.

I have noticed that there is often a feast/famine theme going on for these clients, where they literally eat too much or not enough. Or where they don’t have enough money, or come into money easily (which they spend too quickly on excessive behaviours). It may be that the client never gets enough sleep or sleeps too much. They may love people too much, or give too much. They may work too hard (or not enough to meet their needs.) These people tend to be ‘all or nothing’ sorts. They don’t really tend to work in a consistent or steady way. They move ahead in fits and starts, in a blaze of motivation that suddenly burns out. They throw themselves into whatever they do, even if that is not a requirement for the task at hand.

Having an addiction of some kind is one way of exploring this LL of moderation, as is coming into close contact with people who have an addiction.

This is my primary life lesson, and I have to say it has been a theme for me as I look back over my life. I have worked too hard, cared too much, and pushed too hard. When I do something, I tend to go ‘all out’ to do it — no half measures.

I was also born into a family with a background of addiction (alcoholism and drug addiction) that goes way back. When my mother did our genealogy she found my dad’s relatives from about one hundred years ago in the papers being prosecuted for being drunk and disorderly.

When I did a past life regression, I learned that I was also exploring moderation in my most recent past life — I was a truck driver living in California from the 1950s to the 1970s. I was a food and sex addict in that life, and died early as a result of my choices.

The song L’Excessive by Carla Bruni sums up the worldview of those with this life lesson well:

“C’est pas pour l’extase, c’est que l’existence,
Sans un peu d’extrême, est inacceptable”

= “Life without a bit of excess, is unacceptable”. Sounds about right to me!

Let’s have a look at another common life lesson:

Independence/Self-Determination

This life lesson is often learned by souls who have relied on others a lot in their past lives, and in this lifetime they are working on becoming more comfortable with a greater level of self-sufficiency.

People with this life lesson are often finding themselves in situations where they have to rely on themselves and no-one else — they may lose their support network or resources suddenly.

This LL came up for a client of mine who was financially dependent on her husband (and not that interested in knowing the details of their finances because she trusted him to take care of it all.) When he died suddenly in his 50s, she found out that he had re-mortgaged their house and that they had been living well beyond their means for a long time. She had to develop some new skills and re-enter the workplace in her late 40s, something she never dreamed of doing. So this can be an exploration of the struggles and benefits associated with doing for oneself, without needing to rely on anyone.

Sometimes this LL is about independence of mind and spirit — making one’s own choices and decisions, independent of anyone else’s influence. This could involve a process of shaking off any unhelpful ideas or beliefs inherited from family members or society. This lesson could also involve learning when it is appropriate to take advice from others as it applies to choices you have to make — learning to trust your own instincts and desires, and act on them. With a lesson like this, it is likely you have experienced being unduly influenced by friends or family or even having your choices made for you by a domineering people/person around you.

Stay tuned next week for the next article in this series about life lessons, where I’ll talk about more common life lessons for souls on a path of evolution & how you can find out what you are here to learn!

Edit: the second article in the series can be found here: 5 More Common Life Lessons & How They Can Play Out.