Book Review of Your Soul’s Plan, by Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz has written one of the most important and inspirational books about life I’ve ever read:  “Your Soul’s Plan.” Robert has taken on the tremendously bold task of answering the “why” of some of the biggest questions a person can ask during the most challenging times in life. “Why did this terrible thing happen to me?” “Why did the love of my life die just when our life together was beginning?” “Why was my child born with disabilities?” “Why did I end up an addict?” And, “why did I get cancer?” These questions and more are brought up and answered. For most of us, the answers we usually hear vary from, “we’ll never know,” to, “you just have to have faith,” and “only God knows.” Well, now you can know. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Typical answers of “only God knows” were not enough for me, and after searching and searching, I began to discover the truth in my own life. During the process of healing my own issues, I had a personal experience that showed me without doubt that we, as souls, actually sit down with others in our soul group and make plans for our upcoming incarnation. We create plans in order to further our soul’s growth and evolution. Having this knowledge has created a new lens through which I view life and the world around me. Robert’s discovery of this same thing, created a trajectory for his life, and is what his work today is all about.

From “Your Soul’s Plan”: “In a personal session with a medium in 2003, Robert was astonished to speak with non-physical beings who knew everything about him – not just what he had done in this life, but also what he had thought and felt. They told him that he had planned many of his most difficult experiences before he was born. Realizing that knowledge of pre-birth planning would bring great healing to people and allow them to understand the deeper purpose of their life challenges, he devoted the next three years to studying the pre-birth plans of dozens of individuals. The extraordinary insights that emerged speak to our heartfelt, universal yearning to know… why.”

In “Your Soul’s Plan,” Robert beautifully organized information he collected, using examples from ten people’s lives to explain just why they created situations that, from the outside, seem painful and are nothing that a person would actually choose to create or go through. He describes pre-birth planning meetings, using the skills of a handful of experienced and trusted mediums, who witnessed meetings between souls who would incarnate together as parent and child, or as lovers, siblings, and even as victim and the person who did them grave harm. During the meetings, all parties discussed what they wanted to experience, what they hoped to gain from it, and as with characters in a grand play, what roles each person would play, knowing they would forget these meetings ever happened.

Robert discusses a particular challenge in each chapter, beginning with why a person would choose to take on an illness such as AIDS or cancer. Through the talents of mediums, Robert discovered that one of his interviewees chose, as a soul, to take on a life with AIDS. This man chose to be born to specific parents, during a particular time, here in the US, with other parameters set up so he would have a very high likelihood of contracting AIDS, experience shame and feel a separation from his true divine self. The challenge was to find his way back through forgiveness and acceptance, to knowing his real divine self, not succumbing to his ego driven personality. In finding ways to move out of shame and judgment, and learn to love and accept himself, this man moved towards his soul’s essence, thus creating growth. And the growth that was experienced as emotional healing, literally affected him energetically as well.  When he created growth in himself, it simultaneously created growth for every soul in his group. When we heal and grow, it ripples out to those in our lives and beyond.

Describing why we create plans for our lives, “Your Soul’s Plan” demonstrates examples of setting up learning-through-opposites, and choosing to create opportunities to balance karma. Robert reveals the step by step of how people have moved from a place of feeling like a victim of life, into realizing the gifts of their challenges. Even though we plan major challenges to come into our lives, because we have free will, not every challenge we experience is planned, however, they are all created by us. We, as humans, have free will to choose what we will and will not do, and what we will and will not think and believe. It is this choice that makes us special and unique beings.

Robert also describes how a planned challenge unfolds in our life, with memories implanted into us so we recognize people who we contracted to marry. Love or attraction at first sight is not by accident! Spirit guides and angels whisper in our ears and divert us from harm when it’s not our time. If we did not plan to suffer grave injury and a situation occurs that could potentially kill or maim us, we will be protected during the incident. However, if we choose to become severely injured, our guides and angels will help us, perhaps distracting us just long enough for an accident to occur, thus setting in motion an opportunity to grow and expand as a soul.

Robert masterfully ties up each chapter by distilling each person’s story down to its essence, outlining why a plan was created, what was hoped to be experienced and learned, describing what actually happened, how it happened, and plucking the pearls of wisdom that were created and realized as each person stepped beyond their pain, into their healing and the growth their souls sought. Because we are given unlimited opportunities to grow, we have lifetimes to work on our soul lessons. So, if at first we don’t succeed, we can try, try again. With the wisdom of “Your Soul’s Plan,” it’s possible to shift your mindset and glean you own life’s lessons early on, so you don’t have to experience the same challenge over and over, with ever-increasing severity. (What’s one of our biggest motivators for change? Pain.)

As I’ve experienced personally, our true essence as unconditional, completely non-judgmental, love. In “Your Soul’s Plan,” Robert brilliantly and beautifully demonstrates that without contrast to the love that we are, we cannot know, fully and profoundly, who we really are. And so we script lives in which we forget out true identities, hopeful that challenges will awaken us to ourselves, certain that from the remembering will come a greater self-knowing.

To find Robert and what he’s doing now, check out the events section on his website. Robert has a second book, Your Soul’s Gift, that I’ll be reviewing as well, that takes his theme of pre-birth soul planning and looks at more life challenges. Robert is so passionate that this information get out as far and wide as possible, that he makes copies of his books available to be donated to libraries, and his books are available to purchase as stand alone e-chapters if you can’t afford to buy an entire book or if you want to dive right into one issue (chapter) that is affecting your life. As well as being a talented author, Robert offers Spiritual Guidance to individuals through either hypnosis or through conversation. Robert uses his life as service to others’ personal and spiritual growth in a most beautiful way.

*Robert gave me his books free of charge to review, and I’ve subsequently purchased copies as gifts for friends. As I was reading this book, I tweeted out some of the pearls and tagged them all: search for #YourSoulsPlan on Twitter.