COURAGEOUS SOULS: Do We Plan
our Life Challenges Before Birth? By Robert Schwartz
Published by Whispering Winds Press

“So often, when something ‘bad’ happens, it may appear to be meaningless suffering. But what if your most difficult experiences are actually rich with hidden purpose—purpose that you yourself planned before you were born? Could it be that you chose your life’s circumstances, relationships, and events?”

That’s how Rob Schwartz introduces his new book on his website. And these are questions that everyone – EVERYONE – asks themselves at one time or another.

COURAGEOUS SOULS tells the stories of ten individuals who planned before birth to experience great challenges. This multi-year project was inspired when Rob hit his own emotional “brick wall” – floundering, not understanding why challenges and setbacks kept striking one after another. A session with a psychic medium in 2003 pulled back the curtain on “Why me? Why now?” to reveal that it was Rob’s own decisions, taken before incarnating this time, that presented him with these trials, not as difficulties – but as gifts of understanding.

Stunned at what this could mean, Rob immediately set out on a path of intense study and inner exploration, while seeking out other folks who had gone through trauma and heartache that would seem inexplicable to the casual observer. Working with four mediums and channels, he discovered what they chose—and why.

The book presents actual pre-birth planning sessions in which souls discuss their hopes for their upcoming lifetimes, opening a window to the other side where we, as eternal beings, design both our trials and our potential triumphs.

I had the great good fortune – along with Deb DiBari, Glenna Dietrich, and my friend and colleague Staci Wells – to be one of the psychic mediums involved in this book. Even for those of us in the thick of it, there are revelations upon reading. Each one of us has a different style and gift that we use in the book: Glenna Dietrich channels angelic beings; Deb DiBari speaks directly to deceased loved ones as well as to her own guides; Staci Wells can visualize and listen to our pre-birth planning sessions; and in this book, I found myself channeling the Higher Selves (or Oversouls) of those with whom we spoke. Staci and I both retrieved and discussed particular past lives that directly affected the pre-birth planning sessions of Rob’s subjects.

Rob conducted dozens and dozens of these channeling sessions, and chose the ten most compelling for COURAGEOUS SOULS. You are sure to recognize yourself in at least one of them. And in the words of Dannion Brinkley, Author of Saved by the Light and The Secrets of the Light: “The more we know about the meaning of life, the better we understand the important choices we must make. Robert Schwartz has done an excellent job of presenting the possible explanations of what we are doing here and why we are here.”