The Concept of Pre-Birth Planning and ‘This Is Us’

I talk a lot about conscious writing, and when I say conscious writing, I’m specifically talking about writing that raises the collective consciousness. But what does that mean to raise the collective consciousness? Well, when I was younger, I asked one of the most simple, yet profound, questions there is: Why are we here? What’s the purpose of it all? In response, I was told that we are here to be happy. “That’s it?” I wondered.

Since then, I have come to the belief that, yes, we are here to be happy, but we are also here to grow as souls. I believe in reincarnation – that the majority of us have had many lifetimes before, even though there are those among us who are experiencing their first lifetime. We are here to learn how to love more – ourselves and others – how to be more compassionate, forgiving, creative, etc. And I recently read three very interesting books by Robert Schwartz that assert that we each plan our lifetimes before we come – especially the challenges. Those books are called: Your Soul’s Plan, Your Soul’s Love, and Your Soul’s Gift. In those books he covers just about every human situation that we often think of as random, and usually we think that they are unfortunate, but we have carefully planned for these things to happen before we incarnated, and we planned them with the other people in our lives as well. These situations covered addiction, infidelity, caregiving, adoption, being born deaf or blind (or becoming so soon after birth), and dying young, just to name a few.

[Writer's Edge: Multiple Themes]

For all of the This Is Us fans out there, you’ll notice that the show covered all of the aforementioned themes, but I’m going to focus on just three of them in this article, and explain how it helped the characters on the show to grow as souls, and which is why I believe that This Is Us is one of the premiere shows that raises the collective consciousness. 

In this article, I’m going to talk about how the pre-birth decisions of dying young, adoption, and caregiving affected the characters on This Is Us, and how people in real life can grow from the same scenarios happening in their own lives if they consider that their issue may have been something that they planned and actually wanted in order to grow as a soul. 

There are spoilers in this article so if you are planning to watch the series, you might want to put this article aside until you have the chance to do so.

The Pre-Birth Plan to Die Young

In his book series, one of the events that Robert Schwartz says is usually planned before birth is dying young. When that happens, the soul who is going to die young (this does not include suicide) has already discussed this with the other souls in their lives – such as with a spouse, children, or parents. In the case where there is a soul that is dying young, this could be chosen for growth of that particular soul, but it could also very well be fostering more growth for the loved ones in their lives. For example, Jack Pearson on This Is Us dies young after the wiring on a faulty crockpot catches their house on fire. Those of the family who are at home – Jack, Rebecca, Randall, and Kate – all seem to escape the fire unscathed; Jack even goes back in to rescue the family dog, but then he dies at the hospital from smoke inhalation. The family is devastated. 

[BREAKING & ENTERING: Theme – The Ingredient That Makes Story Delicious]

What could they have possibly learned from this incident? Well, the number one reason any of us is here is so that we can discover who we are, and who we are are divine spirit beings having a human experience; we are powerful creators. Rebecca has to learn how to be on her own; she has to learn how to be a single mother. The kids – Kevin, Randall, and Kate – have to learn how to find the strength within themselves to go on, to grow into adults, and learn how to make decisions without their father, Jack.

The Pre-Birth Plan to Adopt

Another pre-birth decision that Robert Schwartz talks about in his books is adoption. Adoption is a huge theme in This Is Us. The character, Randall, a Black male, is adopted by the Pearsons, a White family in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. Robert Schwartz says that when a person is adopted, it is an agreement that has already been made with the birth mother, the adoptee, and the adopted mother. Randall’s adoption provides most of the conflict that Randall goes through, but it also is much, if not most, of the reason for the conflict that his adopted brother, Kevin, goes through as well. 

One of the lessons that adoption teaches, in general, is that familial love is not limited to those who are related by blood, but by the bonds of family, and just having unconditional love for others in general. There were many times as I was watching This Is Us that I thought that Randall and Kevin probably have a complicated relationship in many of their lifetimes, and it is quite likely that they were blood siblings in a lifetime or two. 

[30 Days of Tips for Character Development: Theme, Setup and Payoff]

Quite simply, Randall and Kevin have to learn how to love each other. And Randall’s journey involves something that many adopted kids go through, which is feeling some kind of disconnect from the adopted family and learning how to feel worthy despite not being raised by their birth parents, and on top of this, Randall has to come to terms with his identity of being a Black man raised by White parents and having White siblings. It is also interesting how Randall, the adopted child, has the strongest bond with their mother, Rebecca. Again, this is the lesson for the souls that love is unconditional and isn’t solely dependent on a blood or genetic connection.

The Pre-Birth Plan to Become a Caregiver or Be Taken Care Of

Lastly, one of the biggest arcs in later seasons of This Is Us is Rebecca’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Robert Schwartz discusses that when it is planned for a soul to become a caregiver of another soul, it can be a growth experience for the soul being cared for as well as the soul doing the caretaking. The soul being taken care of needs to understand that they are still worthy even if they cannot take care of themselves or contribute to society, and they have to love themselves and not feel like a burden to their family. 

And the caregivers – in this case Kate, Kevin, and Randall – have to take care of the soul in love and not feel like the person they’re taking care of is a burden. On This Is Us, Randall has carried the family emotionally since Jack died, but in a beautiful example of growth over six seasons, Kate and Kevin are able to take a primary role in Rebecca’s care until she passes away.

What It Means for Viewers

I have no idea if the creators and writers of This Is Us have ever even heard of Robert Schwartz, but it is interesting to think about the growth of these characters in relation to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, we all plan our challenges that we’re going to experience before we incarnate – more of it is planned than we could ever imagine. But we can look at these characters and how they dealt with so many challenging situations and use them to find meaning and beauty in our own lives – because this is us, who we are as human beings.