Ch 10-A - THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF PROCESSING OUT THE WORDS OF DEATH

CHAPTER 10-A:

THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF PROCESSING OUT THE WORDS OF DEATH,
& OTHER COMMON EXPERIENCES OF CHILDHOOD

This death issue may seem to you, the reader, or to a regular psychologist, as far-fetched or simplistic. Some people might consider it only a metaphor. Even those who intellectually believe it can be true might believe the pattern that connects our usual 'psychological issues' to a real death threat is fairly involved.

Correctly or incorrectly, they may feel that a lot of work on the issue might need to happen first. After all, our conscious minds think death issues can be very heavy. Even with Reichian and Bioenergetic release therapies, someone might want to process out different kinds of interpersonal relationship and achievement scenarios first. Rejection, abandonment, control and manipulation are the common ones.

With the Netherton work combined with the Structural Integration Bodywork, most of this effort is unnecessary for many people, even those who have been abused or raped. The Bodywork immediately releases months and even years of tension and trauma in just a few hours that can all be performed in a few sessions. This removes a lot of adult, teen and late childhood restriction. And the emotional contents of those years also get released at the same time. Most of that emotional energy just falls away. What's left can be easily processed with the Netherton techniques, including any traumatic events. There is no need to go over and over the same material. Whatever comes out is gone.

This unique Bodywork also has a personal growth effect. As it realigns the person and clears out the tension, it simultaneously makes them more relaxed and stable, and more capable of handling difficult issues whether they come from outside or inside.

It's also unnecessary to rehash all the issues of a person's life before getting to 'the big one' about death. The unconscious mind doesn't work that way. The reason the fears are still with us is because that ultimate scare of annihilation is still stuck inside. This scare isn't conscious. It's just part of the statements that come out during the release, no matter what the issue.

Contrary to what some people might expect, the words about death regularly come out in the very first session, along with all the rest of the stuff, without much travail. Maybe it's because of the way I work with people, but I've never had any client freak out from releasing death statements that are part of old experiences, or even recent experiences, still stuck to them. No matter what the issue, releasing the threats and physical contractions makes people feel much better even though the Netherton processing itself may be uncomfortable just because unpleasant feelings are coming to consciousness. But as soon as the words embedded in these feelings are spoken, the unpleasant sensations are gone, and for good. The Bodywork, the way I do it, is usually very enjoyable, and is rarely painful like some people's deep massage.

When adults work on long-term child abuse, or indeed with dependency or another neuroses, it is, indeed, a multi-faceted process. And it may take a while for many people to become stable enough to do this kind of verbal release work. This is why I strongly favor breath concentration meditation in the lower abdomen. It strengthens people's cores and they identify much less with their emotional 'stuff.' It takes nothing more than a willingness to let someone touch them to do the Bodywork.

However, in spite of the cautions that may be needed, releasing the upsetting words inside themselves makes everyone I've ever worked with feel better.

Even when processing abusive experiences, people always feel better after releasing the words than if they hold them in or push them down, and pull away with their adult minds. I've even had this happen with a young adult who took an hour and a half to release a week's worth of fear, anger and physical pain from a shooting. He was psychologically much, much better.

Even 'establishment' psychotherapists are now using processes to help rape victims release the trauma of their experiences. And they, too, have found that when the woman releases her fears about getting killed during the rape, she feels much, much better and can function normally again. If those therapists also made use of the Bodywork, they wouldn't have to have the women go over and over their memories of the trauma. If they recognized what I've been saying in this book, they wouldn't be making the mistake of having the woman in their office identify with the memories from an experience that happened months or years ago. It is not denial to label those old energies as something separate from the person's current identity. It is the truth, and by looking at those unpleasant experiences as something to observe as we feel them, they come out without running us and scaring us.

To give frightened people confidence in the Netherton process, they can work on the scariest episodes in layers, starting with an observational overview of the entire experience before they start identifying with and feeling the unpleasant events. They'll get to see the whole thing first and know they came through it to this day. This is similar to how these rape therapists are working but, again, in this system the view about the material is different so the client can look at even the most upsetting parts of the experience with objectivity. This ability is greatly facilitated by the Bodywork. Besides all it's other accomplishments, the release of the connective tissue and muscles removes the blocks to remembering. And that does not turn out to be terrifying, especially when a knowledgeable Netherton therapist is available to call on the phone.

By getting a good overview, there won't be any unknown endings for the adult as there often were for the child. Abused people never know when it will happen again nor how long it will last. When a person starts processing out their old incompleted experiences, they also don't know what's going to come up. For some kids, death might have been a real possibility. It only takes an hour or two to get a complete overview of even a very involved experience, and maybe four to six hours to process it all out. A lot of experiences get fully cleared in only one two hour session.

In early childhood dramas, and especially in infancy, I have found the issue of death to pop out in many scenarios, even when the issue wasn't one of general abuse. A most common situation is of an angry and frustrated parent whose rage embodies wanting to kill the kid, and those words became imbedded in the child through a spanking, a slap to the face, or a lot of shaking. Usually, these words were never spoken, but the unprocessed energies from the non-verbal statements of the parent, are now deep down inside our adult and contain what that part of the parent felt like. Other parts of the parent usually feel and think other things, with one part usually feeling guilty at having done this. But during the threatening parts of the event, the child is also psychologically traumatized and is always tensing its muscles in protection. Sometimes the infant is screaming louder and louder while actual verbal threats of further punishment are said by the parent. It was the physical tensing and strong touch by the parent that locked in the energies.

Another common statement is, "I wish you had never been born." This is also a kind of death threat and is always tied to a rejection issue. It sometimes creates a problem of doing good things for yourself. As with other statements that are forced into us, we take this one as our own, too. "I wish I'd never been born," is something people say when they experience either themselves or some circumstance as a failure. This is also what they might have said as children and throughout their lives.

Besides the fact that their minds can turn the 'you' into the 'I,' they have a built in scenario from more of Mother's original words. "I wish I'd never been born" can be something a mother says when she's overwhelmed with an infant and family to take care of, and especially if she feels guilty and overwhelmed about what just happened with her and her baby.

The energy imprint the child gets is a combination of both Mother's scolding and the emotional experience Mother is having inside herself. I've found this 'identity' to be true in absolutely every single episode. I believe both sides should be 'de-charged;' the hopeless energy and the angry energy of Mother, and the fear and possible depressed energy of the child. All the words will come out in the same session, with my clients switching back and forth between the different characters, depending on whose energy is currently strongest in consciousness.

A similar pattern is created in people who feel they are 'stupid,' but are actually smart. Their self-esteem does not match their talents. They were told they were stupid, more than once, and the energies got imbedded. It is a sandwich. The inner layer is the person's good self-esteem and talent. This is covered by the physical tension that embodies the fear and confusion of the episodes. And the confusion often results from slaps to the head. This layer also physically holds in the good self-esteem and talent. The outer layer is mother's voice saying, "you're stupid," and that is all the person has been thinking of himself because the deeper information has been locked in physically. This is a major reason the Bodywork helps so much with Netherton processing; it releases this material so we can clear it. This kind of sandwiching is typical for every kind of problem.

So the fear of death always seems to be the underlying issue. It is the one thing that our minds take to be a real threat to our survival. To repeat what I said above, it even seems to pop out in the first session for many people. With the addition of the Structural Integration Bodywork, and even without it, I have not had any adults have problems with uttering this statement. In fact, a complete processing seems to remove a heavy burden. It is the lack of processing this deeper death material, if it is in the episode, that leaves people dissatisfied.



CHAPTER 11:

THE CONNECTIONS FROM PAST LIVES TO THIS ONE,
How this therapy works by linking up to and aligning the lifetimes


Death as an issue is discussed in the next section. But, for the purpose of understanding the Netherton Method, here is a 'technical,' karmic reason why this death information is part of the scenario. This will explain a lot more about the nature of this therapy.

All the many episodes of the patterns are linked in a chain. This is a key factor in knowing how to clear issues from people's unconscious minds. There is a system to this processing.

The first factor: By processing many, many people, Netherton found out that the way people die in one lifetime is "connected" to programming, or violent trauma, or deep sadness earlier in that same lifetime. So when he works with a client, he makes sure the person erases the time he or she died in a lifetime as well as the fights, or battles, or hopeless events that occurred earlier in that same lifetime. Sometimes, our minds are connected to experiences that did end in our deaths, so both are taken care of in that situation.

The second factor: Netherton also found out that the events, and trauma, as well as the words of the death are related to events, words and attitudes in the next birth, and even in non-life threatening circumstances in that next life. So a continuum from one life to another actually seems to exist, at least in the therapy.

Let me explain this. When people die, they go through a stage of unconsciousness where their soul, or mind, leaves the body. Their spirits even hang around the location for a while. This has been confirmed by reports from many people who have 'died' on the operating table or in car crashes, and then come back. During that unconscious period, we are in an alpha state. So what is said around us goes right into our unconscious minds and is brought, via spirit, to the next life. As I also mention in a later section, people can see others talking about them in their minds eye as they process out these kinds of scenarios. Before this view is clear to the conscious mind of the person doing the processing, he or she thinks they are feeling it about that life, or that they, in that other life, were feeling it. When more material is cleaned off, they see that it is, indeed, other people saying it in that old life. These words have to be erased to correct the person's problem.

In the prenatal, we have no conscious mind the way we think of it at ages five or six. While some of my metaphysical friends tell me there is awareness and volition there, they are talking about what the overall 'soul' is doing. On the physical, people level, a sensing and acting being of sorts does exist and we can communicate to it with feelings. We can even use thought forms to send messages, just as we can to animals and insects. But in the way we think of having a conscious mind with intellect, we are short changed, because we have to learn in each lifetime how to speak and use language all over again. And that takes a few years.

Yet there are words that come out when a person processes conception, pre-natal events, birth, and things that happened in infancy. These words are mothers, or someone else’s. They will describe what the child is feeling at the time, if those feelings can be put into words. But they are someone else's words, and usually mother's. At conception, they also include father's, and at birth they include the delivery room staff. And remember, they could be thoughts or implied thoughts through feelings that come through. Everyone who eventually sees these events clearly sees these things accurately. These must be cleared at each place. In that way, the linkups from the past life into this one, all the way to infancy, are erased. These 'imprints' of other people's words, feelings and actions are called 'introjects.'

In childhood, when you have a difficult encounter with mother, some of the words that are in your subconscious will now come out as your role, and others will come out as mother's role.

To make this clearer, I will repeat it in summary. The emotions and physical sensations that were 'imprinted' upon you by other people's words and feelings at this birth are the same as the words that you or other people felt or expressed while you were dying in a previous life. And the experiences parallel the events surrounding your most traumatic event in that life, whether it led to your death or was at an earlier time. The circumstances won't be exactly the same, but the kind of traumas and programming will. And the same words will be there.

The words are the link. They embody the sub-conscious belief statements that keep you believing, and acting out, a limited view of life. All the pertinent words from your past life experiences are repeated in the pre-natal, at birth and in infancy, even if they are there as part of your mother's (or someone else's) unconscious feelings, rather than enunciated thoughts or speech. These words connect us to all the pertinent lifetimes forming the matrix of our karmic issues we have come to handle. 'This time around' we've chosen to work out a subset of all we have. In the course of the therapy, we discover which lives are the pertinent ones.

Netherton says that these 'imprintings' link us up to our unfinished karma, to traumas and behaviors we actually had when we lived as other people in past lives. I will have a lot more to say about this later in this section, and in the next sections.

Here is how they link to this fear of death. During many of those pertinent lifetimes, we actually did die, or were hurt very badly, while we were engaged in behavior that directly relates to the kinds of circumstances we have the most trouble with in this lifetime. Logically speaking, we can understand that our unconscious mind is saying, "I don't want to do that because I died doing it before."
But it's even more direct than that. Since the unconscious records everything in present tense, the replay, no matter when it occurs, will also be in present tense. Your unconscious mind doesn't know those deaths occurred centuries ago. It can only give out the information that it's all going on right now. The real message is, 'I'm doing this and I'm going to die!" The unconscious mind is just like a tape recorder.

Add to this gut wrenching feeling your mother's fears and severe abdominal pain during your birth, or her worries for you in the prenatal when something felt 'wrong,' and you can see why you have such strong upsets when those events are triggered. In addition, as I said, there always seem to be at least one severe trauma in infancy and at least one in childhood that also adds a lot of energy to the pattern. And at this time, the great fears were yours as well as others in the episodes. People who were repeatedly threatened in childhood and were never wanted in the prenatal usually have a few significant episodes. Even people who were wanted might have underlying episodes where mother felt she couldn't go on with it, or felt something life threatening was happening to the baby. Although these might seem minor or incidental, they often come out as part of a person's stack.

Here is how we know what's linked up. With a procedure I explain in a later section, the client gets in contact with words, feelings or physical sensations of their current issue. These are the connections to the earlier, formative experiences, the ones that put those words in his or her unconscious mind. The person's pattern will be connected to a number of experiences, each from a different time frame. Some Netherton therapists prefer to work birth and pre-natal first. I prefer to work childhood first, but sometimes work teenage incidents and then go into prenatal. Infancy events are a very important area to handle as I explain in the section on abuse.

And in all cases we remove the words. To get at them, we must necessarily clear the trauma because the words are intertwined with the physical and emotional experiences. So they all get erased together. And the therapist keeps a sentence by sentence 'log' of each session to make sure everything is covered. To review: The words and phrases that were said by us, or around us, at the time of past deaths, are the very same words and phrases said around us at this birth. They are also the same as the words and phrases said by us, or around us, in additional traumatic events in our past lives and in this life. And they are also the words said or thought by our mothers and those around her in the significant events from conception through birth.

The words at birth and death, and even in some other traumatic events, are usually said 'around us' by other people, not by us as the newborn nor by the person we were in another life. But since the physical processes of dying and being born put us in a deep alpha state, the words and feelings around us are absorbed. I'll explain a lot more about this in the next sections.

So the way to clear our psychological issues as adults in this present time, by using the Netherton method, is to make sure you erase the words, as well as the feelings, from the past experiences we are still stuck with. It's a very simple concept, and a very effective thing to do. This is why this therapy works so well as compared to regressions, rebirthing and other release methods. By erasing the words, which have become 'command statements' on how life should be, we pull the plugs on the old linkups. The events can still be seen in one's mind's eye, but after complete processing, there will be no more emotion involved.
In fact, this is a technique that is used to make sure a person gets the whole thing. After processing out a number of layers of emotion and physical feeling, by going through the scenario a number of times, the client is asked to scan the whole experience and share if there is any feeling, thought, idea or picture that pulls them back into that lifetime or early life event. If there is, more is processed. There are other techniques employed as well, to make sure it's all gone.

This pattern always exists in people's subconscious minds, whether they have opinions or beliefs about reincarnation or not. It is just there. And conscious dialogue about ideas does not affect it. All that is necessary for processing is a willingness to do it, no matter what we call it. Very good results can even be obtained by just working events from conception on.label the events.
The important feature of our minds that makes the therapy work, is that it doesn't matter what a person calls these time periods, nor even if the events really existed, even in childhood. If it comes out of somebody, because their mind connected their current experience with it, then it's appropriate to clear it.