Past Lives in Core Energetics
by Pam Chubbuck, Ph.D.

What you believe about past lives and reincarnation does not matter. Neither is what I believe about reincarnation the point. I don't have to believe to see and experience positive results of working with this possibility in myself and with my clients.

We don't talk about Past Life issues in Core Energetics much perhaps because we are already considered on the fringe in the psychotherapy world. Alexander Lowen wanted to stay within the medical model in part because William Reich was persecuted for his teachings and died - some say of a broken heart – in prison for his forward thinking. Lowen and others were frightened by this example of the government's narrow fearful thinking and need to control. They did not want to make waves.

They are not ready, John Pierrakos once told me when I asked the reason he did not talk about energy and the spiritual nature of mankind at psychiatric meetings. They became ready in John's later years and perhaps finally it is a time we can dialogue more about this topic and not be afraid. Let's come out of the proverbial closet. I'd love to hear from you about your experiences.

Case One below inspired me to write about Past Lives in Core Energetics work.

The human body is the laboratory of life. Our body tells us what we need to know to bring about our healing. Every contraction, pain, discomfort is a No! It is a no to the joyful flow of energy that would course through us were it not for experiences in our early history that create fear and cause us to defend against that pain in later life.

Every pain or discomfort is a road sign that says: This Way to Healing! This Way Home! Home is our inner authentic self. Home is our connection to Love and to our divine nature. Home is our Core.

When we feel good, joyful, content, it is because our life force flows uninterrupted and fills us with its sweet powerful energy. We feel expansive and have enough energy for creative pursuits.

It is the human body that we study and work with most in Core Energetic sessions. So much can be understood by studying the body – we can see where and why someone is stuck and even how to get unstuck to allow the beauty of the Life Force to flow again. Getting to the flow is the purpose of the work done in Core Energetics.

But what if we can't seem to help a client (or ourselves) get unstuck in a certain area of life. And what if we can't comprehend why a certain issue has taken hold so strongly in the bodymind and whatever we have tried thus far has not fully healed or at times even adequately helped our client?

Perhaps there is a hidden piece we have missed. Maybe our clue is in more ancient a history. But how ancient are we talking about? Certainly we will look to childhood wounds that create our defense system as Reich pointed out and Lowen and Pierrakos then others elaborated upon. We will look to infancy and sometimes those of us truly inspired will look to birth trauma and even perinatal experiences for the healing balm.

Do Believe You Lived Before?
And If So, Does That Make You Crazy?

There are dozens of books written about past-life therapy. Roger Woolger, Bryan Jameison and Brian Weiss are among the better known therapists practicing and writing about past-life therapy.

Many world religions believe in reincarnation. Our beloved Dalai Lama is believed to be the incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. And so on down the line to the beginning of Buddhism.

According to a 2003 Harris Poll, 27% of Americans believed in reincarnation. 20% did not know.

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones”. ~ Bhagavad-Gita 2.22

The Pathwork teaches us that there is seemingly never-ending possibility of re- birthing to higher consciousness. Pathwork guide lecture #34 explains Preparation for Reincarnation and is interesting reading.

In Christianity, higher teachings of Jesus tell us there is reincarnation of the spirit into a new body and hints that resurrection is a spiritual awakening within a person already alive.

About 25 years ago I had a strange experience in which I felt my physical molecules were floating out into space around my body. I was in a class with my friends and fellow students at the first class of Barbara Brennan's then brand new school. Barbara walked by and asked how I was, I replied that my molecules felt as if they were floating beyond my body. She looked and said - they are.

Two weeks later a psychic took one look at me and told me I was reincarnating within my same body, like Christ, he said. If true, no wonder I had felt very strange for weeks! And now part of the life I lived prior to that experience I often think of and experience as another life time.

John Pierrakos did not purposely or directly work with past lives. In fact I have heard him demand that people - stay in this lifetime! John thought that everything was revealed and could be worked within this life experience. The Pathwork guide suggests that we bring all the information we need for our healing to the present life. Barbara Brennan agrees. All can be healed through the vehicle of the current body/life.

I worked with John for over 30 years and for ten of those he was my personal therapist. On a few occasions during deep work, I spontaneously went into what seemed to me another lifetime. John concurred. Once he told me that he thought that my father of this lifetime had been my husband in another life. Something that made feeling sense to me.

I have adopted John's way of working and philosophy of dealing with the now virtually all the time. The Bodymind Reveals All.

I studied with Barbara Brennan in the early to mid 80s and learned that she found positive results in discovering her own past life information, and taught students to “roll back in time” to look for clues to assist healing. I learned to do that.

In the late 60s and early 70s I had an excellent teacher, Rev.Dr Jim Cox, a theologian who was an expert in autogenics and I therefore learned to use hypnosis to assist clients find vital information they had successfully hidden from themselves.

Below are two cases I experienced thus far in 2010 where I used regression to discover hidden information, which eventuated into a past life, as a therapeutic tool. Names and some details have been changed. I do have permission to write about this subject from both the clients I will discuss herein. Both clients came to me for a Personal Intensive and both were very experienced with therapy and quite knowledgeable about their own history. Both were stuck with an issue that needed more energy, understanding, and insight in order to move beyond their problems.

Case One
Samantha is a 40ish year old professional woman who is in training so she may change from her corporate career to do more intimate work one on one with people. Recently she had ended a 15 year relationship with a woman that was on all counts a marriage. They owned property together, had a legal agreement and so forth. Currently Samantha said she had a new relationship with a woman who she cared about and she told me that their communication and sex life was good.

Samantha did work that most of us need to do. Various childhood trauma including a mother who did not give her enough affection was explored. Over a 2 day period the usual neurotic outcroppings were sought, worked, and polished until edges were smooth enough that she was able to let her energy move and flow more freely. Lower Self monsters, and saboteurs were made to shrink and transform by connecting with her higher self and Core and thus allowing her Light to shine.

I thought we were moving along pretty well in our 4 day Intensive, until Samantha broke down the afternoon of the third day and told me she had a sexual secret that she was ashamed to talk about but really needed to. It's embarrassing she said.

I encouraged her to please tell me her secret. Then we could begin to work with the issues. I enjoy sex - I have pleasure with my partner - but something is missing she said . Samantha hesitated then went on. She was obviously having a painfully hard time expressing her difficulty. I waited. I can't allow penetration she finally blurted out. I have never been able to tolerate being penetrated. I hate the thought.

She went on to explain that all other forms of lovemaking were pleasurable, that she regularly had an orgasm during sex with her partner, and that her partner liked penetration and wanted to penetrate her to give her pleasure. Samantha said she wanted to experience and enjoy all the possibilities of sex and felt badly about this obstacle to her pleasure. There was nothing in Samantha’s history that would explain this phobia. We re-explored what she could remember and postulated about what she might not remember or know. All in all nothing added up to trauma that would explain a phobia of that magnitude to being penetrated.

I then decided to try inducing a light trance state hopefully to assist in the exploration of what Samantha might be hiding from herself. Samantha had studied in a spiritual tradition that taught reincarnation, so I took that into account. I explained to Samantha, that I wanted to use the trance state and included that we were looking for something out of her conscious memory. Something that she may have repressed or forgotten. It could be something from her childhood. Or another life, I said casually, not wanting to program any response. I told her I did not fully understand what past life meant. It could be genetic memory, the mind's creative metaphor or whatever you think it means, I counseled.

We began exploring her early childhood and then infancy, before conscious memory. She did remember some forgotten things but they were not significant to our quest for a way to explain and heal fear of penetration.

I then suggested she roll back in time to an earlier memory than infancy that may assist us. Samantha immediately found herself in a different body at a different time. With encouragement she began describing herself as a young teenaged girl in a simple shabby garment . She went on to talk of her surroundings and it looked like a city in early medieval times. She walked down a alleyway and suddenly a gang of teenaged male ruffians ran down the alley, accosted her and raped her. Importantly they raped her with some sort of stick, putting it into her vagina while laughing at her terrible shame and pain.

Some time later the same gang found her alone in a barn and again raped her, this time putting, what seemed to her, a broom handle, in her vagina.

We continued the process of releasing that memory using a deconditioning process so it hopefully would have less impact on her present life. Samantha felt good, more relaxed as she came out of her light trance state.

After the Intensive was over and Samantha had been back at home and well ensconced in her present life she emailed me to let me know that her sexual life was fabulous. Never better. Penetration was something enjoyable for the first time she could remember. She was ecstatic.

Case Two
Rebecca is a 54 year old woman who came for her second Intensive with me two years after the first one. A therapist in her own right, Rebecca made her living assisting people through art. After her first Intensive her life had gotten better, but she was still struggling with her most difficult issue. She loved men who did not/could not love her back, and did not love the ones who loved her. Moreover she used sex to attract men, but never really enjoyed reciprocal sexual play.

She had a history of having men service her with oral sex, then she would dismiss them. She later learned that was about getting held and adored from her oral defense system, combining with her anger and disgust of men. She rarely experienced much mutuality in her romantic relationships. Sex usually happened quickly in her relationships and ended superficially and in physical and psychic pain.

Rebecca longed to be in a true partnership where love and sex were an integral part of her life. When she did find herself in a relationship with a man who appreciated and had a lot in common with her, she had intense physical pain upon intercourse. Penetration in love making became so intolerable she would have to stop. This left her frustrated and in despair.

Rebecca had had years of various kinds of therapy, including Core Energetics, and still this pattern prevailed. There were experiences that were of this lifetime that explained part of her pattern and the previous Intensive with me uncovered some childhood abuse by her father which she worked on with seeming good results. When I saw her the second time, she no longer hated her father and no longer blamed him for her difficulties in her present life. Still her current distress in her relationships prevailed.

In the course of her second Intensive I suggested we try to discover what was yet unknown. To do so I suggested a light trance state, and thereby, we'd search for very early memories that could assist in her healing. Rebecca had studied The Pathwork and was familiar with past life possibilities. I explained briefly that I did not expect any particular outcome. I was simply hoping for assistance in unraveling her mystery. Rebecca readily agreed.

Looking at her present early life, as a young child and infant, proved to uncover nothing she and I were not already aware of and had worked with. I however, took the opportunity to reinforce deconditioning from those traumas. I then suggested she go to a time before this birth and see what might emerge.

Slowly she began to describe herself. She had long straight dark hair, a young nubile body, her clothing was light, colorful and somewhat diaphanous. She looked around and saw other women in these clothes. They looked oriental she said. And the architecture of the room was of the eastern hemisphere. There were two men in the room who seemed to be guards, but not fearsome.

In her mind's eye she then saw a handsome strong man in beautiful silk clothing and light flowing robes enter the room. She immediately felt strong heartfelt love toward him that included a strong sexual attraction. She described him as a sultan of some sort, and herself as one of many of his palace sex slaves. She dearly loved him and yearned for him. When they had occasional sex (he had many other women to choose from) he was aloof emotionally and she would become despairing. She was forced to have sex without getting the love from her partner that she yearned for. Rebecca said she knew that when she got older and less attractive he would replace her with a younger woman. The pain she felt was huge, and she focused on not being with the man she thought she loved. She became embittered, cut off her feelings, and swore she would never allow this to happen to her again.

And so it was. During this lifetime experience she had lost her faith that love and sex could happen together in one relationship. Rebecca had re-created her worst fear and played it out again and again - each time suffering profoundly.

When Rebecca arrived at home after her Intensive the first thing she did was to clearly deal with a long distance relationship with a man whom she loved and was sexual with once or twice a year. He lived on another continent and was not committed to her long term. They cleared the relationship and she broke it off with him. When Rebecca told me about ending that relationship, I felt that closing opened a new channel for a real relationship to come into her life.

A few months passed and Rebecca wrote me that she had met a man who was available and wonderful. She really liked him and he was not perfect. There was real potential for this new relationship and she was happy and grounded both. The relationship was real not the usual fantasy she often concocted. Another month passed and she wrote that they are slowly getting to know each other, being honest and enjoying their time together. They had not yet had sex.

I am hopeful that Rebecca has finally broken her need to re-create her past life trauma. Whatever happens with her new relationship she has learned a tremendous amount and will never have to go back to the misery of picking unavailable men and causing herself physical and psychic pain.

I would love to hear what happened with you. Please write and let me hear your experiences with other life experiences that have changed you or your clients life patterns. I will report on those in my next newsletter.

Reincarnation in World Religions http://www.comparativereligion.com/reincarnation.html#religions
Pathwork Guide Lecture #34: Preparation for Reincarnation http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P034.PDF

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