Life Centered Therapy Sessions
Three Examples of Life Centered Therapy (LCT) Journeys
The clients in the three sessions below have given permission to share the stories of their sessions.
First Example of an LCT Session
The client was a woman who had recently retired from her job. She was very pleased to be retired and was looking forward to travel. She had two reasons for wanting a Life Centered Therapy session.
a. She worried too much about her adult daughter. Her daughter had a career and was living in another city. The woman knew she was fine but still worried about her.
b. She was distracted by an invitation from her ex, her daughter’s father, to rekindle their relationship. She wasn’t clear about her response to his invitation and she was occupied by it. I suggested that she was ‘unresolved’ about his offer. She agreed to that summary.
Our session was leading us to a female, in Asia, 14th century, working or living in a monastery (presumably Buddhist), with low social status, like a cleaner.
During her session her point of view was entering a room that was warm with a fire was and well lit. There was a man in the room, a monk. The client knew that the woman in the journey loved him and was pregnant with his child. They realized someone was coming and she hid under a table. She could see the two men though the tablecloth. She watched as the two men spoke and left the room. She had a sense that she remained under the table for a long time, the room grew dark and cold. She felt cold. The journey was complete.
The client said the journey was interesting but didn’t see the point, didn’t see the relevance to what she wanted to address. I repeated that she did the session because she was worried about her daughter and unresolved about her relationship to her daughter’s father. I asked her about the experience of the woman in the journey. An unmarried, pregnant woman, a sweeper in a monastery, who loves a monk that is not acknowledging their relationship, would probably be very worried about her unborn child. She would probably be unresolved about her relationship with the monk, who she loves, but he makes her hide under a table when someone comes, until she is alone and cold, in the darkness. The woman was surprised to see the similarities between her issues and the issues of woman in the journey.
I suggested that she hold the Asian woman in her heart, assuring her that while her life was hard, the woman (client) is living a good life, with a daughter who is safe and prospering. Perhaps the Asian woman would be comforted to know that it will work out, albeit over a very long time. She agreed to send the Asian woman love, even to another space and time. She agreed to get a picture of a fourteenth century Asian woman and keep it in her home to remind her to send her love and energy, and a sense that the Asian woman has a home and family who care for her.
I checked in with the woman a few weeks later. She was very focused on preparing for her travels. She was not worrying about her daughter. Her attitude toward her daughter’s father’s invitation was that it was his issue. She didn’t remember that she had been distracted or ‘unresolved’ about it.
A year and a half later I emailed her to ask permission to post the story of her journey. She said yes and shared the following information. “Retirement is great. I wouldn’t say that those old issues are gone but they do not trouble me. There was a minor physical issue as well, wasn’t there? Can’t remember what it was, just that it seemed to disappear and did not come back.”
We cannot confirm if the Asian woman in the 14th century was a real person or is a creation of her imagination. The client was no longer distracted by the issues she carried. She reported benefitting from one LCT session.
This would have taken more time, energy, and money if we addressed this through talk therapy, and may not have been as effective. We would have spent sessions developing a trusting relationship. We would explore where the issues began, perhaps something unresolved from her family with her daughter and her ex, perhaps something unresolved from her family of origin, perhaps something else. We would experiment with different ways to let go of the issues, perhaps by completing unfinished material with her daughter +/or her ex, perhaps by using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to change her thoughts, perhaps by using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to re-pattern her nervous system around these issues. All of this would be part of a good treatment plan. It would all take however many sessions and the client would expend however much time, energy, and money.
Second Example of an LCT Session
The following LCT session indicates that by processing an unresolved trauma one can let go of behaviors that block our success and happiness. The woman (client) in the story has given her permission for me to post this on my website, to inspire other people to try different approaches.
Warning that the following story has disturbing content.
The client requested financial independence. She wasn’t making enough money and needed to make more income. She does an alternative healing art form from her house. She doesn’t have a website, Facebook account, or online presence. She has an email address, only gives her email address to a few people, and checks her email inconsistently. She had business cards and brochures which she gave to her clients to pass on to other people they knew and trusted. She knew one specialized doctor who referred clients to her. Until our session she advertised only by word of mouth, asking her clients to invite others to receive her energy healing services.We identified that the issue stemmed from a past life, a genealogical connection on her father’s side, 13 generations ago.
The physical sensations that came up were:
Right big toe - cold
Right groin - tight
Liver - tight
Stomach - burny tight
Right shoulder - tight
Right occiput - tight
The story she saw was of a little girl sacrificed in a ritual. The physical sensations corresponded to what was done to the girl, starting with cutting off her right big toe. It was scary and disturbing for the woman to watch and understandably horrifying and traumatizing for the child experiencing it. The purpose of these journeys is to see and process unresolved material. It is understandable that a child dying in a state of horror could not process her death.
When the journey was complete the physical sensations resolved. The woman thought that it was in the 16th century in the country of her family heritage. She thought the girl in the story was drawn away from her mom by a man the girl recognized. The woman thought the girl’s mother spent the rest of her life looking for her daughter and no one in the town told the mother what happened.
The woman identified that she had never wanted anything to do with Masons or any one who was a Mason (which was common where she grew up). She recalled from when she was younger, that if she found out that a guy she was dating was a Mason she would stop dating him right away.
She also identified that she had been living in invisibility. She said ‘I live in an invisible house on an invisible street’. The suggestion was that she remained hidden for her safety, potentially still experiencing trauma from being abducted and sacrificed as a little girl. Following our LCT session the woman put her brochure in the waiting room of the doctor that was referring patients to her. More people contacted her for sessions and her finances stabilized. The suggestion was that visioning the story enabled her to process the unresolved trauma of the abduction and sacrifice. She could separate herself from that story, acknowledge that she is living in the present time and is safe. She could let herself be seen, didn’t need to hide or remain invisible. She started advertising her services by putting her brochure in the doctor’s office waiting room. When we spoke about it recently she laughed that she is no longer hiding and since our session she painted her front door bright yellow.
She was, and remains, very pleased with the results of our work.
Third Example of an LCT Session
Client (T) expressed her frustration in career & income. She wants to figure out why she is blocking herself from making money and being happy in her work - career. She wants a steady job rather than inconsistent small contracts & lots of frustration.
The highest priority intention (HPI) is ‘blocking myself’.
The HPI has the structure of two patterns. They are the same pattern.
· Entities: Something has attached to me and is draining my energy
· Entities: Something has attached to me and is draining my energy
We were to access the story at its Root Cause. The story was beliefs she was carrying. We were to access the story through body sensations.
I guided her to be open to the intention and to experience the body sensations of the intention.
She said she felt general heaviness. Her whole body was weighed down. She was in a low, underground cave. Hard to breathe. A lot of pressure. She said she was underwater. It was very hard to rise to the surface. Gradually she did, and soon after rising she went over a waterfall. After dropping into the water, she was tossed about. She grabbed a boulder and climbed upon it. She stood on the boulder and resigned herself that she had nowhere to go, and got back into the water.
She opened her eyes and spoke about it. She said there were other people in boats and she thought of asking them for help but chose not to. Instead she descended into the water. She said that she had experienced a sensation—an energy—in her face, in her cheeks below her eyes, the shape of a bat. She had removed it and dissolved it. I asked if she had spoken with it. She said she had asked it what it was doing there. It didn’t answer and was ready to be removed and dissolved.
We spoke about checking-in with the energy rather than immediately destroying it. I’m accustomed to leading people as their sensations happen, but she told me about it after she dissolved it. My energetic testing indicated that we were not complete. I guided her to close her eyes, breathe, and scan her body.
She accessed the bat-shaped energy on her face, larger than before. I guided her to check-in with it (rather than peeling it off and dissolving it). She said that it was protecting her and that she felt a castle, and the energy was part of protecting the castle from outside forces. As she sat with that I guided her to speak with the energy, the castle. Questions included “Hello, who are you? Why are you here? How do you protect, limit, serve me? What do you want to learn?” She said she could see her Shadow Self, wearing a cape. I can’t repeat the dialogue between myself and T, but the information there was distrust and tension between her and her Shadow Self. They were working at cross purposes. I explained to both of them that this was not in their best interests, and I guided T to ask her Shadow Self if she would create an alliance with my client. Her Shadow Self hesitantly agreed. T said that she recognized and acknowledged that her Shadow Self was her equal. I corrected her that her Shadow Self was not her equal, rather they are one and the same, intertwined. T was hesitant to incorporate her Shadow Self. I coached T that her Shadow Self is the part that carries unknown variables including intuition, creativity, spirituality, daring, and FUN. I drew her attention to the vision of the castle, and I asked who is protecting who, and from what. T said that was a good question and agreed to embrace her Shadow Self as part of herself. She said that they were standing beside each other, arm in arm. My energetic testing indicated that the work was not complete, that they needed an intervention (to do something to further shift the energy), and that they were to find it. I invited them to identify what it was. T said that they were cutting their palms and clasping hands to unite them in blood and leaving a scar of their union. I identified that the journey was complete.
