Intermediate Course Curriculum

Class 1: Umbilical Affect
In this class we explore the long relationship we have with our umbilical cord. Many umbilical impacts shape the soma and psyche beginning with the syncitiotrophoblast and ending when the cord is cut (or even after the cord is cut if there are complications such as infection).

At the beginning of the class Umbilical Affect will be defined. Some embryology and fetal anatomy will be described, and psychological impacts over different fetal ages will be discussed. Impactful elements arriving through the umbilical cord are listed. Categories of Umbilical Affect are explained. The next day students will be digitally filmed as they stand before a large “First Trimester” tube representing the cord. Research regressions will be undertaken after this activation. Later, during video feedback sessions Karlton will analyze and discuss key aspects of each student’s Umbilical Affect. The students in the class will learn from the video feedback sessions of each individual. Topics that will be identified and discussed include: First Trimester impacts; MUMMs (Metaphoric Umbilical Mouth Movements); somatic consequences such as postures and movements; how the body holds Umbilical affect and shock; psychological consequences; and resultant behavior patterns. After the video feedback session the students will do one more research regression. Then resources will be taught such as shock release techniques, umbilical defending, umbilical filtering, and “buddy breathing.” The final regression is intended to be a repatterning regression. Resourcing and integration will occur on the last day.
Prerequisites: My Foundation Course or William’s Level 1 A, at least one TOAS EMBODIMENT (TE) CLASS and special permission from the teacher, or special permission from the teacher. These prerequisites apply for all of the Intermediate classes.

Class 2: Shock and Shame
Shock and Shame are nefarious bedfellows, conspiring to diminish our joy and the expression of our soul. From our conception to our birth we are at risk for psychological and somatic programming of shame. Existential wounding impacts us even at the soul level, but in truth, our shame can be a doorway to joy and conscious engagement with vitality and life. This course begins with a videotaped interview with Karlton, and a body mapping of how each student’s shame is held somatically. Research regressions to Conception will be undertaken to discover how we absorbed ancestral shame. At the level of the soul we embody shame to help shape the course of our life’s personal work. In connection with this concept understanding why we chose our parents is essential to understanding and outgrowing our Shame patterns. Each student then participates in their own video feedback session to help evaporate ancestral shame, and organize a plan for working with his or her own residual shame during the rest of the class. To track the impacts of shaming experiences regressions are undertaken to Discovery and then to Birth. The final day is for resourcing and integration.

Class 3: Shadow
There are books, courses, meditations, and all kinds of exercises for working with the Shadow, but there is nothing like meeting your shadow face to face. In this class you will learn the answers to the following questions: What is the shadow? How is your shadow created? How and why does your shadow affect the way the world reacts to you? Why are there so many positive or “white” shadows? What happens when you embrace your shadow? The first step after the teaching is to capture your shadow on digital film while Karlton is interviewing you. The next step is to discover and meet your shadow through a video feedback process. Sometimes your whole shadow shows up to introduce itself, and sometimes the video feedback session is more about freeze-framing eye-splits, MUMMs, and facial shadow “leaks.” Then we do research regressions to the wounding times that helped create your shadow. After the sources and causes of your shadow are discovered we undertake a group meditation designed to help us embrace, incorporate, and perhaps even love and accept our shadow. Conscious merging with or employment of the shadow becomes and option, and therefore you are less leaky in the world. Finally we do a regression to one of our most vulnerable birth stages, taking the shadow along as a companion. With the help of our shadow we repattern our vulnerability and bring a new consciousness to how we can deal with stress, pain, hopelessness, helplessness and shame.

Class 4: Implantation
Implantation, in some ways an even bigger miracle that birth, occurs during just a few days, but its impacts are pervasive, affecting the entire physical body including stem cells. Only about 40% to 60% of blastocysts survive this megalithic prenatal stage. Fundamental response patterns are organized affecting how we relate to money, food, and intimacy. Furthermore, existential ambivalence and shame can result from shocking experiences during Implantation. In this class the biology and progress of the human organism is described from the stage of the hungry hatched blastocyst to the implanted stage where we enter the endometrium and are finally engulfed by the closing plug. Next we take a guided group journey through the fallopian tube, the Fall, and Hatching. Afterwards triad regressions will be undertaken first to the Contact and Connection stages, then to the Merging and Union stages. The fourth regression will involve exploring the Primary Implantation Constellation, a theme that is most prominent and can sometimes be present through all of these stages. The final regression is a re-patterning process to help us shift the neurology, compulsions, and patterned behavior that resulted from our Implantation wounding. The evening program will include Karlton’s Implantation Slide show. The last day is for integration and resourcing.

Class 5: Post Implantation to Discovery
This class takes a close look at four prenatal stages that, because they occur so early when our bodies are vulnerable and impressionable, have everlasting effects on our lives. You will learn the basic biologic embryology and the psychological consequences of each of these stages, and regressions will be undertaken to each: 1) Implantation complete, merging, Closing Plug (no going back); 2) Individuation; 3) Pre-Discovery; and 4) Discovery. This class offers a blend of information and research some of which Karlton learned from William Emerson and some of Karlton’s own theory and research. Each stage has multiple psychological consequences, and doing personal work in these areas usually helps clean up some overlooked and unresolved psychological material having to do with relationships, existential anxiety, self esteem, self image, and shame. All of the vital somatic systems come into place during the course of these stages yet the structures themselves are still forming, vulnerable, and subject to impacts. Therefore working on one’s self in these stages can be very beneficial to the structural systems (bone, ligaments, and muscle) as well as the immune system. The last day is for integration and resourcing.