hello everyone and welcome to this episode of remembering john perakos we're very lucky and fortunate today to have with us dr karen wilner now karen's been in the field for many years 40 plus years as a clinical psychologist and then working very closely with john in the early years to formulate not only the work globally but participating in that in various administrative and senior roles one of the critical ones for me was for being the global head of curriculum which made sure that this work could be structured and taken out of course karen's taught in
many of the institutes globally as well as outside of our our own little field so karen welcome thanks for joining us today well hey it's great to be doing this i'm really honored to be invited yes for sure look um there's so many of us that are so keen to get your um your views as well as your peers who spent so much time with john in those early days and it helps us to remember the man coming into his 100th year of being had he been here with us wow so that's our intention so
tell me karen how did you come across john how did you come into this work all those years ago what was happening i mean i feel very lucky about it i was studying at the university of pennsylvania non-verbal communications and a friend of mine who had studied bioenergetics with lowen and parochus said you have to meet john parakis because he can look at somebody's body and tell their life history and i was fascinated by this so it turned out that john was going to be in philadelphia at a conference this was in 1983 at the
sheraton hotel so i took myself to this conference and he was in a big it was a big room filled with maybe two 300 people and he was doing something we call body readings and he was standing on a little stage and people and people when the audience were raising their hands because they all wanted to have their bodies read yeah um and he would call on somebody he never saw these people before ever in his life they came up and they undressed and had on bathing suits or something or short and he took a
look at them and he said well you know this is this is what happened with here and this is what happened here and here's your future and people were like amazed and i was like you know stunned that anyone could uh see so much in a person's body now i i've never met john i this is the first time i'd ever seen him at the end of this thing i went up to him you know how people go up to the speaker at the end and i waited to talk to him and when it was
my turn i said i would like to study with you those were my backwards i would let you know i wanted to learn from him so badly so he said you know send me your autobiography send it to my office in new york and i did that and then three weeks later his secretary called and made an appointment for me to come to new york and meet him and that was the beginning of our work together so that's that very exciting way that i met john oh wow that's awesome and obviously with all this excitement
and i can feel the energy of you going back in that time in fact i was picturing the room and him on this little stage as he was speaking about it that vibe um when it came to you dealing with him personally what really stands out for you or what's memorable for you about your personal interaction with john after that initial introduction um i don't i don't know if it was it's hard for me to say it as personal although we did have a personal woman we really he was my my teacher my mentor my
friend for a while at the beginning he was my therapist so i certainly had a personal relationship but what stands out for me is just how he was with me and with everybody else across the board this was a true person he lived he walked his talk when he talked about opening the heart and seeing the positive inner person he did that there was never a time i was with him that i didn't feel loved and um i just can't tell you what that was like i mean to feel so respected by someone even if
we had a disagreement you know i worked with him for 20 years very closely and i never didn't feel his love for me it just reached out and embraced me but i saw that with other people too so um and then his authenticity he he he was straight on with you and um he he valued me and that taught me to value myself um it was incredible um just an incredible person he deserves to be held in in high regard because he was unique well you spent a lot of time traveling the world with him
didn't you at one stage as the institutes were growing and and the demand and recognition of the work was being acknowledged um what were your experiences around that i mean it must have been amazing to be in so many different places together well it was like one long education he was invited to brazil and he asked me to be the director under him of the training in brazil so for eight 12 years we traveled back and forth to brazil also we came to australia you were in that class and that was wonderful uh and um
well i mean i mean there wasn't any place i didn't go with him to be honest like mexico france canada just uh i had amazing experiences so so we weren't always there at the same time but we were there apart like if i went at the beginning of the week he would come at the end of the week so there was always overlap and sometimes we were on the same flight um he what was it like you know was like i could ask him any question he was never too bothered he the reason i'm teaching
body reading the way i am right now is because i could sit on planes with him and i could say what does this or that mean and he would tell me so i was getting these private this i just lost your picture i don't know i'm back excuse me okay you're back i'm glad i was getting this kind of private education uh that now i feel you know it's for me to share with other people he's not around so i can bring what i got from him to other people um but otherwise i mean he
was very serious person he took his work very seriously our work seriously there were always when we traveled a lot of meetings with the directors and to make sure that everybody was on board with everything so it was always down to business um he loved music so um and and he loved good food so when we traveled there were always great dinners with fresh ingredients and uh you know he introduced me to like i didn't unders know that kind of stuff like when we were in berlin together you know it was like taking me to
restaurants i can't even imagine eating at or italy but with the freshest delicious ingredients and he loved fish and he loved sushi and it was just i mean it was very special he um what else can i tell you about him he loved music so um it just in and he was serious but he was fun and he was sweet he always had an eye for the women i think you know i was going to ask you about that he said very charming at times he missed eva like mad whenever he we traveled at night
if we were together i mean he went to his own space but he lit a candle with and she was always on the altar and um you know he would meditate uh she never lost uh her special place in his legs and a lot of people feel like once he passed on that they're together even now um but at the same time you know he he didn't like being lonely and he was lonely to some degree so if there was a particular person that was special to him then then that was very nice you know
and i think that was a good thing for him and i don't know what else i can say it just says he was a fine person no no and it's wonderful to hear that you know i mean it can be very lonely with all of the complications of creating this work and so many multi-dimensional relationships that he had that he could also allow himself that that human need and to to not isolate himself so much it's very um encouraging for me to hear that because the times we saw really walked what he the walk and
and you know we talked teach a lot in core about pleasure bringing pleasure into our lives and and he did that and and uh he really lived his life to the fullest and and it was beautiful so yeah well you know unfortunately but well fortunately unfortunately the case was by the time we experienced john from what i hear from many of you he'd calmed down a lot he was quite gentle because he was a bit of a nutcracker in his youth from what we can gather well that i don't know uh he never told me
about that i mean i'm not sure i mean his youth was in greece is that what you mean oh i meant in the i mean in the early stages of this work the way he worked with people was uh very direct and sometimes um quite piercing and i think he developed a lot of subtlety by the time he got to us no i don't i think i wouldn't describe it like that i think okay um because the same i don't think he ever when he confront you know part of our work is to confront the
basque and some of the people he worked with had some pretty strong math i don't think he softened in that way i think he always loved those people but he even in your class if he felt like somebody was in their mask he would be very direct with them so i i don't i don't think um that he was fiercer i think if you if you were untrue or if you um if you were kept yourself in the dark or if you didn't own your lower self or even your higher self i think he would
confront me but uh that to me was part of the you know what what his beauty is on authenticity so i don't know i i met him in 83 and worked with him closely from then till he died i was like an executor of the state i was very close to him um but um he he was good with his clients because he if you came to him he was going to help you and that man he was going to crack that artificial you well and that's what we're all looking for isn't it someone who
can see not only the inside but the path to get to that and be able to lead us and everyone else into that place of freedom so wow karen if i if i may ask then um in terms of your own personal shift you spoke about such a significant thing right in the beginning the ability to see and respect yourself and love yourself that he demonstrated and you were able to role model if there was something then that you took from him that you felt you've given in the work that with all the service that
you've provided to this uh to this sector over the years what would be the biggest thing that you you can attribute there well the biggest thing i got from him was in terms of my own personal work with him which i guess gets carried over into the my teaching is opening my heart i mean i uh my my my character structure probably is oral rigid to some degree so i was pretty armored and um he even when i i got to him i don't think i i had been divorced and i didn't have any children
my life was you know there was that emptiness the emptiness that the rigid can carry under you know you're very success oriented but you have this kind of dead inside and um i my work with him was amazing because i first i got a dog i adopted a child i got married again i mean you guys you all saw it you know we've been following this progress it's been amazing and and we were so lucky to meet nicole your daughter which was amazing because you bought it with us with it yeah right so it took
someone who was kind of dead on the inside and my work on myself and then it carried over to my work with clients the armor was released you know and um and all of a sudden i kind of knew what love was and and i could love other people and i could love you know my clients and my students and god and um so yeah i mean there's for me it couldn't have been a more powerful process wow that's beautiful thank you and yeah that's what i was hoping that you would talk about because we
see that in you i mean recently you've i'm sure you and i loved your message back about what the global institute the directors um fed back to you because it it was so touching what they wrote and and i loved how you responded to it oh my god such beautiful message as well we love you thank you thanks so yeah so and i have that to thank you know both john and corner jetix i mean the beautiful thing about is it didn't have to be john it's the process he created a process that can allow
people to take this armor off and um enrich in their lives and and that's yeah so fantastic for sure in in all of that time because you worked so closely with john um how did you feel um he was able to communicate these messages to his peers and others in the mental health emotional health field um you mean outside of core energetic outside outside of core energetics you know i mean how was the journey of this message to get across the the broader community's health community i think um i'm not sure he did that maybe
that's more what the next steps for us to do that we know we've attended these directors meetings i think for him he did it within the united states and the european body psychotherapy community so he had um colleagues you know somebody mentioned to me recently um you know all the people that studied with reich including himself so um but you know john was still no matter how you look at him he was still greek at heart you know he had this really masculine thing so it was like um my way you know the competitor that
the greek warrior you know so even if you know you're the other guy was um i don't know what what's the guy named stan o'kelleman let's say kellerman has studied with reich and came up with this thing and john had this thing and no one has this thing it wasn't like they were agreeing you know there were there was this fierceness my way my way my you know so there was a lot of competitiveness there as well i think so so i think it's our generation or maybe your generation that's going to do more of
that you know cross-pollination but you know even it's not really happening like right now the directors are working within themselves to form a cohesive unit maybe the next step would be to outreach to other body psychotherapies or talk therapies but i don't know that we're the leader on that i mean it may even be hakomi or some of the other but or somatic experiencing some of those others are maybe making more of an outreach into the world than we are so i uh that's something that you know it's a good question but john didn't really
do that that much he didn't really even go to the american psychiatric association meeting maybe once or twice since i've known him it wasn't it wasn't where his head was and maybe because he knew he wouldn't be totally accepted yeah and that's what he'd uh said to us one time when he was down here how he was so excited to present to them once early on and he's up there and and they were drinking coffee talking walking in walking out going to the pharmaceuticals he was he felt i mean he was very disappointed even all
those years later as he was telling us you know and there was a big sadness in his passion not even being heard let alone received yeah i mean i think that that's interesting that you're sharing that i mean i think that that that happens now um we're more and more accepted uh yesterday i had a phone call with a woman who's i think i don't know if she's a psychiatrist or a medical doctor in integrative medicine she's known in the psychotherapy world the her her name's martha stark and um she was she had gone to
my website and she was fascinated that i do uh body psychotherapy and she started naming people she knew who who do it and that's why i thought of el peso because she named him um and it's interesting because body psychotherapy isn't her world but she in fact i was just talking to her because she was interested in left brain right brain and i am too but you know so it's beginning to get there's more of a connection now uh but not as much as we would like well you know hopefully i'm going to be able
to catch up with some of john's peers from those old days that are around that had some interaction with him from those other streams of work because i'd love to get there fantastic wow yeah that's my intention and certainly walid knows some of those in europe so he's he's assisting me to try and get hold of some of the guys there and hopefully we'll have them also participate in this way great very good yeah terrific so if there was one thing you could leave us with karen uh anything to do with john or the work
or the legacy even um is there something that stands out for you well i guess um the thing that stands out for me is energy i think that we all have to be very um to our energy so that energy is neutral but how we think can affect it so you can take neutral energy and make it negative or positive so to me just to be very aware of the energy around you and how you want to create that experience wonderful dr karen wilner thank you so much for your time your insights and sharing these
wonderful memories of john and the work from such a long period of time um hopefully we'll be back with you again a bit further down the track to elaborate a little bit more on some of these areas and some others as well fantastic and thank you for doing this it's it's a beautiful thing you're doing and um it's it's wonderful that we'll have this history to to grow from and look back upon thank you yeah it's been a wonderful pleasure and experience for me and continues to be so yes by all means we will all
participate moving forward great thanks so much karen bye-bye bye
