At it's Best

Rebirthing at its best:

Increases our ability to be conscious and aware, to be more present.
Increases our ability to relax quickly, deeply and in more situations.
Increases our ability to live freely, to think clearly and to feel fully.

In the process of Rebirthing Breathwork, negative or limiting thoughts and feelings based in the past are resolved. Breathing fully and freely increases the physical and spiritual energy in our body. This energy dissolves tension, while eliminating its root causes and its current effects. With it, we discover and release core psychological and emotional issues.

Rebirthing is a holistic process that can be used to address any and all negative or limiting influences and traumatic events. It heals every spiritual disease. It clears away the negative effects of past experiences and early events. It benefits our psychological, emotional and physical well being and growth. It aids in our relationships and with our performance.

It is also a powerful method of overcoming specific issues relating to addiction and abuse, compulsions, obsessions, depression, anxiety, phobias, etc. It is a spiritual recovery program that uses nontraditional as well as traditional ideas, ancient as well as modern approaches to healing.

Healing often begins with feeling. Early life experiences are often traumatic and intense, confusing and disorienting. It is natural to avoid re-experiencing such memories. But these early events result in the loss of innocence and pure joy, and releasing them allows us to regain that joy as well as conscious contact with the Spirit of Life.

Believing that survival depends on it, we have learned to contract and withdraw from "what is" in the present moment. We learned to numb ourselves and to distract ourselves from feelings that are overwhelming or confusing. As our defenses are refined, we actually begin to avoid anything approaching intensity of any kind, including intense love and joy!

This issue of "avoidance of feeling" is a core human issue. It is a key to understanding addiction. Anything that we do to avoid feeling can be thought of as an addiction. Some of us may use substances, and some of us may use behaviors to accomplish this numbness, this avoidance, this distraction. The inability or the unwillingness to simply feel what is and to be present with what is, keeps us locked into addictive, self-defeating behaviors.

Our culture supports addiction in all its forms. This habit of not feeling, of not paying attention to what is in us, is re-enforced by society. The avoidance and self-denial is strengthened by the belief that the source of happiness is outside of us. The habits of non-feeling are supported by the pull toward worldly activities, popular events and pastimes, the media, and any number of material things. We are taught to believe that external things can "fix" our internal pain. There are countless ways to avoid feeling and being fully present. But nothing works like Breathwork to counter and eliminate this deadly tendency.

Rebirthing becomes a powerful tool for letting go, a ritual for redirecting your life energy toward feeling, healing, and all aspects of personal growth. Feeling is a direct nonverbal way to heal. It takes people beyond cognitive and rational therapies, yet works nicely in conjunction with any other mode of therapy. It produces powerful emotional and spiritual releases that allow profound physiological improvements. Rebirthing Breathing addresses one's entire life experience.

Whether you are scarred by the death of a loved one, or by a loss of any kind, whether you carry grief or rage, the pain of physical abuse or emotional abandonment, whether you have suffered failure, divorce, or whether you live with the nagging weight of unfulfilled dreams, Rebirthing Breathing will trigger in you a great release and a genuine experience of peace.

Rebirthing simultaneously heals the emotional body and the physical body. It increases freedom: freedom from the past, from abuse, from external authorities, freedom to move and feel, to love and express. It teaches that freedom comes from being present with life and relationships, not from trying to get away from them.

Rebirthing teaches commitment. It strengthens our ability to be emotionally present. It develops emotional courage. Rebirthing causes you to be playful and open again. Freedom follows! Rebirthing is the practice of surrendering to feeling. It allows one to relax and open to your unconscious, so past experiences can be healed or released. The result is peace, aliveness, and authentic self worth.

Rebirthing is breathing in a way that allows this natural healing process to occur. You learn to breathe in a way that supports you through all the feelings, thoughts, memories and body sensations that occur during deep healing and transformation. It allows you to honestly address your specific physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual issues. It allows you to accept yourself and to break free of limiting family, social and cultural patterns.

Rebirthing connects you with your ancient soul as well as your inner child. It works to complete any interrupted development. It inspires you to discover the connection between your consciousness and your reality. It is a way of exploring your life scripts, your personal myths and themes.

Rebirthing expands the way in which you expressed who you really are. With it, you reclaim your original innocence, you embrace those denied and disowned parts of yourself. It helps you to acknowledge and respect your natural tendencies and ways of being. It enlightens you to how you formed your personality by conforming to, or rebelling from, your parents' and society's ways of being. It helps you to examine your values and your prejudices. It gives you insight into how you organize your world and experience your life.

The key is to love and accept all of your parts, no matter how you judge them to be. We learn to suppress certain feelings and certain aspects of ourselves in order to survive and to succeed. The result of this is that we lack full awareness and total aliveness. Society supports this emotional numbness and encourages us to focus on the outside world instead of our own deep feelings and needs.

Children thus become adulterated: they loose the ability to feel fully and live freely. Society, experts, and well-meaning friends, strengthen this dangerous pattern by supporting the notion that the solution to our problems lie outside of ourselves in the latest pill, or in the oldest forms of distraction.

Good rebirthing encourages you to reclaim and integrate all aspects of yourself, including those aspects that you feel or think (or were taught) are unacceptable. This movement toward oneness and wholeness within you creates the power and the present moment awareness that is required for genuine success and true intimacy.

Effective Rebirthing should help us to recognize and eliminate obsolete or ineffective defense mechanisms and addictions. (Remember, an addiction is anything you do to avoid feeling.) Good rebirthing encourages the expression and release of emotions. (Remember that suppression of any kind creates numbness and is responsible for most of your discomfort and disease.)

Dan Brulé January 2000