The beauty of breathing

My personal experience of Rebirthing Breathwork

by Kobus Burger

I'll never forget my first Rebirthing Breathwork session. Not for what happened during that session or the changes I could see in my life afterwards. I guess it was the shock. I was completely flabbergasted by the simplicity. I wanted it to be more complex - or rather, my mind wanted to complicate it!

Rebirthing Breathwork brought me back into my body. Down towards the roots of my physical existence. It gave me tremendous body awareness. I now feel my feelings in my body and became much more aware, more quickly, of when I'm blocking my energy flow with a negative thought.

Through this new awareness I can now immediately realize when I stop breathing - normally the cause of a holding pattern.

Thanks to Rebirthing Breathwork I shifted easily from my addictive thinking (worry thoughts) into feeling whatever I am feeling without judgement. For example, when I bumped my brand new car into a tree, it didn't upset me for a second. Yes, I was shocked and disappointed, but knew that worrying about it won't repair it.

Rebirthing Breathwork showed me the limitations of talking (thinking?) things through. Although there is some processing involved in a Breathwork session, there is no need to understand anything, to dig for deeply embedded reasons or causes for behaviour or current circumstances. All major shifts happen in a higher state of consciousness where the mind's analysis is not needed.

I've read a lot about Present Moment Awareness or Living in the Now - free from the projections of the Past and the Future. Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now is one of my favourite books about the subject and an inspiration to keep living in the Now. But, even after reading it for the second time and working with his exercises, I struggled with making Present Moment Awareness a part of my day-to-day life.

Through Rebirthing I stepped into the Present Moment Awareness without doing anything. It just happened. That's the beauty of Rebirthing: there's hardly any effort!
The moment I push or force my breath, I'm not surrendering to the natural flow of the life force.

Before Rebirthing I saw everything (every single meditation, therapy, technique, healing modality or exercise) as a quick-fix. Rebirthing made me discover that I am on a journey and that although there are miraculous breakthroughs, breathing is a moment-to-moment awareness - a process, not a product.

Any artist will tell you that true satisfaction come from focussing on the process of creation and enjoying it with all your senses. When you focus on the product, you set yourself up for disappointment. Breathing is an art of sheer enjoyment!

By letting go of my expectations, I could breathe easier because I could let go of the suffering I caused myself by pushing so hard... mending, fixing, working, doing, changing, striving...
There is innocence and beauty in acceptance, by being breathed by Life itself.

Rebirthing healed me of my obsession with finding a guru, teacher, sage or enlightened being with all the answers. It gently brought me back - through my breath - to my Self. It greatly enhanced my intuition and made me see the powerful answers I already have within myself. Through greater awareness I gently released myself from the Victim Consciousness (which Caroline Myss calls Woundology). I now can access my innate wisdom to guide me away from the old pattern of constantly feeling sorry for myself.

What I love about Rebirthing is that it doesn't promise miraculous healing. You won't hear that Rebirthing would heal your from a chronic illness. Although, in many cases it did just that and will bring powerful physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing to many, many people. But the special power of Rebirthing breathwork is that you discover your own healing potential and don't give your power away to someone else. Instead, you allow the miracle within you to show its beauty to you by connecting your breath, your Spirit!

Rebirthing showed me what honesty and truth is. How I can be honest to myself about what I am feeling right now and that that is OK. Perfect. There's no need to run away from it, hide, suppress, cop out or act out in order to feel better. Through embracing my deepest feelings and feeling them without judgement I have released so much energy that has been employed in the past to hold a lid onto things I didn't want to admit to myself or face in any way.

Rebirthing is a gradual process of tapping into your Higher Consciousness or innate wisdom. It's all about taking one step at a time. Some therapies open the flood gates and may cause tremendous discomfort by taking people too deep into what is underneath the surface. By breathing you respect your own body's wisdom and allow the healing to progress in a natural, yet forceful, way.

Sometimes it feels as if I have only taken one step in the right direction, but then I also know with my whole Being that my Awareness is a safety net that is keeping me from falling on my face again and again. That it takes only one conscious thought to bring my Breath, my Spirit, into my whole Being.

c Kobus Burger 2003