Rebirthing-Breathwork – Part I

About 2 years back I underwent a Rebirthing-Breathwork training conducted by my teachers, Dr.Newton Kondaveti and Dr.Lakshmi Newton of the Life University in Hyderabad. Needless to say, it brought about profound transformations. But more than anything else, it gave me a sense of grounded-ness more than ever before.

The technique

Rebirthing-Breathwork is a technique of continuous, conscious breathing. This breathing takes on a life of its own once you begin it, and goes into 3 stages in the span of 1-3 hours. This technique was discovered by Leonard Orr who has his own Rebirthing-Breathwork International school in the U.S. the reason it is called ‘rebirthing’ breathwork, is because in most cases one goes into the in-utero stage the moment you start breathing. Hence, the very first thing one typically starts reliving and releasing is all the blockages one went through when one was in the mother’s womb. Breath is therefore the whole and soul of this technique.

[Leonard often cites it to be the modern form of kriya yoga, with Mahavatar Babaji being his guru as well]

The experience

Typically once you enter a breathing cycle, one experiences a lot of energy movement across various parts of the body. This is what is known as per ancient science as the prana energy and its movement defines the different vayus in the body. When this energy begins to move, it goes to those places first where there are maximum or most intense blockages, for it is the very nature of breath to dismantle blockages. Hence, the common experiences as a result of this energy movement are –

• Tetany – stiffening of the limbs – which a rebirther guides the client to consciously breathe into. The rebirther makes sure that the tetany is released by the end of the session. However, tetany can come up in the forthcoming sessions as well, and it may take several sessions in some cases to completely be free of tetany as this is usually the result of a lot of emotional blocks clogged up in the body which get released layer by layer through every session.
• Feeling emotional distress and emotionally volatile – our mind-body-emotions together form a cohesive vehicle and each is linked with the other. Breath works on all these 3 bodies (as per ancient Indian spiritual science, mental and emotional bodies are our ‘subtle bodies’ – ones we don’t see but which do exist) simultaneously. Hence, if there are any specific emotions locked up in our psyche, they will be bound to be thrown up during the session. This is part of the cleansing process of breath.
• Feeling aches / pains / shivers / sharp twitching, tingling, etc – though not all of these will happen to everyone, depending on person to person, a variety of these are observed in a person undergoing breathwork during the session.

Benefits

It is unfortunately a very less known fact that the experiences one has while in the mother’s womb forever shapes a person’s psyche. The imprints formed during this stage are known as limbic imprints and are often considered to be impossible to erase. Not just this stage, but also the way a person was born, the birthing process, is also known to have a forever impact on his/her psychological makeup. It is almost as if your brain gets hardwired with thought patterns at this stage.  However, through personal experience I can say that Rebirthing-Breathwork is successful in clearing these patterns and you can immediately see the manifestation of these changes in all areas of your life.

Breathwork can clear the 8 biggies of the human trauma –

1. Birth trauma – the trauma encountered as a part of the birthing process which creates deep psychological imprints. Many times the root cause of why a person attracts a traumatic birth is due to past life conditioning, i.e. experiencing difficult past lives.
2. Death urge – often due to birth trauma the baby wishes to die and go back to the soul form which was freer and gave it the sense of oneness. Complicated deliveries, complications during the mother’s labor are the first signs of the baby’s death urge. Leonard Orr also says that people experiencing sinus is the sign of their subconscious death urge. Birth is decided prior to conception but death is chosen by a person at a subconscious level every moment of his/her life. In the simplest explanation, death urge is every anti-life thought. This urge reveals itself in a person’s life through situations of lack, unhappiness, accidents, and in some cases, suicides.
3. Past lives & specific past life conditioning – healing past life traumas naturally happens through Breathwork. I have personally conducted regressions through the process of Breathwork successfully, after undergoing it myself.  Through this specific past life issues like addictions, relationship issues, etc. are known to heal.
4. Personal lie or specific negatives – due to complicated births/labor, a person can develop specific thought patterns – e.g. “I am a burden to everyone”, “no one loves me”, “I am always alone”, etc. which get reflected in all areas of life. Breathwork is known to heal these layer by layer.
5. Parental Disapproval Syndrome – disapproval of our parents can lead us to making choices that may be unhealthy for us – like denying our unique individuality, leading to a dual personality, not feeling integrated with life, attracting destructive relationships that could even mirror our parents’ fears out of the subconscious urge of confirming to them in any way possible.
6.  Senility – fears of going old and senile, which could also be a leftover from past lives, can be commonly experienced by people of all ages, something not many are aware of.
7. School trauma – our early childhoods are the foundation of our current life and possibly even future lives. Having a harsh school regimen, experiencing a violation of our individuality due to unaware teachers, a distorted sense of discipline, forcibly changing a person’s biological clock to fit school timings, curbing a child’s creativity to fit the school’s timetable, etc. can forever damage a person’s self-worth and reflect in all areas of life.
8. Religion trauma – most of us across the world have experienced this by being forced to perform rituals that could’ve led to suffering and pain, meaningless traditions leading to curbing our natural instincts and the fear/guilt created by it under the pretext of blasphemy, being forced to attend service / chanting / places of worship since childhood.