The Next Level
Sondra Ray

Take a breathe, and another, and another-connect the inhale with the exhale-- feel your body, feel your feelings, let all the tension and negativity in your body go; then experience the flow of peace and relaxation within your body. If you have experienced all this and more, you have just completed a Rebirthing session.

Sounds too good to be true? Not so, Rebirthing is a simple breathing technique which can transform your body, mind, spirit, as well as your perception of who you were, who you are, and who you will be. How does this work? First, let's look at the word "spirit" or "prana" or "ki" or "chi", or "geist" or "genie," or whatever you call the force that enlivens the body. In every one of the languages, the traditions in which you find these terms, the meaning of the root word is either "breath' of 'wind." In fact, in Genesis, God breathes into the dust he has just molded to spiritualize it, making it in his own image. So breath, religiously and mythologically, is a very significant component. Spirit or breath exists everywhere in our daily lives. Besides having spirit itself, you perspire, respire ,inspire, conspire, aspire, suspire, transpire.
You point at the spire of a church, you receive inspiration from the preacher, you observe spiracle objects, and finally, when death approaches, you expire--you know that one last, long breath, when spirit leaves the body. On the more mundane level, try holding your breath and see how significant it is. A lot of people play around with how much they eat and drink. Do you notice that no one is doing a breath fast. Breath is the force that moves every single system of the body.

Yet, although you do not "breathe fast" you certainly do hold your breath--when you are frightened, angry, resentful, or any time you don't want people to see your feelings. By not breathing you suppress feelings. Many times your body tries to get around you by yawning or sighing. Watch someone on the verge of tears who does not want to cry publicly and see how much they sigh. Your body is always trying to look out for you, but your ego thinks it knows better, so you repress the desire to express, creating an ever more dense and diseased body. After all if you don't "ex" "press", which simply means to "push out" you "sup" "press", which means "to push down." Where do you think you push all of that emotional material? When you can't digest food properly because of some bodily dysfunction, you get heartburn, indigestion, colitis, diverticulitis, etc.; yet, you fail to understand that all of your half-digested emotions help create the physical havoc in your body.

Breathing in a circular fashion for a length of time in the presence of another first relaxes the body, then the mind and spirit, and before you know it, the emotions of a lifetime begin to surface. Not all at once, of course, or you would explode. The body again has its own wisdom. What comes up first is usually what needs to be addressed in the present. If a traumatic past emotion comes up, it probably is the cause of something unresolved in the present that needs addressing. So little by little you get clear of all the excess baggage you subconscious mind, your spirit, and your body have been carrying around for a long time. Finally, having fully digested or integrated those emotions, you can use them consciously to respond to the world instead of reacting to it. The word, "de" "pression" also means "to press down," and what is pressed down is your life force that is burdened with so much subconscious debris you cannot consciously understand. Then you wonder why you are unhappy, unfulfilled, spiritually barren, and lonely. You have no idea what you hauling around. The fifty pounds of extra flesh is not your only uncomfortable baggage. The multitudinous sorrows, fears, and other unexpressed, unfelt emotions you have held on to for years weigh you down interminably.

Looks easy! Why do I need a rebirther. Believe me, when thirty years of anger begin bubbling to the surface, your first reaction may be fear. It is nice to know someone who has gone through this process is by your side to let you know that there is nothing to fear and to support you in getting rid of that which you may dread. Maybe nothing comes up for you except a deep relaxing feeling. You may want to doze off. Your Rebirther won't let you, nor will he/she let you leave your body because you really don't want to experience those old feelings even if it means experiencing them for the last time. Your Rebirther is a breath coach and a support team, someone who has been trained not to let his ego interfere with your process, someone who helps you through whatever emotion, thought, pain, numbness, or bliss you are experiencing.

Ahh, bliss. Yes, that is the goal of Rebirthing. For example, not knowing how to relax your body, you go for a massage. If the therapist is good and you respond, you may feel totally relaxed for the first time. You now know that it means when someone says, "relax."
The same holds true if you meditate. You don't know what a meditative state feels like until you've been there. How many of you have truthfully felt blissful in your life? If someone told you to feel bliss, would you know what to feel? Probably not. Society does not promote blissful feelings. You should feel duty, obligation, responsibility, guilt, commitment, lone, friendship, etc., and those are not defined too well for you either, but Bliss? What is it? Until you feel it, it cannot be described. A successful series of rebirths, usually seven to ten, can help you shed enough suppressed material to feel true aliveness, your bliss, for the first time in your life. You may begin to connect the inhales and the exhales so effortlessly that what at first seemed like hard work becomes easy and joyful as though someone else were breathing for you.

That experience, that feeling, is amazing, and although Rebirthing is not an immediate panacea for your or the world's ills, it reminds you of the way the Universe intended you to feel from the beginning before you felt separate from it and other people, getting bogged down in the much and mire of society and daily living. That feeling reminds you, when you think you are drowning, that there is a rescue team--inside yourself--for renewal and compassion so that you can face whatever the world puts before you with true unconditional love and a desire to act in a unified and purposeful manner to solve all those important dilemmas. They are no longer dilemmas when you can face them with bliss; they simply "are," and you can laugh at the foolishness of thinking they were something so big. You can laugh and act, making you a true child of god, peacefully tending your life and your earthly garden.

Many times you look at a Mother Theresa and say "I could never be like that, so calm in the face of all that poverty and death." The fact is you can because you already are; you just don't know it. Rebirthing
will help you find bliss, the still small voice, the rest and relaxation that is your human birthright.