REBRAND. Rethink, Review, REBIRTH.

by Rebirth Your LifeApril 3, 2015April 5, 2015

Welcome to the new baby – Urban LIFECLASS Coaching. its been in the womb the past 9 months and now on its feet in London so to celebrate, ‘rebirth your life’ has had a Rebranded NEW LOOK, a rethink, review and a REBIRTH.

Hard to believe that we have been bang at it for a year, with an idea that sprang out of a LIVE ART DEVELOPMENT AGENCY Weekend Workshop led by Dickie Beau & David Parker at Chelsea Theatre, Kings Road in October 2013. The concept worked so well and the reception encouraging that we had our first 4 hour Sunday Breathwork Workshop at Chelsea Theatre in March 2014, then one in April & May.

The interest increased so we decided to create a One Day Seminar, but Chelsea Theatre though they served us well, closed the centre at 5pm on a Sunday, but as we wanted to start at noon till 8 pm, (handy for late risers, working performers, DJs, party peeps and those travelling from outside London) we needed to look elsewhere. We eventually found a venue close to Victoria Station, the Belgravia Light Centre, specialising in yoga, therapies, mindfulness and groups, happy to let us come in at noon till 8pm. Our first one was July last year.

This proved to work so well that we continued each month until we were told in January that a long training had booked up Sundays in the upper studio where we were, in 2015 ( we did not have the money to book so far ahead, as they did ). The Centre offered us the lower studio, but the dates available were not consistent with our monthly needs, but did say we could book the upper studio from January 2016, without pre-payment, but we realised that the arduous task fell before us to seek another venue to take a regular monthly booking. As anyone saddled with this task will know – it’s not easy anywhere, let alone Central London and rising room hire rents.

We scoured, searched, viewed venues then lady luck lent a hand.

So after a hugely successful Spiritual Retreat in Marrakech we returned fired up for our last Sunday Breathwork Seminar in February in Victoria and decided to skip March and find a venue for April – and we HAVE, in the perfect PLACE, with supportive creative vibes at THE PLACE in EUSTON.

As their website states : Located in the heart of London, The Place is the UK’s premier centre for contemporary dance. The Place unites dance training, creation and performance in our purpose-built centre, which houses some of the best studios in the city. For over forty five years, we have been a vibrant hub of dance activity, a centre of creative and technical excellence and a magnet for aspiring dancers, talented professionals and cutting-edge choreographers from all over the world. http://www.theplace.org.uk

LOCATION/MAP is here : http://www.theplace.org.uk/findus The Place, 16 Flaxman Terrace, London WC1H 9AT

This is the entrance to find, not the Front Theatre entrance, for our first Sunday Seminar in The Lecture Room April 12th focussing on DECEPTION, Denial & Double Messages with guidance from The ARTIST’S WAY.

Well served with numerous tube lines, close to Kings Cross & Euston Main Line Stations, even Paris & Belgium, as EUROSTAR is across the road, so even those folks in Ashford Kent can get to us direct in a short time. Registration starts at 12.15 pm ( but many of us meet up before for breakfast somewhere – details coming on that one ). We break for lunch at 3pm for an hour, then continue till 8pm, giving time for peeps to travel afar, take dinner with friends or go home at a reasonable time and relax.

We are not part of THE PLACE programming or have any attachment to their activities, we are simply hiring The Lecture Room, so please do not contact them. They have given us permission to show you their logo, but it will not appear on any of our promotional material, as their terms and conditions dictate. The room IS smaller than The Light Centre in Victoria ( but just as expensive I might add ) but we will have comfortable chairs to sit on as well as yoga mats.

It’s been a Fabulous 1st year, thanks for your support and attendance on our not-for-profit project, we hope to see you in our new home, our new PLACE Sunday April 12th

http://urbanlifeclass.me/2015/03/20/one-day-rebirthing-seminar-sunday-april-12th-12-15pm-8pm-euston-7050-spirituality-denial-deceptions-double-messages/

Diary Dates : Sunday April 12th – Spirituality, Denial, Deceptions & Double Messages : 12.15 – 8pm

Sunday May 24th – Orchestrating the Energy led by Meleeshka : 12.15 – 8pm

Sunday June 28th – Hallo, Goodbye, Loss & Happy Endings : 12.15 – 8pm

https://rebirthyourlife.me/urban-lifeclass-monthly-breathwork/

£70 for the whole day including a GROUP REBIRTH SESSION ( Some concessions are available for £50 if you are already on the DIY or our concession list ) Delayed/part payment will be individually considered.

Paypal to codacoach@yahoo.co.uk or Pay-on-the-day by arrangement.

BOOKING : Contact Robert Beck urbanlifeclass@gmail.com (+44) 7913862492 for payment options.

January Maroc Spiritual Retreat 2015 a HUGE success. So we are doing it all again next year.

by Rebirth Your LifeApril 2, 2015April 3, 2015

Blog by David Parker Co-Founder of URBAN LIFECLASS

In January last year, 2014, Breathwork Trainer Meleeshka, who I’ve known for 25 years, spent a week with me at my favourite 4* Hotel Les Borj de la Kasbah, in Marrakech Morocco. While I had visited it over a dozen times when leading Breathwork Seminars in Morocco a few years back, Mel who had not visited Marrakech since the early 70’s, said sitting by the pool “Why don’t we do a Spiritual Retreat here next January and bring people from the UK, focusing on Abundance, Forgiveness & Self Care?”. So we did.

To many the idea of a Spiritual Retreat brings up thoughts of early morning starts, sacrifice, scarcity, bleak surroundings and trial, so we decided to challenge this concept by focussing on the opposite : Abundance, Effortless Accomplishment, Self Nurturing, Emotional Support and Playfullness. It WORKED!

You can tell the success of any workshop, seminar or retreat by the thoughts, decisions and actions that follow it. Many have experienced the high of reading a book on personal growth, but somehow never got round to the exercises, and so it is with weekend seminars and the like.

CHANGE sounds like a great idea but actually changing something is more challenging. But on return to the UK, someone from the Retreat ended an unhealthy relationship, another handed their notice in on their unsatisfying job, while others made deep external and internal shifts. You can get challenged by one-to-one therapy, or a One Day Seminar but the energy of facing yourself and others over a 5 day Retreat process, really brings out the weeds to be culled. What assisted these results was not just Group Conscious Connected Breathwork every day, but the comfort of the Hotel Spa facilities close at hand.

The first 2 days of settling in was supported by group Hammams of 4 people, morning and afternoon, while others were experiencing a Rebirthing Breathwork session, for emotional release – some for the first time. Future participate blogs will elaborate further about the bonding, laughter and cleansing that took place. Keep a look out.

A Deeper Reflection

by Rebirth Your LifeOctober 7, 2013April 1, 2015

Feedback from Spike Mclarrity a participant of :

IMMACULATE PERCEPTIONS – Spiritual Hoovering and a Blissful Path To Creative Release.

A weekend workshop with Rebirthing Trainer David Parker & Performance Artist Dickie Beau funded by The LIVE ART Development Agency. At Chelsea Theatre Kings Road London October 5/6 2013.

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Monday begins with a fresh smile on my face, a deep sleep been had, and all my doors and windows are open to allow the fresh air flow through the house as I breath in the optimism, possibilities and the sense of being awake.

I hadn’t truly thought about what the weekend would bring, and somehow was distracted by other things, and so the word Re-birthing escaped me, I suppose I was looking forward to seeing what Dickie would look like as I have only ever seen him in drag, and from friends feedback on working with him in the past, I knew that something will happen but not quite sure what.

That aside and your workshop began I found myself on familiar territory, though I hadn’t done a rebirth session for a few years, and each session is unique on its own, but the fact here it was not on a field or in some alternative centre or commune, but within a live art building!

That’s was refreshing in itself. My own experience was deep, profound, and challenging, the letting go, facing fear and panic that surfaced..(to my surprise)

I know it was just yesterday and my body and soul is still digesting the information, but to wake up this morning I felt I was greeted by an old familiar feeling of myself! It had been lost in thought, emotions, anxieties, distraction, confusion, hatred, yearning, blame, shame, and a mass of other shit, anyway here I was, me, laying there, feeling my body, feeling my breath, BREATHING!!!!

Yes my breath, the life source.

For myself it was a wonderful reminder of the life I seek, the one that makes me feel alive, to live everyday breathing in the air around me, breathing in my history, my story, my life, my friends, my family and the love and healing that I am surrounded in.

It was like being on a fast fair-ground ride not knowing what emotions that will surface, but the reminder of my mother, the one that carried me, the one that fed me, the one who’s heart beat I felt from inside her body, the woman who gave birth, who held me, who breast fed me, who heard my first cry, wiped the shit from my arse, bathed me, loved me.

This was a new image of her, one that I had never seen. I only ever saw the sad life she lived, the external life around her, not my connection with inside her body, now that was profound. I saw for a moment, whether in my imagination, never the less there I was breathing, sweating, my body filled with intense heat flowing from head to toe, toe to head, and I could feel the umbilical cord attached to me, I was floating, I could hear a heartbeat, hers, her mothers, her mother’s mother and mine, the connection was strong, pounding on my chest it was extraordinary.

I have done many self-growth workshops, pushed many boundaries entered into the places I resist, ignore, I fight myself on a continues struggle, but here I was with a simple technique that embraced me with a hug, with gentleness that it introduced me to my mother, it enabled my primal self to let go of the holding and allow the self to be mothered, to return to a place that I never thought I would remember, the place of safety that I was born from.

It was a moment with me and my mother, not about hang ups, or frustrations, anxieties and all the other baggage I carry, this was about a mother and a son re-uniting, through a heart-beat, through time, through love.

I thank you for this it is one of the most precious gifts that have I have been given recently.

At this point I wanted to say how structured and relaxed the whole weekend was, you took care of us, you reassured us, you fed us, you became our parents, gave us a safe place to become a child, to become ourselves, to be ourselves.

This was really important especially in a theatre for live arts! ( a difficult place to turn into a safe haven and a womb ). For me the crossing of my two life styles, bringing two practices together, helping me to realize it need not be separate. I know the fact that you cannot teach live art, but it is the tools we work with that can help every individual to become themselves within their work and the re-birthing strangely can work, especially in my own practice, reminding myself to breath and to stop being bitter about what I think isn’t happening, but to enjoy, embrace, dance, breath, live, love and appreciate the gift of life.

Thank you

Spike

(below is a picture of my mother holding one of my older brother’s, I wasn’t in the picture yet! I was in the second five born after.) I wanted to share this. xxxxxxxxxxxx

Recycle Your Life Casablanca January 28/29

by Rebirth Your LifeJanuary 14, 2012

Details of this Seminar in English is here : https://rebirthyourlife.me/recycle-your-life-c-dependency-compulsive-addictive-relationships/

A Tyrolean Breathe

by Rebirth Your LifeDecember 26, 2010January 1, 2011

Rebirthing new people is always exciting.

One never knows how they will take to being out of control with controlled conscious connected breathing. I am always surprised how young clubbers are eager to drop a pill from a dealer without question in a club but fear breathing deeply on the floor fully focused without chemical support. If only they knew that the end result of a breathe has been described as coming up on an ‘e’, they would do it more and fear less. Natural highs contain spiritual ecstasy – not chemical con tricks.

Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol has an active snowboarding, skiing and extreme sports day time calendar and at night, bars, clubs, alcohol and other youthful distractions make for messy times. In London my market is music, clubs, fashion & media but when I lead Rebirthing Groups, Seminars and small groups around the globe the demographic is more mixed and good that it is.

I have been asked several times to come to Innsbruck in Austria to start REBIRTHING GROUPS but it never felt right. There is something to be said for not grabbing at every invitation that comes along. South Africa has asked me to come to Johannesburg in 2011, but detail needs to be done, those days of flying across the world because ” the invitation came ” are over. Some practitioners still think that it’s not spiritual to turn away a client away ( because higher energies have delivered them to you ), but experience has taught me that NO is the most satisfying word in the english vernacular. Detail is more important than acknowledgement of work. I haven’t said NO yet to SA because the countries issues interest me : drugs, crime, poverty, HIV/AIDS regarding releasing blocked emotional trauma, but without conscious detail, intuition and breathwork have no bedrock.

Next month January 2011, I begin working with an established Breathwork Centre in Casablanca Morocco, and said YES straight way, when invited, simply because the detail was there from the beginning and working with family dysfunction recovery in North Africa holds my creative attention. 2011 seems to be my year for Africa.

CODEPENDENCY Recovery depends on clearer boundaries and communication and it remains my next task to focus on South Africa and it’s opportunities. In the meantime Innsbruck, Austria is new to REBIRTHING BREATHWORK and a small group gathered for the 1st group on Thursday, with the view above from the patio, a blissful surrounding – we have another on Monday. Without another Rebirther to hand I only work with 6 new participants in a group, this way I can offer full attention to individuals while serving the group as a whole.

. . . and yes breathing new people is exciting.

Set for 3 hours, the group stayed for another few hours to eat and socialise. Most of them expressed tearful emotions during the breathe and felt wonderful, according to phone and facebook messages the next day, so the job was done. How this work will be developed here I don’t know yet, but Innsbruck has localised networking and yoga groups to start the ball rolling. Here is the band of breathing pioneers from the 1st Alpine Breathing Group in Innsbruck.

The next batch of 6 arrive on Monday.

So organising for me may just mean finding 6 people, then another 6 to make the trip financially eloquent. It can be in your home, if suitable. Then a One Day Seminar or a Weekend Training in a chosen venue. But the real essential is detail and clear communication.

This is the only vision I focus on.

Sondra Ray

by Rebirth Your LifeSeptember 16, 2010September 16, 2010

Sondra Ray was one of the early pioneers of Rebirthing Breathwork in the mid 1970’s and creator of The Loving Relationship Training ( LRT ). I joined LRT in 1988 and began a 3 year adventure with Diana Robert’s London Rebirthing 2000 Training in London assisting Sondra in London & Madrid. Diana brought Rebirthing to the UK in 1980, was Sondra’s organiser in London for over 20 years and as LRT Trainer supported Europe in creating LRT Centres. She has remained an avid supporter of my work and style of teaching, especially around codependency and relationship recovery.

. . . but this is, in Sondra’s words, how REBIRTHING . . . is for everyone.

” Rebirthing is Sacred. Once I thought it was a scientific process. Once I thought it was therapy just to heal my birth trauma. I did not understand it all then. But one thing for sure, I NEVER thought it was silly. I always knew it was the hottest thing on the planet. That is how I always felt about it, right from the beginning.

Rebirthing is like a sacrament because you are partaking of the Holy Spirit. Rebirthing is more than just breathwork. It is taking in Divine Energy into your body in such a way that God is making love to you.

Rebirthing is Life-giving. It can even bring Youthing of the body. It brings spontaneous healings. It brings joy. It brought me everything I ever wanted.

That is why I became one of the first Rebirthers in the world.

I wanted to spread the news to everyone. The only reason someone might not want all of that would have to be fear; fear of letting go, fear of danger, fear of death, or in general fear of slaying the ego. People may fear rebirthing because of these ideas in their heads, and yet the irony is that Rebirthing will REMOVE those very fears. You pump them out on the exhale. Rebirthing continues to take away my fears and the fears of my clients and friends who have stuck with it. We consider it a wonderful life long spiritual path.

To me, it is one of the ultimate gifts from God. Rebirthing is Drinking the Divine. It is also drinking the everlasting nectar of Immortality. When I took Rebirthing to Russia, the doctors there scientifically proved that it produces rejuvenation of the body. So Rebirthing is like discovering the Fountain of Youth. It is having the gentle breath of bliss and the power of vitality charging the body.. It is the thrill of thrills and the serenity of peace at the same time. In this simple breathing process, one can permanently release tensions in the body, symptoms of pain and disease, fears of failure, fears of success, fears of love, fears of death and the beliefs and programming of old age. It will wash out misery . It is the ultimate Cosmic Bath!

Rebirthing is for everyone. No matter who you are or where you are on the path or on the planet. It will take you higher than you ever thought you could go. You will enter the Banquet Hall of Eternity. You will wonder how you ever lived without it. You will drink the everlasting nectar of joy and your heart will awaken to eternal passion. Rebirthing is something you will want to do for life. Eventually , after your rebirther says you are ready, you can learn to rebirth yourself. Initially you should plan to have ten sessions with a rebirther of your choice. You will hear people talk about dry rebirthing and group rebirthing. Dry rebirthing is done lying down on the bed or floor (clothed) next to your rebirther who guides your session.

Group rebirthing is done in a large room where a group of people (who have been well prepared) lie down together with the guidance of a very experienced set of rebirthers. This is best done during a two day workshop. You should continue dry rebirthing until you have worked out the bulk of your birth trauma and a breath release has occurred. Then you can learn to rebirth yourself.

Barbara Marciniak says that awareness and use of the breath are the essential KEYS for understanding and developing the higher mind during this astounding spiritual evolution. She states that we can use the breath to stabilize ourselves to have more energy to enhance our immune systemto create beneficial brain waves to activeate transcendental knowledge from the Source to reach higher frequencies

Besides all that one must add to heal ones body to release tension to have better relationships to rejuvinate. “

Love Sondra

www.sondraray.com

The starburst group breathe (above) was part of The Australian Academy of Rebirthing & Breathwork 10th Anniversary Conference in South Australia 2010, where I was invited to be Guest Speaker. All participants were experienced and completed a Rebirther Training with the Academy. However, you do not need to know about Rebirthing in order to experience it in a group, or connect with Sondra’s descriptive language. I am inclined to avoid her style of vernacular, preferring a more earthy approach, but hey . . . we can’t all ride the same bike. As my work is often confrontational – flowery language is curtailed – but generosity of experience, strength and hope is not.

3 Ways to Breathe

by Rebirth Your LifeJuly 10, 2010

Continuing CHRISTINA THOMAS’S exploration of Conscious Connected Breathwork, from her book SECRETS – A Practical Guide To Undreamed -Of Possibilities.

Here she explains 3 different ways to breath in a Rebirthing session, guided by an experienced Breathing Coach.

1. FAST and FULL : used in the beginning of a rebirth to really pump a lot of energy into the body. I usually have a client begin with wide-open mouth breathing, although it is ok to breathe in and out through the nose also. One may also begin with mouth breathing, then switch to nose breathing for a while and even back to mouth breathing again later on. It is not acceptable to breathe in through the mouth and out through the nose or vice versa.

2. FAST and SHALLOW : this is like speeding up the film through a movie projector ( faster speed ) and turning down the volume or intensity of the feeling ( shallow depth ). It is not necessary to be overwhelmed by an experience in order to fully experience and thus integrate it into your consciousness awareness. You may love your favourite music but you probably would not choose to have it playing so loud it would hurt your ears!

3. SLOW and FULL : This mode is utilized when you are experiencing something that you want to fully enjoy or absorb. It is sometimes used at the end of a breathing session if you get into a very joyful, loving space and want to feel every last bit of the feeling.

SO WHY DO THIS?

Jim Morningstar creator of The School Of Spiritual Psychology writes :

” The Rebirthing process involves learning to breathe in such a way as to release physical tension in the body, clearing the mind of negative thoughts and limiting conclusions reached about past experience, and accepting the spiritual joy and light that result when illusions about ourselves are cleared away. Rebirthing is one of the most powerful tools for breath mastery of which I am aware. Rebirthing is the science and art of increasing the safety you feel in being alive in your body. This safety leads to a sense of inner peace, abundance, pleasure and intimacy. Only by increasing this sense of inner safety can we truly relate to others without fear and defensiveness. This is the key to changing the course of survival on our planet”.

The Connected Breath

by Rebirth Your LifeJuly 2, 2010

From her book SECRETS – Christina Thomas describes THE CONNECTED BREATH

“Now I will describe the actual rebirthing or connected breath. Let us use mouth breathing as an example. Open the mouth rather wide and draw in with intention and willpower on the inhalation : then immediately EXHALE, just allowing the breath to fall away. You will not “follow the breath out” or blow out or control the exhalation or try to make it the same duration as the inhalation. Just let go and allow it to fall away as if you were dropping a ball off a cliff. This is a vital point. Many people will attempt to control the outbreath in some way, as they probably attempt to control your own lives. If the exhale is controlled IN ANY WAY, it is not a rebirthing breath.

Next point : No pauses before or after you inhale or exhale. This is another way some people unconsciously attempt to control the process. Initially, you may have many random thoughts and all are OK. You may feel that you are taking too much time, that you don’t how to do it right, that this isn’t going to work, that you are hungry, thirsty, wish this was over, feel really weird, wonder if you’ve gone crazy, feel like your throat is too dry etc. And none of those thoughts matter at all because this process happens outside of the mind. Sometimes the mind is involved, but it is not required to cooperate in the rebirthing process, which is why the breath is more powerful”.

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Re-reading this from way back when I read it first in 1989, highlights what happens to us when we stop and feel. Codependents are DOING people not BEING people. This is why the affirmation ” I do enough, I am enough, my presence is enough ” saved my arse more than once. In order to recover from any addictive compulsive behaviour like chronic helping, one needs to stand back with the Highway code. STOP, look, LISTEN and Speed-bump your life. Think it, but don’t act it out.

So it’s little wonder that once left to ourselves and the breath we try to fill that ” God slot gap ” with hunger pains, negativity and restlessness. If only we could give that level of care and attention we give to others, to ourselves freely, the divine gap of the breath will EXPAND into peace, bliss and eternal safety. You can with Breathwork Coaching- it’s simply spiritual hoovering of body and soul.

Full Steam Ahead!

by Rebirth Your LifeJune 27, 2010

” It is important to have a balanced perspective toward suppressions. The energies which we are used to call “negative ” are just feelings. They really are neither negative or positive; they just are.

But many people do not have permission from family, culture, religion and thus not from themselves, to feel negative feelings, especially anger. Judging these feelings in the first place is what caused them to become suppressed: if they had been perceived as acceptable, they would have been experienced at the time of stress.

So it is critical now, to accept and feel them in order to clear yourself.

The suppressions which are dislodged and experienced with breathing are not “released” but actually are integrated into the totality of your expanded awareness. Think about the following example : Most likely, you have had some experience in your life that was quite painful but because of that experience, you matured and became more compassionate, sensitive and understanding. In other words you expanded because of integrating that pain into your total awareness.

This is exactly what happens with REBIRTHING. The energy of a negative, painful event which you did not feel in the moment it occurred, became stored instead, in your subconscious mind as suppressed energy, it is brought into consciousness and integrated in just the same way, leaving you more mature and expanded! People frequently experience after rebirthing that ” even the trees look different “. It is as though some filter is removed which had partially obstructed the lens through which they viewed the world and, indeed the world now looks different, usually simpler, lighter and happier.

Compare the breath to a train moving across country with you as a passenger.

Let us say that as long as you are breathing in a connected fashion during a rebirth, the train continues moving. If you stop breathing, the train stops. Now suppose that you come to a particularly unpleasant place where the scenery is unpleasant and it even smells bad! You can keep the train moving and even speed it up or you can stop the train and take a long look at this unsightly place. Compare that to reaching a space in a breathing session where perhaps you are in touch with some energy that is particularly painful. If you hold your breath it is tantamount to stopping the train so you can experience it for a longer time. So it makes sense to keep breathing and even speed up the breath to move through this space quickly.”

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This excellent appraisal of Breathwork are the words of CHRISTINA THOMAS taken from her book SECRETS : A Practical Guide to Undreamed Of Possibilities, published in 1989.

A lot of Rebirthing books from the 80’s are no longer in print but may be found on http://www.abebooks.com/ the web shop for worldwide deleted and secondhand books. Much of the material is still relevant today as Science is recognising in the 21st Century, the impact of ancient breathing healing techniques. Start a Breathwork bookshelf for less than you think.

Expert Witness

by Rebirth Your LifeMay 26, 2010May 26, 2010

Workshops are full of people who think they are experts, they think they know what’s best for us when they often hardly know what’s best for themselves. Such is life, and we eventually forgive those steeped in codependent armour, as well as ourselves for not speaking up while spoken too. I think that the only expert that works longterm is our OWN experience, and since we are often dismissive of ourselves, we dismiss the value of our input. When we witness honesty and emotion from deep sharing of others it can provoke vibrative memory of buried treasure, and help us to dig further within our psyche in order to achieve forgiveness. This is the real energy behind workshops and seminar probing.

Robin Norwood who wrote Women Who Love Too Much, set herself up as expert and ten years after forgave herself by writing WHY ME, WHY THIS, WHY NOW – A Guide to Answering Life’s Toughest Questions, when her life car crashed. She experienced true humility by going public and sharing this experience of falling off ivory towers. Within my 20 year journey of leading workshops I have heard amazing truths revealed, including incest, which plugs in the whole training.

She writes the following about an abuser.

” To truly forgive requires that we truly understand. We must be able to look clearly at the whole picture, recoil from none of it, deny none of it, accept it all. In a way this means that we must become EXPERTS regarding which that we must forgive, seeing all sides, not just our own.

An example : I was in a workshop on the treatment of incest many years ago when, halfway through the morning, one of the participants identified himself as an aggressor who had sexually abused his daughter. For a long moment there was a stunned silence. Then he went on to describe his incarceration, the therapy he and his family had received, and his recovery of many years duration.

He now counseled male offenders incarcerated for the same offences he had committed. With his wife and daughter, he participated in group discussions for the families of these men. His honesty created an environment that allowed other workshop participants to talk about their own experiences with sexual abuse.

Because he modeled courage and dignity and humility as well as honesty, he made it easier for some of the therapists in the room who were also incest victims to gain more understanding of the person who had violated them. We stopped interacting as professionals and became EXPERTS instead, drawing on our EXPERIENCE as we struggled to understand this human problem. Such understanding, when achieved, leads eventually to forgiveness – and forgiveness is the final step in our healing.

Through forgiveness we are forgiven. “

In sharing our deepest shames we dissolve the pain of holding on. I have attracted many women and men over two decades who are adult survivors of child abuse and used Rebirthing Breathwork to gently bring them back to feelings without overwhelm, recovery without self loathing, hope without silence. In 1992 my brother went to prison for pleading guilty to abusing his step daughter for 5 years. I had to forgive him, but closed the door on future contact as he was not ready to take responsibility for his actions. I left a contact number but no call has been dialed. Not my stuff.

I sometimes wonder where he is, whether his alcoholism rebirthed his life or whether amends have been made. Sometimes we don’t need to know.