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Codependency
POST-PANDEMIC REhab
Rebirth Your Life. Prepare yourself for end of Lockdown. NOW.
A Bespoke Programme designed for you. ONLINE and F2F. Central London.
#REclaim #REview #REbrand #REthink #REfresh #REset #REwire #REgain #REnew #REcover #REvive #REhab #REstore #REvitalise #REplan #REsurge #RESULTS
MORE INFO Coming Soon!
Urban LifeClass Breathwork Coaching comes to Athens 27th April 2019.
Easter Breathe : Saturday April 27th. 4 – 8pm
Venue : A Beautiful House in Creative Akadimia Platonos
Urban LifeClass is a London UK based Not-for-Profit Breathwork & Coaching Programme led by David Parker, incorporating Codependency Recovery, Relationship Reviews and breaking addictive patterns – including thoughts. Thought is creative but ACTION has more power, which is why we focus on affirmative ACTIONS not just affirmations.
We also don’t use fancy language or special clothes, come as you are and speak as you do, we find this more authentic.
The Athens Team below are an eclectic bunch, inter-generational, highly creative, non-judgemental and as you can see we LOVE what we do. No team member gets paid, your monies goes toward 2020 when we expect the need for a larger venue and a bigger programme of events.
In the meantime we give service to serve you, so you can serve yourself, learn to breathe more productively and maybe support us in growth if you like what we do and the progress you make. All sexualities and genders welcome.
We have 3 INTRODUCTION WORKSHOPS for 2019, – April, June & December, with an Autumn one pencilled in, depending on David Parker’s travel schedule. You can read about him here. https://rebirthyourlife.me/globalcoaching-experience/
All workshops are in English with Greek translation if required.
So escape from your mind into your body, feel lighter, clearer and breathe out stress with experiential Somatic Evolutionary Breathwork. Each Workshop is for 10 participants MAX, so personal attention can be given.
Easter Breathe : Saturday April 27th 4- 8pm
Venue : A Beautiful House in Creative Akadimia Platonos
Read testimonials and blogs on this site https://rebirthyourlife.me,
sign up for this adventure with just 20 Euros for a 4 hour Introduction to Breathwork.
That’s all you need to do
There is no sign ups or obligations to continue with anything after, we just ask that if you can’t make the workshop you booked or you can’t transfer your place to another – we hold the 20 Euros as a donation.
Loads of info can be gathered from our Team Members in Athens
Organiser/Producer – Patricia Photiou +30 6949826260
Experienced Breathworker over 3 decades – Yiannis Vousvoukis
mob 6945 900 310
#breathe
Check out the URBAN LIFECLASS site too: https://urbanlifeclass.me
Recovery Coaching for People Who Do Too Much
We all know them.
Workaholics. Alcohol Dependents. Coke fiends. Chem users. Painkillers. Exercise Addicts. Codependents. People Pleasers. Compulsive Helpers. Gamblers. Debtors Etc.
Maybe you are one of them, getting nowhere fast, riding through treacle in avoidance of the core issue.
Living Life In Balance is an acquired art, requiring practice, discipline and observation – difficult to do alone – which is why working with an experienced Recovery Coach & Evolutionary Breathworker WORKS.
I have been clean & sober since 1982 with 12 Step Programmes and a Somatic Breathworker since 1988, so I know that it’s possible to RE-BALANCE YOUR LIFE, take hold, redress with ‘purposeful using’ if dependent or abstention if needed. Step work has been my solution plus outside help, but sessions are not guided by it or required to use in or out of session, nor is there requirement to develop the spiritual side. The client leads the session in their requirements.
SOLUTIONS : First focus on present current issues and what ACTION needs to take place.
Second, deal with emotional suppression, overwhelm and helplessness which can lead to or enhance depression and more walking into escape routes that damage, continue and bring you back to a spiral of much of the same. I have been there, so no judgement involved, just practical solutions for change.
Another SOLUTION is calling me. David Parker on 07483 287470
Leave a voicemail if I don’t pick up, or email me with what your problem is. rebirthyourlife@gmail.com
I see anyone FREE for 2 hours with no obligation to carry anything further with me or can direct you to other avenues of solution. Someone did this for me 36 years ago – I’m just giving it back. Euston venue.
or buy the book above. It’s a start.
Adam Spreadbury-Maher shares his thoughts on Breathwork and our Marrakech Retreat 2018.
Olivier Award Winner Adam Spreadbury-Maher is an Australian/Irish Theatre Artistic Director, Producer and Writer. He is the founding Artistic Director of the Cock Tavern Theatre, OperaUpClose and The Hope Theatre, and is the current artistic director of the Kings Head Theatre, Islington. London.
“Initially attending a one day Evolutionary Breathwork workshop in Central London, I decided to take the plunge and travel to Marrakech on the week long Breathwork retreat in March that David and his team hold annually. I didn’t know what to expect, though I went along with an open mind and heart.”
“The week long retreat was co-led with established breath worker Luisa Bradshaw, a partnership that accounts for over 45 years combined experience, buckets of empathy and good humour, and I felt ‘emotionally safe’ from the start.
Based at a beautiful and comfortable 4-star riad-style hotel, just off the beaten track and hustle and bustle of the main square, in the Kasbah medina, our group was gently eased into the course with care and compassion over the first 2 days in the hotel with hammam, steamed, washed, scrubbed and relaxed in the Spa plus daily group breathwork for emotional and body release.”
“The schedule had plenty of time for us to spend together socialising at meals or relaxing by the pool, alone in solitude and reflection, plus visits to some of Marrakesh’s most exquisite gardens. The day trip to the Ourika Valley at the foot of the Atlas Mountains was a particular highlight for me, along with silent walks in the stunning Anima Garden en route in the morning.”
“Throughout the week, not only was I able to spend sometime focussing on a cleaner and better relationship with myself, I was also able to make new friends and deepen existing relationships.
This is breathwork for today’s pragmatic realistic, who is happy to dodge the crystals and dolphin music; it’s effective, self-led ( yet supported and guided ) self growth therapeutic practice.
Quite unexpectantly, Conscious Connected Breathwork with David Parker has had a hugely positive impact on my life and well being. I recommend David, Luisa and their team unreservedly, in fact . . . I’ve already signed up for next year!”
Adam Spreadbury-Maher
A Deeper Reflection
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.
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
Details of this Seminar in English is here : https://rebirthyourlife.me/recycle-your-life-c-dependency-compulsive-addictive-relationships/
The Connected Breath
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.
The Family Way
Codependency can be about not knowing where you end – and others begin – physically, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually within the family. There are no healthy boundaries.
Maybe you don’t know what you really stand for except your job. Go to a party or social gathering and people will ask you who you are, what do you say? Are you someones partner, a middle-class professional career, a fraud, a celebrity, a nobody, a carer, a rescuer, a FAKE?
When does your work identity end and the real you emerge?
John Bradshaw writes extensively about Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families and is the name to look for on Amazon. Here is a list of dysfunctional traits that stand to be corrected.
Then you will see why people in therapy say it’s the best investment they have made and why people brought up in a home of emotional supression, family secrets, rows and confrontation refuse to blow the lid off. But then if you don’t, something else will in later life, the memory will return to double you up in pain to stumble.
Abandonment issues * Delusion and Denial * Family Secrets * Isolation even in a crowd * Constant Worry * Control Freakery * 24 hour Guard Duty / Hypervigilant * Internalized Shame * Lack of Boundaries * Grandiose behaviour * Reactive & Reenacting * Numbed Out * Fixated Personality * Out of Touch with body & feelings * Faulty Communication * Withdrawn and under involved * Never Satisfied * Compulsive Addictive * Intimacy Problems * Over involved fixer * Abuse Victim * Lack of coping skills * Confused Identity * Depression avoider via Activity * Judgemental Perfectionism * No trust * Loss of your own Reality * Inveterate Dreamer * Spiritual Bankruptcy – lacking non-religious faith of any kind * Equifinality
EQUIFINALITY ? – No matter where you begin, you end up in the same place.
Functional they may be but mobile phones are the current tool to practice lack of boundaries. In a dysfunctional family respect is vague, faded and obscured. In a train carriage or a restaurant table boundaries are broken left right and centre, becoming a curse of modern life that we bare because we think we can’t live without them. We put up with it in much the same way we put up with family dysfunction. We become exhausted with asking, people not listening, not respecting etc that we numb out ( see list above ). When a child is abused in the home the body remembers.
Every time you feel shock, you hold your breath. Next time you have sex check whether your breath is held. Every family memory you carry into adulthood including verbal abuse, put downs . . reside within, gasping for air.
These are just a few examples of lack of boundaries. Today’s task is to consider your own.
To help you do this flick through these links until you find something that resonates.
Then use it as a starting board to write down where dysfunctional boundaries have occurred in your life, they may be your own, your co-workers friends or family. Once you realize where a boundary has been crossed, take steps to correct this. Therapy is an advantage in learning to do this but often a simple explanation to someone, eyeball to eyeball, with a balanced tone to the voice can correct an action seldom to repeat.
Please Release Me
One of my pre-teenage memories of shame involved a launderette. I must have been 12 or so and Mums copper ( an archaic washing machine ) at home broke down so we trooped off to the local machine wash. My first embarasment involved both of us not knowing how to operate the machine – convinced that the whole launderette was watching us fumble. The shame of it all. The pain of public failure. Then THE most shaming thing happened. My mum opened the machine front loader and we both STARED at a very clean and hot used condom sitting all on it’s own in the metal drum. Silence kills. Do we remove it? or move to another machine having put the money in?
We called the service lady and shame clouded over in a flash as she fished it out with rubber gloves for all to see. Heads ducked down, papers read, windows were scoured and lips pursed. On another occasion when I was 16 we had moved to a new house and friends of my parents stayed for the weekend so mum & dad gave them their bedroom and so they slept on the PUT-U-UP in the lounge. In the morning I helped them fold the bed up and we STARED again at a torn Durex wrapper on the carpet. Can you imagine? They were still ” doing it “. The shame of it all.
In their book : Letting Go of Shame/Understanding How Shame Affects Your life – Ronald & Patricia Potter-Efron explain about shame being a universal emotion. ” Shame temporarily disconnects people from each other. For example, women in America and many other societies will often modestly look away when they notice someone showing sexual interest in them, even if they are interested in the other person. The message they may be giving ( only under certain circumstances, of course ) is that their sexuality is too powerful to openly express in public. Similarly, people will ordinarily avoid eye contact when a situation threatens to become too potent ”
This made me think how we interchange with each other on the London underground trains, the place where no-one speaks except crack heads, beggars or anyone from Spain.The British culture prefers to ” look away ” to avoid upset, confrontation or shame. Now good old British shame is no different from American shame or Swedish shame ( however – the Italians ARE shameless – look at the revolving governments ) and if fear is universal then shame follows close behind.
John Bradshaw talks about the core of codependency being ” toxic shame ” developed and nurtured from family of origin. Until we release our innermost shames we can never be free. We create our own prison cell. Anyone in 12 Step Recovery will understand 4th Step value or simply the release of sharing. This is all therapy is – letting go with love. It is also about booting out judgement and guilt – the mafia of the mind.
Next time you get on the Underground ( tube train ) use it as a meditation space. Watch and see who avoids your eye contact, be observant and recognise that you are part of these peoples lives, you hold a place, there is no separation of humanity. By observing others you observe yourself and by practicing the art of full eye contact when listening or speaking, you find more clarity within yourself. This is the antidote to shame. And next time you like someone who stares back at you in a sexy way – for christ sake SMILE not hide away. It costs nothing.
I am not suggesting you travel the tube or walk the streets with the smile of someone with the look of community care or just found Jesus but I am suggesting that you focus on each opportunity to drop shame and fear. Shame takes a long time to dissolve so erase the hasty cure with small bites, note each day where and when shame arises and use that powerful mantra FEEL IT, CLAIM IT, DUMP IT. Recovery is not about how much shame you have but how long you hold on to it once noted, so find a spiritual launderette to wash, spin & open up your heart to light.
Rebirth Your Life 