Please contact us if your question is not answered here.
- How many Breathwork sessions will I need?
- How often should I have them?
- Can I do it on my own?
- What can I expect to occur?
- How can I expect to feel afterwards?
- When will I start to feel the benefits?
- What is the difference between Breathwork and other more traditional forms of counselling/therapy?
- Do I have to believe in/ subscribe to any particular beliefs/ system of thought for it to work?
- Is it something I have to practice/ learn before it works?
- I have heard that it can be traumatic or make you feel ”bad’, is this true?
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Q. HOW MANY BREATHWORK SESSIONS WILL I NEED?
A. This is very difficult to answer due to various factors that contribute to an individual’s response to Breathwork sessions. In some cases a person’s face literally changes and becomes open and full of joy after one session, whilst another may need twelve sessions to experience the same change. These variables can include:
- how much emotional work a person has done on themselves prior to their sessions (i.e. if a person has done therapy or other personal development modalities sometimes their defence mechanisms are diminished so they can work more deeply and their sessions can be more productive)
- what type of issues a person is working on – some cases are more complex and require longer work, whereas other issues can be shifted and resolved more quickly
- where someone is at with their issue – some people come to Breathwork after they have exhausted other options and find that the issue is ripe and ready to be released
- whether a client uses suppressants such as alcohol or drugs, which in some cases can lesson the effectiveness of the technique
- whether individuals are in a loving and supportive relationship or not. This support can sometimes allow for deeper work to take place
- whether an individual is ready to ‘let go’ and surrender to the process
- I’ve even noticed some Astrology signs having particular responses to sessions.
…And the list goes on. I haven’t yet been able to map, hence predict people’s individual responses. Some would respond simply by saying, “It depends on how good you want to feel and how committed you are to your inner process.”
In addition to the list above I also believe that you can’t undo 30, 40 or 50 years of emotional/ mental habits in one session of two and a half hours. The technique is good, but nothing is that good! I always recommend committing to a series of three sessions, after which people have usually taken leaps and bounds in their process. They then know what they can expect and are in a position to gauge how many more they may require. Those who accomplish and get what they want after the initial three sessions often say… “If I feel this good after three what would another three do?” and they simply have them on a regular basis.
Q. HOW OFTEN SHOULD I HAVE THEM?
A. I recommend having the initial three sessions, approximately 7 – 14 days apart. This can give the client time to integrate the sessions and watch the results manifest in their life. In some cases due to time restraints, people have done three within a week, whilst others space them a month apart. Either way people get what they are meant to get regardless of the timing. People have to trust that the healing that is destined for them will occur regardless. 7 – 14 days is just a general guideline I have found to work well.
A. NO. The versions of Breathwork that can be done on your own I would be more inclined to call ‘Air Purifications’ or ‘Breath Meditations’. I believe this for a number of reasons:
a) There is an adage in therapy that goes “You can only be as healthy as your therapist”, which basically implies that you will only be taken to the depths of healing that your healer/ therapist has experienced themselves. This applies to Breathwork in a major way. When you are with a qualified Rebirther who has had hundreds, if not thousands, of sessions themselves and has been to the deepest crevices of their own unconscious, you will automatically or instinctually feel safe to go to those same depths yourself. You do not necessarily think this consciously, it just occurs anyway.
b) In addition if a Rebirther has done that volume of sessions, they have worked out a large proportion of their own ‘case’ i.e. issues, so they have the know how to bring to the surface and help you to unravel yours. This is necessary as we all have blind spots. It is similar to how we can see our friend’s issues and how they can resolve them so clearly, but when it comes to our own we can stay stuck and blind for years. We need someone outside of ourselves to lead us to what our defenses won’t allow us to see. That’s why they call it the ‘unconscious’ – we are literally unconscious of the bulk of the foundation of our personality. We can only go so far on our own and then we need the support of others. A lot of people have tried this on their own and have obviously experienced strong energy movements, currents and a degree of cleansing, but have not had an emotionally and mentally integrated Breathwork session. They therefore received a small percentage of the potential benefits of a full session.
c) The human defense mechanism is an astonishing phenomenon. In traumatic injuries, like a car crash for example, a person’s defenses will shut down their system and send them ‘unconscious’, i.e. they go to sleep so as they can avoid feeling the pain and fear. In the same way, deep emotional trauma can also trigger this ‘unconsciousness’ – sleep. When the breathing technique brings this old emotional trauma to the surface, people experience an overwhelming, and more often than not, uncontrollable urge to drift off – literally go unconscious. If there is no one there to support them, they fall asleep and wake up later feeling off or groggy. This is because they have only breathed long enough to open up an old wound and bring it half way out, before their defenses shut them down again. In some cases they are in a worse state than before they breathed, as they are only what I call ‘half-baked’.
d) Having run monthly introductory evenings for quite some time now, I have met many people who have tried it on their own and have shared their amusing stories with me. They are usually along the lines of…”I thought: how hard can an hour and a half of breathing be? So I tried it on my own and found myself falling asleep after ten minutes of breathing, waking up, then breathing for another ten minutes then falling asleep and so forth for two hours. All I got was a headache and a really crappy feeling for a couple of days”. Or another: “Well, I read a description of the technique and I thought I’d tried it on my own in a hot bath (a technique described by Leonard Orr). My hands and arms totally cramped up, so I got worried and tried to get out, fell on the floor and stayed there until my arms released. It was all pretty scary really so I thought I would give it a proper go now.”
Q. WHAT CAN I EXPECT TO OCCUR?
A. This is described in the ‘What is Breathwork?’ page
Q. HOW CAN I EXPECT TO FEEL AFTERWARDS?
A. This will vary individual to individual, and session to session. Some people feel elated, joyful, light and open upon finishing the session and will retain this feeling to a large degree until the next level of emotional mass starts to come to the surface for releasing. This is especially common if someone books in for a series of sessions, as the unconscious starts to push old emotions and patterns to the surface to be dealt with in the next session, long before the next session actually commences. (This is often the result of sending a strong intention to the higher self to help you experience a deep level of healing.)
On the other hand, some people can feel raw, vulnerable and emotional upon finishing the session. This simply means that the unearthed trauma needs more than two and a half hours to work on, and more support than the Rebirther can give. The universe provides this support through partners, family or friends, by setting up the life situations that take us deeper into the emotional pain to release the rest and integrate the energy. This can take usually a few days or in some instances weeks, and then the elation, joy, lightness and more openness can come through. Obviously the more sessions a person has the more pronounced and long lasting these positive effects are.
Other effects of this form of purification can include feeling heavy or tired, feeling emotions that weren’t there before. (That’s why they call it the unconscious: you weren’t conscious of the underlying feelings, just of their symptoms – your issues / problems). Another possibility is that you may feel more emotional than when you started. It may sound strange but this is good news as it means that the layer of emotion that was the cause of the presenting issue is leaving for good. Sometimes people will experience flu-like symptoms such as a sore throat, cough, runny nose, headache or all of the above – just more detoxification symptoms; good news. Other more subtle symptoms include mild muscle twitches and releases, mild muscle aches, feeling a bit spaced out, slight nausea or feeling a bit off-centre.
This may all sound like the opposite of healing and wellbeing, but this is what real, deep, physically and emotionally integrated spiritual healing looks like. If you want real results and you want to actually feel differently at the end of the day you may need to go through some discomfort as the old pains and their related toxicity leaves your system. If you want to read more evidence of this, buy yourself a copy of ‘Play of Consciousness’ by Swami Muktananda, a worldwide recognized enlightened master who left his body permanently in 1982. He doesn’t hold back in sharing about the pain and discomfort that are unavoidable on the path of real and integrated enlightenment.
On the more positive side of things the majority of people report back with the following benefits from short to medium term Breathwork therapy:
- an improved ability to be open and communicative in their relationships – hence reclaiming feelings of love and affinity within romantic relationships and relationships in general
- increased self esteem and confidence
- improved physical health and reduction or even eradication of symptoms of physical disease that other more physically based healing modalities could not cure
- feelings of joy and fulfillment – unconditional happiness
- a natural and spontaneous decrease in addictive behaviour – drugs, alcohol, food,
work/busy-ness etc - inner peace – less mind chatter hence people find themselves more present (in the now)
Q. WHEN WILL I START TO FEEL THE BENEFITS?
A. This also varies individual to individual. As mentioned in the previous answer it can be immediately that you feel the positive effects, or it can take a few days or weeks of integration. Breathwork is a process. It is not something that just occurs in the two and a half hours you are with me. It really starts the moment you make a firm decision/resolution to go through the process. It is actualised in the session with me, and for most people integrated within three days afterwards. Some people’s destiny is to receive all they need from the one session, some within three, and others may need half a dozen to a dozen to accomplish the same result. Either way, stick with it and you will receive the benefits – feelings of joy, happiness and contentment for no reason, a sense of lightness and more open hearted relating.
A. Both modalities are powerful tools and can be useful at different times in our emotional process and soul’s unfolding. Whilst both aim to increase and bring attention to your emotions and heal them, they utilise very different techniques. Some forms of Counselling focus on talking and empathic listening, and through this shared communication gently bring emotional issues to the surface. Breathwork, on the other hand, uses the profound breathing technique to do this more quickly and directly. It is more cathartic and experiential; and it is my belief that through releasing these powerful emotions that they are healed. In addition, Counselling may take a much longer period of time to reach these levels or may never even touch them. I have seen countless people who have done long courses of Therapy or Counselling and it has helped them immeasurably. It has provided the stepping stones to enable them to have even more profound healings than those who have not, as their awareness provides the leverage to go deep rather quickly. But I must reiterate that AWARENESS does not equal transformation. To truly transform we must feel and experience our deepest emotions in order to heal them. Counselling and Therapy work brilliantly in conjunction with Breathwork. Yet I must share what many clients have shared with me, which is along the lines of… “WOW! I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars on therapy and I feel I’ve received more benefit and made greater progress in just a handful of Breathwork sessions.”
Q. DO I HAVE TO BELIEVE IN/ SUBSCRIBE TO ANY PARTICULAR BELIEFS/ SYSTEM OF THOUGHT FOR IT TO WORK?
A. NO. It is not a religion or pseudo-religion. It has no Dogma attached to it. It is a therapeutic healing technique and can profoundly change who you are being in the world. Breathwork actually embraces all religions and systems of thought and spiritual philosophy. There is absolutely nothing for you to believe in for it to work. Anyone who lies down (or sits up) and breathes in this particular way will receive the benefits of this sacred breathing technique. You would have to be very unwilling to change or let go of old pains for it not to give you the healing it automatically does.
Q. IS IT SOMETHING I HAVE TO PRACTICE/ LEARN BEFORE IT WORKS?
A. NO. IT WORKS FIRST TIME EVERY TIME. I have had people who have never meditated before, never looked into a spiritual philosophy, people who only heard about it for the first time on the day they had a session with me, and in all these cases these people had profound spiritual and/or healing experiences. That is the beauty of this compared to, let’s say, meditation. With meditation you have to practice it consistently over a long period of time before you experience the same sense of wellbeing you would after Breathwork sessions. Often times even experienced meditators experience real BLISS for the first time in Breathwork.
Q. I HAVE HEARD THAT IT CAN BE TRAUMATIC OR MAKE YOU FEEL ”BAD’, IS THIS TRUE?
A. NO. This perception is unfortunately a reflection of the level of ignorance and misunderstanding that exists in society when it comes to emotional healing. Breathwork IS NOT TRAUMATIC; IT BRINGS OLD TRAUMA TO THE SURFACE TO BE RE-EXPERIENCED/FELT AND IN THE FEELING OF IT, IT IS HEALED. For the majority of deep ‘wounding’ this bringing to conscious awareness of the emotional pain is necessary. It is the failure of many healing modalities not to do this. This is why so many people experience going through ‘a hundred and one’ healing modalities to now available.
