REBIRTHING
By Clare Gabriel
General Introduction
Everybody who rebirths has a quite unique and individual
experience. And whilst there are patterns in the breath
which may tell rebirthers much about their clients, essentially
the experience belongs to the client, or rebirthee.
Rebirthers act as wise guides and companions, bringing
their own experience of rebirthing and obviously their own
individual skills, talents and training to bear in each
session.
The deeper a rebirther is going in their own rebirthing
journey, the safer a client will feel and the deeper they
will be able to journey themselves. This is a journey of
releasing old energies, old patterns and blockages and of
becoming more conscious, more aware and ultimately more
accepting of oneself. It has been described as a heart-opening
experience. Rebirthing is both a therapy and a spiritual
practice and rebirthers are expected to continue to rebirth
as part of their ongoing care of themselves.
FIONA
At her initial consultation, Fiona describes herself as
wanting to “move on from hang-ups I feel I’ve
been carrying from my childhood, particularly from my teenage
years and in my relationship with my father. I feel I’m
carrying a burden but I don’t know what it is.”
Fiona is quiet speaking, self-contained and articulate.
She is 34 years old, an artist, living with her artist partner.
She feels she disempowers herself constantly in her relationship
and also doesn’t receive from her partner the acknowledgement
of her artwork that she gives to his. This is very hurtful
for her.
I ask her to describe her parents and family background.
I also ask about family placement, i.e. Fiona is the youngest
of five children born very close together. I note to myself
that youngest children of large families can sometimes feel
they have no voice and little, if any, influence on family
decisions and events.
In rebirthing it is essential to hear how a client views
themselves and their pasts. This provides me with a sense
of the belief systems at play in the family and of what
unconscious patterns may be playing out in the present situation.
At the end of the consultation, Fiona decides to come for
9 rebirthing sessions. Each rebirth will involve a period
of exploration of issues brought that day, followed by the
rebirth itself, where Fiona will lie down and breathe a
full, relaxed and connected breath for about an hour. The
session completes with a period for reflection and grounding.
During her first rebirth, grief and tears surface very
quickly and as Fiona breathes, she experiences this as the
loss of many close women friends that she has “abandoned”
in favour of new relationships with men. She then feels
a deep sense of grief and loss about her mother. As she
continues to breathe, these feelings move through her body
and pass, and by the end of the session, Fiona is feeling
a great sense of peace.
After completing the breathing part of the session, we discuss
how Fiona felt her mother had “sacrificed herself”
for the sake of the father’s ways (her parents are
in business together, but her mother has single-handedly
carried the responsibility for the family, whilst her father
had affairs).
In the next 3 rebirths, Fiona continues to release grief
from her body in each session, and it emerges that this
grief is about being a woman in a family where boys are
valued more highly and girls are expected to serve. Fiona
realises she wanted to be a boy, and suspects that her mother
preferred boys.
In the fourth session, the feelings that surface are about
a sense of betrayal by her father towards her, during her
teenage years, when he could not acknowledge her sexuality
and cut off from her because of his own discomfort. This
release and insight are very profound and bring about a
radical change in Fiona’s view of herself. She is
able to separate out her own feelings from her father’s
behaviour and to feel compassion for him, whilst acknowledging
her own hurt teenage girl. At the end of this session, Fiona
describes herself as feeling “Very light, and bubbly
and full of joy.” She says a great weight has lifted.
My most important work with Fiona as her rebirther is
in validating the experiences she has during the sessions
and in acknowledging her power and authority as a woman.
In rebirthing, we consider it important that at some stage
a person should be able to move into a place of completion
and forgiveness of parents, siblings, etc. However, it is
vital not to rush this process but rather to enable the
rebirthee to first fully experience the feelings that have
been suppressed for so long. And to feel that they are heard
and validated. When this happens fully, it is natural for
most people to find compassion in themselves for their parents’
imperfect humanness.
From the fifth to the ninth session, Fiona is now much
more present. She is bringing current issues about her present
relationship to the rebirths and strong affirming insights
are arising spontaneously in her during her breathes. She
experiences a great deal of pleasure and love in her body
during these sessions.
On my suggestion, she has been keeping a journal since the
beginning of her sessions and comments on how empowering
this has been. I have also given her positive affirming
statements, particularly to do with her acceptance, acknowledgement
and celebration of herself as a woman. She has been writing
these statements and enjoying the feelings that they bring.
As with many clients, the final session is one where we
explore endings and completions. Fiona has decided she will
continue to rebirth herself and come for individual one-off
sessions from time to time.
Conclusion
Fiona found the rebirthing process very easy and natural
and the breathing for her was always quite easy. She lives
close to her emotional life and for her to feel the feelings
suppressed in her childhood was not a difficult journey.
She was also, as she says herself, “more than ready
to take the plunge.”
Many other people, when they first rebirth, find the full
breathing quite difficult. This may reflect the earliest
breathing trauma, i.e. when their first breath was taken
at birth. It may reflect a lifelong pattern of struggle.
How a person breathes tells rebirthers an immediate story.
People who have a struggle with breathing, or who notice
that their breath is very shallow may find rebirthing particularly
healing. As the breath releases, it is as if a doorway opens
to more energy in our bodies and a greater conscious awareness
of our lives and ourselves.
Clare Gabriel
Chairman
British Rebirth Society
London N5
About the Author
Clare Gabriel trained as a rebirther in 1989, with Diana
Roberts of Creative Seminars. She then attended a further
6-month intensive residential training with Bob and Mallie
Mandel in Connecticut, USA during 1990. She has studied
extensively the inner child, gender issues and archetypal
psychology and has facilitated many workshops on these subjects,
always combining them with rebirthing. She has also co-led
rebirther training’s under the auspices of the British
Rebirth Society.
Clare considers herself a perpetual student of the breath.
She has maintained a daily meditation practice for many
years and rebirths herself regularly. The ground of her
work is self-acceptance, and the acceptance of our many
selves, and towards this end she encourages integration
rather than catharsis as a working method.
Before becoming a rebirther, Clare was involved for many
years in a theatre company dedicated to personal and spiritual
development through the use of theatrical arts.
Clare is a grandmother and a writer and is currently General
Secretary of the British Rebirth Society.
She has a private practice in North London and also facilitates
ongoing rebirthing groups.
Clare can be contacted on 020 7722 8650
