About Rebirthing

The name “rebirthing” was created in the 1970s by Leonard Orr (USA). It was inspired by his particularly difficult birth, during which he almost died. He researched intensively into solutions to free himself from his birth trauma. He developed “connected breathing”, which means not pausing between inhaling and exhaling. He carried out countless self-experiments by performing this breathing technique in the bathtub, a state similar to that in the womb. And he realized that reliving his birth experience at that time led to an improvement in his emotional state.

That was the beginning of rebirthing.

However, Leonard Orr also realized that it is just as possible to breathe in this way when “dry”. The bathtub receded into the background. The focus on the birth also increasingly disappeared. Rebirthing breathing was therefore more than just the solution to a specific issue & trauma.

Rebirthing eventually spread across the globe and today you can find a wide variety of names for “connected breathing”. Primarily everything around the word “breathwork”.

For myself, however, I have decided to continue calling it “rebirthing” because, firstly, I trained under this name in 1990 (Professional Rebirther) and, secondly, the name is the most meaningful for me (feeling “reborn” again).

However, it is not just the breathing that is decisive in rebirthing. It is above all the approach “during” the breathing, i.e. the attitude with which you go into a breathing session. After all, this is the crucial point that determines what results you ultimately achieve and how.

I can best describe my approach and my “philosophy” of rebirthing as follows:

Firstly, the aim is to be able to rebirth yourself in any situation. What does that mean? It is advantageous to first learn the rebirthing technique from and with a rebirther. That is one thing. After about eight sessions, you will have gained so much experience that you can continue on your own at home. That is the other. In the rebirthing sessions, you have learned to observe energetic patterns (these are the energies in the body that arise when you devalue something) and to let them come and go. This is the practice in a “session”. However, the biggest and strongest energetic patterns always come with life. In short: “everyday life”. My “teaching” is therefore that rebirthing is only completely ‘round’ if you apply it precisely when life itself brings forth the issues (the energetic patterns) that have not yet been “completed”. Advantage: you immediately feel free in “real life”.

The following comparison: rebirthing sessions are like sitting in a flight simulator. Great, interesting and just like in reality. But rebirthing in everyday life is like flying an airplane yourself.

Secondly, what are the key points of the rebirthing technique? It is not so much the breath, although of course it always plays a central role. Rather, it is about mental access “during” the breathing. It is also not necessary to breathe “connected” all the time. No. There are always energetic patterns that are integrated, for example, when you hold your breath briefly or breathe “normally”, as you always do. In short: connected breathing is a “nice to have”, but not the most important thing. Rather, it is the technique of remaining attentive to what is there at the moment. And to look at it as it is right now. And then to give the energetic pattern the space and time to show itself in its own way and to be allowed to change until it reintegrates itself into the overall energy system (or, to put it another way, dissolves into the overall energy system). For this purpose, I have developed special “integration tools” that can be incorporated during the process. These techniques mean that you hardly get stuck in the old familiar avoidance strategies and make rebirthing a truly liberating experience.
Which brings us to the next point.

Thirdly: for me, rebirthing is mainly about regaining personal freedom. What does that mean? A question that I’m sure everyone has asked themselves: “Am I truly free?” Probable answer: “Basically yes. But it also depends on the external circumstances. After all, you can’t always do everything you want.” From this point of view, I see it the same way.

However, rebirthing is not about the “external” circumstances that allow you to be more or less free, but about the “inner” mechanisms. What does that mean? Most of the time we are actually not free. For the following reason: since we live in a polarized world, we always have to decide “for” and therefore automatically “against” something. What we “don’t” want in our lives is usually “devalued” and therefore creates an unpleasant feeling in our bodies. You don’t want to feel this “negative feeling” and so it is “suppressed”. An “energetic pattern” is automatically created in the energy body, which is, so to speak, the footprint of your own perspective on what you don’t want. Strategies are therefore automatically developed (e.g. distracting yourself, sugarcoating things, lying to yourself, finding excuses, sticking to one´s convictions, etc.) in order to avoid feeling this feeling or energetic pattern. And we have all developed many, many small and large strategies in our lives. But in order not to have to feel this negative feeling, namely that you are bound to your inner avoidance strategies, the strategy is to convince yourself that you are free to make decisions at any time.

In short: if energetic patterns dissolve, you no longer need the avoidance strategies and are therefore “really” free in your decisions. That’s what it’s all about.

And fourthly, there is nothing that can be predicted in my approach to rebirthing. Neither the rebirther nor the rebirthee can know which energetic patterns will be activated or integrated during a rebirthing session. Accordingly, rebirthing is not a method for saying: “I want a solution to this or that problem”. Therefore, if you have a specific physical, emotional or psychological problem, you should always go to a doctor, psychologist, therapist or life coach. Rebirthing has nothing to do with any of this. Rebirthing is about allowing yourself to be surprised by what your own energy wants to reveal as the most important energetic pattern at the moment – and not what your mind thinks it would like to solve.

To describe it more clearly by way of comparison: if you have a specific problem, such as tension in your neck, you go to a massage therapist or physical therapist specifically for that issue. Eventually, the pain goes away and you no longer go to the therapist.

Rebirthing is like doing yoga regularly. It doesn’t matter whether you have tension or not. You stretch and elongate your whole body and become more supple, flexible, and free from session to session. And you feel more and more comfortable. At some point, any tension you may have had at the beginning simply disappears on its own.

Conclusion: rebirthing is suitable for people who want to learn a technique that they can use themselves at any time and that enables them to feel freer and freer from session to session.