Rebirth by breathing

Press, 16 February 1984, Page 13

Rebirth by breathing

By

JACQUELINE STEINCAMP

Rebirthing is the subtlest, most difficult to describe method of growth therapy, according to Aucklander Jefferson Chapple. Together with another rebirther from Auckland and one from the United States, Mr Chapple runs workshops on rebirthing and conducts private sessions at the Natural Health Centre in Christchurch.

How does rebirthing work? Believe it or not, it’s a breathing technique which opens up the breath “so that negative thoughts and blocks held in the body can be released.” Something like meditation with words.

Mr Chapple claims that the symptoms and problems of many of those he has rebirthed have disappeared completely. These are symptoms like heart palpitations, indigestion, tension, unresolved anger, and all sorts of negative and selfdestructive attitudes.

“But it’s all so subtle,” he says. “Things just happen and you’re not sure if it was rebirthing or something else that caused it.

“It’s hard to analyse what happens during sessions, but people can make the most amazing breakthroughs in changing the quality of their

thinking, and learn to enjoy living. Rebirthing lifts both the experience and the part the mind plays in evaluating the experience, into a working positive partnership. “If birth or childhood was painful, and a person decided that life is painful, it may be time to get that thought out of the system. Past painful experiences are over and can’t hurt us any more, but the thinking we have that is based on those experiences directs our lives until we change it,” he says. Although rebirthing is ideal do-it-yourself therapy, Mr Chapple says it is important that about 10 sessions be conducted by a professional rebirther to enable a person to have complete breath control. Every rebirther takes the opportunity of being rebirthed as often as possible. Mr Chapple has had about 130 sessions with himself as client. He claims that it has relaxed him and made him “unshakeable in his selfesteem.”

"I’d gone through life thinking there was something wrong about me, because my parents were worried about the possibility before I was born,” he said.

Rebirthers encourage positive thoughts from re-

birthees. They try to find the affirming phrases that most help the individual, such as "I am worthy of love and respect,” “I can get what I want,” and imprint these thoughts on the mind. Mr Chapple makes each rebirthee write out a list of affirmations to take home.

Rebirthing is carried out with the rebirthee on the floor and the rebirther sitting alongside, to demonstrate correct breathing techniques. At the same time, the rebirther will gently encourage the rebirthee to explore thoughts and feelings in a state of complete relaxation. That’s “dry” rebirthing. A long soak in a bath of warm water is said to be even more effective. When Mr Chapple returns to Auckland, he intends to experiment with a snorkel and nose-plug in his own home tub. Rebirthers believe this is the closest you can get to the experience of being in the womb, thus enabling the rebirthee to go as far back in life as possible. Though Mr Chapple’s training seems slim by the standards of established medicine, those who have attended his workshops and Erivate sessions speak ighly of his professionalism, his caring approach and sensitivity.