A Liberating Breathing Session

It happened during a Rebirthing workshop in Lesotho, in Southern Africa where I lived and worked at the time. I was 34. I had suffered from bulimia since I was 20. At first I had kept my behaviour top secret, hiding myself behind a relatively successful career. Little by little, however, I had accepted that I needed help and had finally dedicated all my free time and money to heal myself. The healing process lasted 5 years and included a course of psychotherapy, many sessions of bodywork, and numerous retreats in a Zen Buddhist centre that offered all kind of fascinating therapies, including Rebirthing. During a week’s holiday by myself in the UK, I somehow ended up writing a long letter to my mum, informing her that I was cutting all connexions with her. “You haven’t done anything wrong“, I reassured her, “I just need the space. I am very sorry“. I kept the letter with me for several days, until finally I posted it in Gatwick, before flying back home to Switzerland. The moment I posted the letter, I was at last free from the urge to binge and throw up after 13 years.

A few weeks later I got the job in Lesotho.

We were all comfortably lying down on the floor, and the facilitators were inviting us to relax and connect our breathing. Breathing in, breathing out… in… out… in… out… Soon, in my mind, I noticed this being dressed in white as he was coming towards me holding a birdcage. I couldn’t see his face. When he got nearer, he opened the cage towards me, and three black birds flew out towards the sky, completely free. I knew instantly the birds were my mother, my father and myself. My heart was full of love and I was crying.

To my amazement, all the exercises we did during that weekend’s workshop seemed to be about my parents. In truth they were completely neutral, but my interpretation of them, one way or another, was always pointing to my relationship with my parents. I cried a lot. When I got back home, I wrote to my mum, after a year of silence.

Soon afterwards my sister wrote to say that she had had a miscarriage again. I wrote back saying I was so sorry to hear that.

But she soon wrote again as she had heard that I had got back in touch with our mum. What she told me was amazing: Recognising the signs of her miscarrying, she had asked her baby, since he was leaving her body anyway, to go to Africa and plead with me to reconnect with my mum who was so unhappy. This had happened at the exact same time as I was receiving the vision of the being with the birdcage, thousands of miles away in Africa. I was immensely touched by my sister’s love and sensitivity.

Rebirthing is very powerful. It has the power to take us to a realm of consciousness far beyond our everyday reality, where our Higher Self is one with everything, looking after the highest good of everybody. All we have to do is connect your breathing, relax and trust.

by Brigitte Martin Powell