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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Group Rebirths are significantly different in many ways from individual Rebirths. The Rebirther generally spends very little time, only fleeting moments, or maybe none at all, with each person during the group Rebirth. Group Rebirths are generally much less expensive than individual Rebirths, and, equally so, generally highly profitable for the Rebirther for the outlay of a short period of time. But, most of us were single births, so I recommend that people have their first experiences of Rebirthing in private, individual sessions, not in groups. I believe we deserve to have the completely undivided attention of one trained Rebirther when we first do the connected breathing and re-experience our births. Being even momentarily ignored, neglected, unsupported, or in any way isolated from constant loving attention is not a healing experience-it's just a repetition of old negatives. I think we're better off saving the group Rebirth until after we've let go most of the negatives that surrounded our births. Then we can create a genuine support group with the breath. Even more important is that the group Rebirth is more than just an expedient to permit lower fees. It's an opportunity to experience old negatives which can only come up in groups, like sibling rivalry and other kinds of competition. Another characteristic of group Rebirths that makes them an important, significant experience, one that each person involved in Rebirthing needs to be open to having, is that the energy generated by every person in the room while they're doing the breathing is being shared. On some level, everyone is affecting everyone else. Everyone is healing everyone else in the room. My fundamental feeling about group Rebirths is that they're nice things to do with a bunch of people who are experienced Rebirthers, committed to the breath, not drama, and who know each other and have spent time together recently with each other. I love to close weekend or week-long Rebirth workshops or trainings with group Rebirths. They seem to solidify the community feeling of love. I think the ideal group Rebirth is one associated with something like the One Year Seminar. I like it when people complete a Rebirthing workshop together, and, loving each other and trusting each other, agree to meet together once a month for a year and always Rebirth at those meetings. That's fine. A group Rebirth under those circumstances makes a great deal of sense to me. It continues to allow everyone in the group to feel increasing affection for each other, and it has the virtue of being essentially economical of time. I don't like conducting group Rebirths if they are essentially drop-in groups, where anyone who wants to Rebirth comes over, pays twenty or thirty dollars for the experience, lies down for an hour and breathes, and then we have a little sharing before everyone leaves. I especially dislike drop-in group Rebirths if I haven't had a pre-existing Rebirthing relationship with the people coming to the group Rebirth. When I occasionally allowed group Rebirths to be drop-in groups, I didn't find Rebirthing such groups of strangers at all pleasant, not only because of their biff-bam-
thank-you-ma'am characteristics, but because I think people come to them who don't want to handle their issues about money and don't think that they deserve to do or can afford to pay for individual Rebirths. Since my own Rebirthees seldom felt that group Rebirths with strangers present offered any advantage over self-Rebirths (which are, of course, free) I no longer run drop-in group Rebirths. All this may be my limited belief system coming out, though, because I freely admit I've had great times when I have attended some group Rebirths which involved dozens or hundreds of people who didn't know each other especially well. I don't believe that I have ever experienced extremely profound Rebirths in groups. But I have experienced sustained bliss. Once was at an event that Sondra Ray organized for an exhibit of angels that had been constructed by Los Angeles set-designer and decorator, Tony Duquette. The exhibit was set up in the beautiful surrounding of a Gothic-style church, with lovely lighting and soothing music. We listened to Charlton Heston talk about angels while we did our breathing together. That was very dramatic and very blissful and pleasant. Another great group Rebirth was at the 1981 Certification Training. I recall it as being filled with quintessential joy and bliss. But such fine group Rebirths have been far and few between in my experience. Usually I've been acutely aware of my reactions to the sounds and behavior of the people around me. For example, I have witnessed myself moving from interest to irritation to compassion to indifference within a matter of a few breaths while listening to someone who was next to me crying, or choking, screaming, or thrashing around, rather than breathing. Group Rebirths often entail high drama with people almost competing to see who can cry the hardest, who can breathe the most forcefully, who can groan the loudest, who can thrash back and forth the most vigorously, who can hold his breath the longest. As mentioned before, I always do a group Rebirth at the conclusion of a workshop or training. I have people lie down in the room so that their heads are arranged so that I can easily move around and get to each person. If the room is large enough, what I much prefer is that everybody put their feet toward the center of the room so that there is a maximum distance between one breather and the next, with plenty of room for me to walk around the outside of the group. I ask everybody before we start to make certain that they're comfortable and warm, and that they feel physically supported, with pillows and blankets. I don't want anyone tolerating even minor discomfort at the beginning of the group Rebirth because that discomfort is just going to become enlarged as the breathing leads to becoming more aware and sensitive. There's no sense to being uncomfortable. I tell people that I'm going to let them find their own breathing rhythm for the first five minutes or so. I also tell them that I then am going to play my tape of my 108 Perfect Affirmations for them to listen to while breathing. The affirmation tape runs for forty-five minutes. I tell them that after the tape is finished, they'll have ten more minutes, at least, of silence, to stay with their breathing, and then I'll put on a different tape to signal that the full hour has elapsed. I announce that if they have completed a Rebirthing by that time, they can just relax or very quietly get up to go out into the hall or go to the bathroom. I tell them that I don't want them talking with each other until the group post-Rebirth sharing. I also tell people that, if they are still breathing at the end of the hour, they can continue to stay in their Rebirth and they need not necessarily stop, but that, in about another ten or fifteen minutes, we will all be getting together, sharing our Rebirth experiences. Probably by that time, they will have wanted to bring their own Rebirth sessions to a close. I have often found that, in some countries, the desire to let go and be histrionic and dramatic is very strong. That desire is often shared by other people in the group who immediately assume the role of ôHelper.ö Recently, at the end of the hour, after leaving the group room to use the toilet, I returned to find five people surrounding someone who, rather than breathe, had decided to carry on, crying and screaming and holding her breath! They had all abandoned their post-Rebirth bliss to try to comfort her! So now, when I start group Rebirths, I remind people that their job during the group Rebirth is to lie down and concentrate on their own breaths, and allow whatever happens to pass through. They are not to try and comfort or in any way "help" other people in the group. Each person is there to find what he or she finds for himself. I remind them we all know that thought is creative, and that breathing lets you let go old negatives. So there's no point in trying to keep a person from feeling feelings, and there certainly is no point in encouraging someone to get into their feelings! What we're going to do is to breathe. I've essentially eliminated most melodrama as a problem in group Rebirths by that particular technique. During their breathing, I often bend down, squat down, or kneel down to talk with someone and remind him about breathing, or to offer him more tissues to blow his nose if he has been crying heavily, or to suggest that he bend his knees or put his arms down or caution him to let go all throat sounds. I remind him simply to concentrate on the breathing, not on the other noises in the room. Once in England I had about twenty laughers. The thirty non-laughers in the group were getting increasingly upset, it seemed. So I finally asked everyone who was laughing to leave that room and go into another, so all the laughers were in one room and all the weepers and breathers were in another room. I don't know if it made much significant difference to anybody except me. At least I didn't have to worry that anyone would hate me for not keeping the others quiet. I, myself, am loathe to try to squelch somebody who's laughing. On the other hand, I also know that laughter is a clever way of avoiding having to deal with keeping the breath regular and connected. It's a forced exhale, an emphasis on the exhale, just the same as yelling is. And I want my people who are Rebirthing to emphasize the inhale. So laughing isn't really good. Often at the beginning of a group Rebirth, I will say, "Please remember, you're here to breathe, you're here to surrender to your breath, you're here to share the spirit which each of you is generating, creating for each other. You're not here to weep, you know better than that, and you're not here to laugh. We'll laugh afterwards." I find that that kind of caution has mostly obviated the "problem," if it actually was one.
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The Logic of Magical Thought and The Dance of the Breath CHAPTER
TWO CHAPTER
THREE CHAPTER
FOUR CHAPTER
FIVE CHAPTER
SIX CHAPTER
SEVEN CHAPTER
EIGHT CHAPTER
NINE CHAPTER
11 CHAPTER
12 CHAPTER
13 CHAPTER
14 CHAPTER
15 CHAPTER
16 CHAPTER
18 CHAPTER
19 CHAPTER
20 CHAPTER
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