by Ted Rogers : Dancer/Performer/Writer/Artist/ Blogger/Poet/Model/Stylist

I’m Ted, 23 years old, and I first discovered Rebirthing breathwork through David Parker, ( here on the right ) a Breathworker with 25 years experience, after he suggested I try breath work and I trust his sound judgement so I decided to come to an individual 3 hour session and give it a go.

But from someone who has been diagnosed bi-polar (rapid-cycling) for 7 years and suffered many ins and outs of depression, medication, therapists and institutions, at first I was sceptical and I also find communicating with people and systems somewhat of a task due to my Aspergers (High-Functioning) syndrome, diagnosed in my teenage years. I was not convinced that breathing would really have that much of an impact on me. I had done meditation and Bikram yoga which both centre heavily around breathing and mostly the outcomes of these activities had been a headache or general exhaustion.

However, testimonials from friends of mine said something different and after having a conversation with fellow breather, Luca Marchetto the night before, outside the George and Dragon pub in Shoreditch, I was excited to experience Rebirthing breathwork. Luca had told me that it is different for every one, although he experiences weird hallucinations and usually “goes under” into a different world and then wakes up feeling amazing! This sounded extremely attractive to me. Especially considering I no longer use external substances to control my moods; the idea that I could experience these things purely with my own body was a bit of a revelation.

My first experience of rebirthing breath work was almost exactly as Luca had described. About 10 minutes in I began to feel all tingly and weird and then I could physically feel my emotions coming out of me as if my soul was releasing it bowels. I was crying uninhibitedly like a child, then I was laughing hysterically, and then crying again. I woke up some time later. The room was at peace and I felt utterly blissful. The food that was given to us in bitesize chunks tasted better than anything I had tasted in years even though it was just some banana chunks and Jaffa cakes. This was enough for me to want to go back for more and I have regularly attended URBAN LIFECLASS SUNDAY MONTHLY SEMINARS, and each time the experience has been different but still enough to bring me back. Even when a breathe has been painful or upsetting it has still felt useful, something clearly needs to be released so I just *go with it*.

Most importantly I have found Rebirthing breath work to be the most effective form of therapy in helping me through tough patches of depression. And if we consider that I have been through many a psychiatric professional, various institutions and 13 different medications over 6 years I think you can agree that this is somewhat of a profound discovery.

What Rebirthing breath work does is it gets you past your intellectual barriers and complicated head based reasoning and puts you into your body. It reaches deep into your soul and gives it a good massage and a shake. What this allows you to do is become unstuck. One of my biggest difficulties with depression is getting stuck. Either in a hole or a loop or a sticky pool of mud. Regardless of the work I have done the day before I wake up the next day in the same pool of shit I started in the day before. This winter I experienced this cycle for an excruciating 4 months and I am still not entirely free of it. However, when I have attend a breath work session it has always shifted something. I can’t always put my finger on what but I can feel that within me something has moved. This in turn has helped to remove me partially if not entirely out of my loop/whole/pool of mud in the space of a few hours.

This is incredible!

Never before could anything get me out of these ruts. Only recreational drugs or extreme life situations ever had any effect; and these two options come with negative longterm consequences whereas breath work does not. Price wise it is even reasonable. Especially compared to other alternative therapies and private medical care. For me I have found accessing therapies through the NHS extremely traumatic and the end result was that I was left on drugs without monitoring or any sort of talking/holistic therapies. Rebirthing breath work has begun a process in me. And I will continue to use it as therapeutic tool for as long as it serves me. I have huge gratitude for David and the assistants who help him in URBAN LIFECLASS group sessions, for showing me breath work and allowing me some release and progress from depression. This is how Rebirthing Breathwork and Urban LIFECLASS make me feel : Refreshed, ALIVE, Energised and FREE . . . 

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Ted has written an informative personal piece on DEPRESSION on his own blog . . . .

DEPRESSION is a subject that seems to turn many people into positive thinking experts or is something others would rather deny the existence of as a genuine sufferable illness. But from someone who has been diagnosed bi-polar (rapid-cycling) for 7 years and suffered many ins and outs of depression, medication, therapists and institutions, I would like to offer some of my experience and point out that it is OK and you are allowed to be depressed; it does not make you a bad person to be depressed. . . . http://artpornblog.com/2015/03/28/thought-porn-depression/