TWICE BORN – CHILDHOOD DECONDITIONING – Maitrea magazine (Czech Republic) 2013

I: WHY actually to want to be born for a second time?

PS: It’s true. Who wants to go through the pain and hardship that we often experienced at birth? Our first physical birth was an often traumatic event that hardly anyone of us can recall consciously without therapy work. We were too small, and had no sense of ourselves as separate from mother. And yet, it’s a law of the inner world that to heal the past, one has to go there and complete it. There are many therapeutic techniques that help you through the birth trauma and beyond it into healing. But what we offer in our Twice Born Primal Childhood deconditioning process is different.

Dwija, Twice Born, is an ancient Sanskrit word that indicates a psychological and spiritual rebirth. „Twice Born“ is a metaphor for starting fresh, leaving behind what is not really you and coming out with your true potential. You are slowly guided back in time until you as an adult give birth to yourself, this time not physically, but psychologically and spiritually. This process supports you to reown who you really are and manifest it in your life. Sometimes this will mean radical changes, and other times it will result in simply shifting your perspective and looking at your life from a totally new creative angle. Twice born is a work with our inner child. There is only one inner child inside us OR there many of them, different ages? Our inner child, as a living emotional reality inside us adults, is one. We feel its withheld pain, anger and fear when we experience rejection or punishment in our daily life and we overreact, creating more misery for ourselves. We also can clearly feel its original qualities when they surface in those special moments of our adult life, when we are in love, or in our creativity, or in meditation or whenever something beyond what is routine happens. But the unexpressed feelings that weigh inside us since childhood, as well as the potential buried underneath them, are very different for each individual. It all depends on how old he or she was as a child when the biggest wounds happened.

Wounds create different personalities according to the stage of development. For instance, a two year old can get really hurt when blocked and punished for the expression of its physical energy. It will learn to compress its anger in a toxic way and become unable to set limits. But a five year old can get hurt instead by ending up being used by the parent of the opposite sex in the conflict with the other parent. It will learn to sacrifice sometimes even its sexual identity, or have difficulties with intimacy. In the same way, also the positive qualities that we find back when we heal its wounds depend on age. The potential, or better said the essence, of a two-year-old is enthusiasm and willpower. When you regain it as an adult, it gives you the strength to say “no” and go your own way. The quality of a five year old instead is innocence and passion. When we find it back as adults, it gives us the key to bring sex and heart together in our lives and enjoy true intimacy. It’s very touching to meet the child inside us at different ages. There is so much of ourselves to remember, a treasure of experiences that will make us incredibly rich and open.

I: HOW to recognize that the problems we have in our life are connected with our inner child? (How to recognize that the twice born therapy is exactly the method we need?)

PS: Whenever we overreact to a present situation in a way that causes us more pain or isolation, it’s the child inside us that is feeling again an old wound. For example, when your boss at work suddenly becomes the father of your past, or your present lover becomes the mother of your childhood, it’s the child in us that sees them in this way. We project on the people of the present the feelings that as children we couldn’t express towards the parents of the past. There are of course also factual situations in the present that make us angry or sad, but that anger or sadness, once expressed, tends to dissolve. But when it persists or it is even complicated by guilt, we can be sure that the child in us is asking for our attention. When that child is not heard, it shrinks back in the forbidden area of our unconscious. We can continue functioning as adults, but we cannot fully live our potential. Our Twice Born – Primal Childhood Deconditioning Process helps you as an adult to reconnect with the child, understand what happened, and complete what has remained blocked and unexpressed inside that child. It is truly magical: by becoming aware of the child, and allowing through your adult body all the range of emotions, positive and negative, that this child could not express, those feelings will lose their grip on you and become lighter. You will feel emptier and emptier, until that emptiness will start filling up with all the forgotten qualities that are your original nature.

I: WHERE to look for our inner child and where to find it? (in our Heart? in our children room, lost under a table?…)

PS: Looking for the inner child on your own can be a bit confusing, because each one of us connects with the child in us according on how we perceive our inner world in general. The child lives in our senses. Some people see it, some people hear it, some feel it. If you pay attention, you will find the child one way or another. The first stage in our work is to meet the child in the most obvious and easiest place: its bedroom at home. We guide you step by step into your past, while you remain a conscious adult, until you arrive back there. Once you stand at the entrance door of your child’s bedroom, the child is always there, waiting for you. It is touching and very surprising.

I: HOW to meet our inner child? (what to do/say, what to NOT do/say by meeting the child… AND how to recognize that we have just met our inner child)

PS: Meeting the child in this way also makes us suddenly aware that we are now adults, who can stand up for it when needed. From our adult perspective, it is easy to love the child in us and want to protect it. This is more than enough. That’s all the child needs to open up and reconnect. There is no need for big promises or statements, love and presence are enough. How do we recognize we have just met our inner child? By feeling it. There is no factual proof except our inner feeling, the way we are touched by the meeting, the way we start remembering forgotten parts of our childhood, the way we feel a new sense of care for ourselves.

I: Does our inner child always to communicate with us? (if not – what to do?)

PS: It might well be that the child does not recognize us immediately. It is just an indication that it was about time to meet and establish a loving connection, or it might be that the child simply needs time to trust a grown up again. In that case, together with our guidance, patience is needed. But the outcome is always the same: sooner or later, it becomes a love affair. The second stage in our work is to shift perspective, and become that child. We guide you out of your adult body into the child’s body, feeling the atmosphere in the house and looking at the adult you from the outside. To see or feel ourselves as adults is fascinating, and very revealing. To hear ourselves speak as the child to that adult might give you a deep insight on where you have been ignoring some basic needs of that child. In fact, this process is as much about becoming a true conscious adult as much as healing the wounded child in us.

I: How does the Twice born-therapy look like? (used methods – bodywork, breathing, meditations, releasing emotions…; is it private or in group…)

PS: he process Twice Born-Primal can either be done in a group form or individually, through a series of ten sessions called Childhood Deconditioning. The group format provides a strong bonding and support system amongst the participants, and the series of sessions offers a more specific insight in one’s individual conditioning. In our work, according to the stage we are working on, we use age appropriate techniques involving bodywork, Gestalt, Emotional Release, Regression Journeys, to complete what remained blocked inside us. But the golden thread throughout the whole process is always one simple technique: learning to consciously shift perspective. Being able to experience the same situation from different angles: the one of the child in us, and the one of the adult in us. During the group or series we move further and further back in time, healing the wounds and uncovering the potential of each stage, from age ten until birth. In that way, we go the opposite way as more traditional therapies, which are focused on rebuilding a healthy personality, something needed in this world. Our direction is to uncover layer after layer of acquired personality in search of the core, that presence, which was already there at the moment of birth. We believe that by “remembering ourselves” in this way we can tap into an endless source of love and creativity and live a happier life,. We will meet the unavoidable challenges of life with a lighter heart and a feeling for our own truth.

I: Your workshop Primal – Childhood De-Conditioning (in August in the Osho-Leela Centre) – it is different from the Twice born?

PS: No, it’s not. It is what we offer in a group format. While the series of individual sessions is distributed in time (once or twice a week), Primal Childhood Deconditioning is a bit like a six to eight days retreat, with an intense schedule and some guidelines. To feel safe about diving so totally into old feelings, the participants need to suspend for a few days their connection with the world outside, and dedicate their time and attention exclusively to the child in them. This in itself is a great gift that one can give to oneself: the undisturbed space to turn inwards, with the additional thrill of becoming a child again. During the group, moments of great depth alternate with spaces of newly rediscovered playfulness. Moments of silence alternate with moments of great release. This is a needed balance, and it suits the child in us, who is still so flexible with its emotions. By the end of the group, the bonding between participants is very strong. It will continue as a support outside the group room into daily life, and it is greatly needed to integrate the big changes and insights that have happened during the work. Who would not want to be Twice Born?……