When Elvi Orr was 27, she took a HUGE jump. And quickly. After attending a nine-day retreat in Virginia with Rebirthing Breathwork International, Elvie quit her job, moved across the world, and jumped fully into the practice and a relationship with founder Leonard Orr. They knew they had a soul contract to work out and she was willing to give it her all.
The rest of that story is history, as they're now married, running retreats and trainings together. “I left my life in Estonia, my profession, everything. I started a completely new life and I opened up to all of my spiritual possibilities, a hundred percent. What a great blessing.” Elvi reflects.
Primarily based in Virginia, Elvi and Leonard sometimes travel with the Rebirthing Breathwork trainings and facilitate a network of practitioners across the world. Which brings up the question: why rebirthing?
It comes down, to the issue of the “unconscious death urge,” Elvi says
“It was Freud who first coined the term the unconscious death urge,” she explains. “I’m about to turn 36, so if I follow the conditioning of society and of my previous generations, the way I would think about my life is something like this. ‘Ok I’m 37 almost, if I’m lucky I will live up to 90, so I might as well do a little bit of math and I have about 53 more years to live, so it’s probably good to do a little bit of planning.”
We don’t become obsessed with death per se, but we do become obsessed with life’s end-point and how to prepare for it.
“It’s very common, so we have to differentiate the practical side of that -- which is, let’s say when you’re 70, you might want to prepare some documents of your will or something like that. But there's another psychological part of it and an emotional, energetic part of it, which is that basically, you are programming your own death if you think that way.”
That thought pattern might sound familiar. If you believe fully in the power of manifestation, you can begin to see glimpses of why this subtle belief system would be a problem. But what Elvi and Leonard are seeking to heal often starts with the ways this subtle “death urge” plays out in our life habits.
“Anything we do that is self-destructive, that doesn’t support us or our health, or our well-being, or our harmony, could be part of the death urge,” she says. “Everybody just has to see where this is coming from for them. If they do something that they can recognize as self-sabotaging, where is this coming from? Is there something that they're trying to cover up with it? Like overeating, emotional eating.” She also brings up smoking, which most know to be a cause of cancer -- and yet, they still indulge.
“And the death urge can also be about not doing for ourselves that which we know would be nurturing or just… despondency, not making pro-life choices. It’s all about getting to a point where we are healing ourselves enough that we are actually enjoying life enough that we want to stick around.”
This is the role of Rebirthing -- asking each participant to jump in. “With Rebirthing, whatever we want to deny about ourselves or not think about, or the past traumas, if we are on the conscious path, it will come up one way or another. Because the spirit always wants to heal, always. And if we give the spirit the slightest chance, it will show us what’s there to be healed.”
In Elvi’s experience, death eventually becomes a neutral word -- just a thing that will happen someday. And in the meantime? There’s a lot of life to enjoy if you’re just willing to take the jumps without letting your mind hold you back.
The purpose of Rebirthing Breathwork International is to conscious breathers and rebirthing breathworkers across the globe. They strive to improve the quality and experience of rebirthing work, while improving the lives of others. To learn more, visit Rebirthing Breathwork International's organization page.