BBVIT is a unique and sophisticated wholistic therapy that incorporates yoga, breath therapy, cognitive behavioral elements, vocal entrainment and cellular-memory work. Self-awareness practices and sensory integration leads to the recognition of your compulsive patterns, so that you may learn how to "get out of our own way". This method is designed to free you from harmful mental, physical or emotional patterns that hinder you from functioning to the best of your ability. This allows healthier, more natural patterns of thinking, moving, breathing, and expression to assert themselves.
"How you think about something affects how your body functions. Your physical state affects how you think. Both mind and body are influenced and affected by your emotions. This intertwined system can be altered from any one of the three component sources: mind, emotions, or body." Jack Rosenberg and Beverly Kitaen-Morse: "The Intimate Couple"
All that we experience in our lives affects our bodies and psyches. Through our personal adventures we adopt patterns of physical and psychological behavior that may have been necessary to assure biological survival or social comfort in the past. When we feel anxious, our bodies tighten, when bad things happen to us, or we are subjected to violence in the media, our bodies harbour feelings of caution and fear. This is the nervous system's natural response to threatening situations and is healthy; these responses help us feel safe. However, if we continue to exhibit these reactions long after the threat (perceived or real) has passed, we begin to react to current (safe) situations as if we are we are still being threatened. When the compensation continues past the need, there is a problem; past issues begin to pull us out of the present moment. Left unchecked, these "red-alert" warning patterns will become deeply embedded in our nervous systems, and lead to dysfunctional behavior.
"...painful experiences, emotions and memories can find their way to the musculature and simply remain there as frozen patterns of energy. Dr. Andrew Weil: "Health & Healing"
In BBVIT, permanent, somatic change is found through a re-integration of the body, breath and voice. During the process of reconnecting these three modalities into a healthy, balanced assemblage, the challenges or past traumas will surface, allowing you to first recognize them, then understand them, and, if you are ready, face them and let them go.
BBVIT can offer many benefits, including:
- Increases body, mind and emotional awareness - Fosters a safe and effective process of curiosity and inquiry of self, that initiates your own self-regulating and self-healing abilities - Promotes the discovery and transformation of harmful mental and physical self-image patterns - expressing oneself more fully, communicating with your authentic voice, without anger or insecurity - Heals respiration difficulties, recovering the joy of breathing to your fullest - increased energy, through the elimination of unnecessary energy expenditure - Increased ease in dealing with stress - Better overall physical health, through the lessening of chronic pain and strain - Connect with your environment, in a more open and sensual manner - Promotes the re-discovery of personal or creative needs or wants that may have become buried - Improves posture and flexibility - Increases self-esteem and personal confidence - Finding a renewed capacity for hope, love, trust, mutuality and intimacy - Learning to recognize, listen and understand your undistorted, genuine, inner voice by recognizing the difference between our instincts and our compulsions.
BBVIT may assist with the following stress-related conditions:
Cardiovascular and Respiratory ailments: Asthma, Sinusitis, Bronchitis, Colds, High Blood Pressure (Hypertension), Heart Disease, Smoking-related, Costochondritis.
Vocal difficulties: Voice Loss, Speech Impairments and Throat Ailments.
BBVIT is designed to free us from harmful mental, physical or emotional patterns that hinder us from functioning to the best of our ability. Self-awareness practices and sensory integration gives us the knowledge and training necessary to build a safe and transformative personal practice. This allows healthier, more natural patterns of thinking, moving, breathing, and expression to assert themselves, leading to increased self-esteem and improved health.
Step 1: Natural Breathing Techniques Accessing how we breathed as infants, using our full relaxed body. We learn how to release physical emotional and mental tension, as we let go of tight muscles that are being used for work which they were not intended. We learn to reconnect with the confidence, strength and joy inherent in the inhalation, and the safety, surrender and release of the "sigh" exhalation. By "getting out of our own way" we remember how much easier aspects of life can be.
Step 2: Vocal Play and Movement Therapy Voice is the metaphor for how we interact in the world. Learning how to sing with the proper intention is one of the healthiest activities for our body, mind and spirit, because few things are as personal than the voice with which we were born. When we speak do we speak confidently and slowly from our belly, with voices nicely focussed forward? Or do we hide our voice at the back of our throats, fearful of reprisal, or push the voice out, angry with the assumption that we will be judged? Our posture and mechanics of movement are metaphors for our internal concepts of ourselves. Are our postures and movements strong, joyful and confident? Or are they bent over, weak and fearful? In this step we learn that by changing these physiological habits, we change ourselves.
Step 3: Cellular Memory Work Dr. Candace Pert, in her book 'Molecules of Emotion', describes her Nobel Prize nominated research on how emotions affect our bodies at the cellular level. If trauma and negative emotions are not resolved, they become physically stored as a cellular memory, preventing those cells involved from their natural chemical communication and adaptation. These memories 'switch off' these cells into holding patterns, leading to emotional and physical disease years after the events originally occurred. Cellular Memory work can enable one to let go of these memories, 'switching on' your cells, enabling them to again regenerate in a healthy manner.
TESTIMONIALS
"When I left my session I was so energized I felt like I was walking on air." - Bonnie
"It is like having a Eureka, like finding something we didn't know we had. I feel so joyful, strong and limber after our body and breath sessions." - Joy-Ruth & Ed (born in the 1920s)
"I have wanted to sing ever since I was a child. As I could not match pitch, I was bounced around from teacher to teacher, until my last voice instructor told me to 'take up knitting'. This hurt a tremendous amount. I was told that my breathing was incorrect, but no one could show me how to fix it. Finally I heard about a voice instructor whose specialty was breathing. I went to David, and after a few weeks of breath and voice therapy, we discovered that I could match pitch with more accuracy lying down. As we began Cellular Memory Work, we discovered that my pitch problems were due to childhood trauma: At night, lying down, I was safe in my bed; but as soon as I got out of bed to stand upright to face my emotionally abusive mother, I would shut my ears off, so as to not listen to her hurtful words. Because of feeling unsafe for so many years, I was "reverse breathing"; that is, the belly would go in as I inhaled, and out as I exhaled, causing numerous health problems. Together, we worked on these patterns. Today, I have passed my Grade 3 Toronto Conservatory Exam, and feel more healthy and energized that I ever have. - Stella (late 60s)
"I was in an accident where I was run over by a 4x4. Both of my lungs were punctured, and my ribs were cracked in two places. 14 months after the accident, I went to see Mr. Wilson. At that point, my breathing was very shallow, and, although I was walking with a cane, movement was extremely painful, slow, and labourous. Coughing, hiccupping, sneezing, laughing, and, in fact, breathing, all hurt a lot. After my first session, it was like a miracle had occurred. I was breathing fully and openly in my belly and chest, and my movement and balance was much more free and stable. Much of the pain I had during so many movements was just about gone. Why don't the doctors tell us the amazing effect proper breathing and connecting the breath to movement can have on the body? I am blown away... this is a miracle; I just can't believe it!" - Dana, 25.
"When I went to David, I was taking: 80 mg Celexa 150 mg Welbutrin 5 mg Dexadrine
I would experience severe panic attacks two or three times a day; usually they would last over an hour. Within two months the frequency of panic attacks was down to one every three to four days; those I did have could breathe my way out of in five to ten minutes. By the fourth month the attacks were down to on every couple of weeks, and controllable in less than five minutes. As well my clinical depression had lifted considerably. Now, two years later, I have been able to drop the medication to: 20 mg Celexa 100 mg Welbutrin 5 mg Dexadrine
It has now been seven months since my last panic attack." -Kira
I had been on many meds for over two years, most recently, Diovan. After seeing David for two months, I am now off all the meds, including the Diovan. - Lorraine
IN CLOSING...
It is in change that we find purpose. BBVIT is about a renaissance of the senses; a technique of restoring your somatic awareness in order to explore who you are and who you might become. BBVIT is also about TRUE self-empowerment. One does not give up old patterns unless something is presented that is a more viable option. Further, this viable option must be sustainable in the long term, preferably through self-maintenance.
The BBVIT therapist's job is to put herself out of one. This process does not make a client reliant on the therapist, or even the process; rather, it empowers the client to figure it out on their own, offering the awareness and intuition to heal themselves through the understanding of how they function in relation to their internal and external worlds. This is why this process works, where many fail. The therapist is not doing the work, the client is. Intrinsic to this process includes learning how to breathe more healthfully, speak or sing more confidently, move more fluidly, and live more joyfully.
The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind. -Dr. Wayne Dyer
Breath Our entire body in ruled by chemicals; the PH balance of the body. Learning to manipulate our manner of breathing effects the amount and number of chemicals that are secreted, thereby having an immediate transformative effect on our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
Movement How we move reflects how we feel. Change the patterns of movement, and we start to realize there are other options in our lives, and our feelings change accordingly.
Stretching Stretching increases blood flow, muscle elasticity, and oxygen levels. Every type of stretch also has an emotional, metaphorical component to it. When our body feels healthy (not pushed, nor ignored) our attitude will be healthy as well.
Talk & Listen Therapy An important part of BBVIT, this includes an intimate knowledge of how we as humans live and act, an innate ability to get to the bottom of personal and societal issues. Most importantly, this involves the capacity to glean the most positive, safe, and empowering manner of leading people to answers that they already know.
Cellular Memory This involves going directly back to the source of the trauma, discovering where the memory is stored in the body, and dealing with it directly through meditation and visualization exercises. Many people (especially those who are visual or kinesthetic learners), claim that cognitive behavioral therapy has been very helpful, but that there is still something missing; they have figured it out, yet they report that the body is still acting as if they haven't figured it out. Cellular Memory Work is proven to reach that final plateau of truly ridding the body of the memory, and healing the trauma.
Voice North America's #1 fear is public speaking, as nothing is more personal than our primary means of expression. How our voice sounds reflects who we are and how we feel about ourselves. Assisting people in speaking and/or singing with increased confidence and joy has an immediately positive effect on how we relate to other people, and how other people react to us.
This therapy has been developed through many years of study of both eastern and western medical systems, with a goal to bring an end to my own struggle with voice loss and breathing problems, all related to challenges with asthma, allergies, and anxiety.
"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." ~Eleanor Roosevelt
Learning about ourselves is a precious gift. Nobody can heal us except ourselves. There are literally millions of "healing methods" out there, with people, most often well-meaning, willing to offer their services.
The question is, do we allow ourselves to become addicted to the "healer", or to the "healing method"? If you are being given the answers (doing it for you), perhaps there will always be a small part of you that says "I didn't do it", and therefore you will never be truly empowered, or truly satisfied with the results.
In other words, if you find yourself thinking "I don't feel well, I've got to get over to ________ for help" then there may be a problem, even an addiction.
The world is full of people who have the ability to put you in touch with old emotions; whether by true skill or by simply pushing your buttons. This is not necessarily healing. Perhaps it is wise to ask: in "opening you up" are they offering you the tools to deal with those emotions once they surface? Are you being empowered to self-generate your own skills and power? If not then, in the end, this is not necessarily helpful, instead, it may often make us feel as if we are never "good enough".
This being said, there are times when intervention is appropriate. Topical, instant relief is fine in the short term, as long as we understand that it is only a beginning.
"To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization." Harriet Beecher Stowe
Further to addictions, it is also very easy to get the impression that the less we have to work, the more enlightened we are. The more that we "do what we want" the happier we will be.
This is not true. There is a difference between a well-earned break, and running away from oneself. Doing what we need to do is noble, and grounding. Doing what we want to do (or think we want to do), with no consistancy or discipline, is not "healing", or "enlightened". It is a self-absorption issue, and will often leave us flighty, frustrated, and ungrounded.
"High Living is not buying the most expensive wine, going to a performance of the Ring Cycle, or flying to Paris for the weekend. It is choosing to do none of this and being perfectly content with your decision." - Curtis Dueck
It is about balance. The balance between doing what needs to be done, and what keeps us recharged. Balance between knowing we have things to look at about ourselves, while being content with who we are in this moment. The balance between working hard on our goals, and trusting that all will work out as it should.
"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove." - Samuel Johnson
"Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will." - Jawaharal Nehru
What is Body, Breath & Voice
