This work has been developed by Juerg Roffler, director of the Middendorf Breath Institute in Berkeley, and is rooted in the Experience of Breath, the Middendorf Breath Work, developed by Prof. Ilse Middendorf of Berlin/Germany over the past 70 years. Breathexperience™ in Relationship is a further development of the Experience of Breath and helps communicate, clarify, resolve conflicts, deepen and transform partnerships and relationships.

Breath is more than just the function of breathing. It provides us with more than the substance to live, and it carries a deeper meaning than only the exchange of oxygen. Ancient cultures already knew about the potential and wisdom of a much wider experience and understanding of Breath.

When we experience and participate in the physical sensation of the movement of breath in our body, without interfering with its natural rhythm, we learn that every single breath cycle - inhalation, exhalation, and pause - is different. The cycles of breath as different as they are, taken together, create a breath rhythm - like a piece of music. Breathexperience connects us to an intelligent source within that provides us with exactly what we need for our own individual life processes to stay in balance. However, this connection can happen only when we allow breath to come and go on its own, without influence from our will, and only with our full participation and presence in our experience of breath.

In reality, even the smallest incidents in our life are reflected in the breath rhythm. When I am happy, my breath rhythm is different from when I am sad or angry. When I am physically active, again my breath rhythm is different from when I rest or sleep, etc.. My own individual breath rhythm shows my individuality. MayJune 28July 26Sep 27

The BREATH RHYTHM emerges as an important indicator of all conscious and unconscious events within and around ourselves. In Breathexperience in Relationship™, breath becomes both the basis of our orientation, and the opening that shows us what the next step can be in our personal process, and with our partner(s).

As we receive the breath in our body, it becomes more and more substantial. Inhalation, exhalation, and pause create movements in the body that can be physically sensed. When we sense these movements, we not only have a sensation of breath in the body but also an emotional and spiritual experience of ourselves that comes with this sensation. It is through sensation in the body that enables our feelings and thoughts to become real. Once feelings and thoughts have reference through the body, together they support a process of identification of Self. Breath encompasses sensation, feelings, and thoughts. A sense of oneness, and a sense of Self can then be experienced.

When entering partnerships, and individual breath rhythms are in tune, so that each one's rhythm is authentic - allowing breath to come and go on its own - recognition of one's own Self develops the potential for a meeting of another's Self. At this point comes an understanding of one's own Self and the other, without either one adapting their breath rhythm. Both beings become involved in meeting authentically. Conflicting parts in the relationship are replaced by an understanding and acceptance of each other's truth. More tolerance and flexibility result. Old patterns drop away as possibilities emerge for new ways of being.

Breath does not primarily orient to where there are conflicts. Instead, Breath has a memory and maintains the connection through breathexperience™ with our healthy inner core: it stimulates the whole being to participate, to help create a state of equilibrium, and to spread the knowledge of the healthy core throughout our whole body and being. We can then outgrow our conflicts and shed them, as the dead leaves of a tree in Autumn release for the sake of the next year's growth. Life forces that were fragmented and isolated by physical and mental conflicts, become available once again for processes of restoring, creating, unfolding, and growth.

In a Breathexperience in Relationship™ process based on working with the natural breath, a specially trained facilitator shows the way for couples or small groups to work with one another and makes verbal or hands-on offers to stimulate breathexperience, This will allow the balancing and self-regulating dynamics of breath to become the source of their movements as they interact. All offers from the facilitator incorporate recognition and analysis of breath rhythm and breath principles. Integration can happen because each participant maintains presence and participates in the process of the breathexperience™.

Through movements that originate from breath, there are qualities of being which manifest within each individual. These qualities include complements, which we recognize as principles in Breathexperience in Relationship™. Some examples follow: Receptivity in breath movement has direction in breath movement as its complement. Inner breath movement has as its complement outer breath movement, stability is complemented by flexibility, instinct by spirit. These complements become an important tools in developing balance. Allowing the breath to come and go on its own will support any process leading to balance in all complementary forces, since this is a natural breath principle.

Movement that originates from breath is simply the continuation of our inner breath movement being realized in the world. The body is being moved by the breath, and the Self participates. This leads to breath dialogue in partnership and group. The result is a deeper connection and a more authentic communication on all levels.