ON THE SOMME

It was like a bad dream and I'll never forget it. I'd decided to have a rebirth* to get to the heart of some of the things that were affecting me. My father was one of them. My relationship with him had been traumatic. I was with Jenny Blackie, a trained rebirther, lying on a mattress on the floor while she sat on a chair looking down at me and I'd started breathing – deeply.

"What are you feeling?" she asked.

"I'm vibrating" I said. Then, as I breathed, I got a sharp pain like a stitch in my right side.

"What shape is it?

What a ridiculous question. But then I had an insight.

"It's vertical."

"What colour?"

Colour? How could a pain have a colour? But then I saw it. It was black!

"Ask it what it represents!"

Ask it? Seems crazy. I concentrated. Then the thought came up – my father.

"What about him?"

"I saw him and he looked lost."

"Why wasn't he stronger?"

"Why?" I puzzled over that. Then the answer came.

"Then I would have been!"

"Why wasn't he strong?" I saw his older sister, a big woman, standing over him.

"He was dominated by his older sister."

"So?"

"He was weak."

I kept breathing. Then I saw Dad in a bunker on the Somme. I didn't want to talk about it. But, well, there it was.

I see Dad. He's on the Somme in World War 1. He's in the RAMC.

Suddenly the emotion welled up inside me. I could see him in a bunker, huddled, terrified. I began to feel his terror. Then I was there, with him, hugging him to me.

"Dad! Dad! Don't be frightened. I'm here with you."

I was sobbing uncontrollably. He was a little boy and I had the strength. The shells were coming fast and exploding all around outside. There was no-one else there. We were alone. My whole body shook!

"CHRIST!" I cried out. "It's terrifying!"

The tears were pouring from me as my body was wracked with sobs for the man I was holding – the terrified man who was my father.

"I want to stop Jenny! I can't stand it!"

"You can't stop Andrew. You're having this experience to heal you! Stay with it," she pleaded.

It was so real. My Dad, there in my arms. My tears. They were real enough.

"I want him to go over the top. Do you know what I mean? Out of the trench toward the enemy."

I knew he had to do this.

"Dad! C'mon Dad! Pull yourself together! You must go!"

I kept urging him on. He got up, moved toward the ladder, looked back, then disappeared over the top, carrying a stretcher. I collapsed into a corner of the bunker, feeling on the one hand elated that I had made a man of him, but also feeling guilty that I had sent him to his death.

I was still sobbing and completely exhausted. Jenny wiped the tears from my eyes. My nasal passages were all blocked up and I was choking with emotion.

Then he came back. He was dressed in a white uniform as he had been when he left. He came down the ladder and sat with his back to me. I felt disconnected from him and completely free of his influence.

I was still crying and shaking and had difficulty in standing up. I had a pain in my back but not as bad as before.

Back on the bed, I couldn't stop crying.

"Breathe Andrew!" Jenny said.

• Rebirthing is a process in which, under the guidance of a trained rebirther, you breathe deeply and continually, oxygenating your brain and reviving memories that have long been buried in the subconscious and, in this case, to surface unconscious fears.

DISCOVERING MYSELF

I was born in 1929, the year of the Great Depression. My parents, both the youngest of families of 11, had migrated to Australia in the early 20s. Their parents, from a rich, conservative aristocracy, had somehow failed to provide any love for my parents who became typical products of the Victorian era, unable to express their emotions.
As a result my own childhood was stunted emotionally and I was in a constant state of frustration. When I was five I even tried to burn our house down Right up until the time my mother died I felt emotionally imprisoned. And when I married it was to someone who had the same emotional problems I did. I’m still amazed that our marriage lasted 16 years. During the following eleven years, still feeling that I had not yet discovered my true potential, I began participating in personal development programs. In November, 1985 I assisted on a three-day personal development program in Melbourne Australia called “Money & You”. I was 56.
In a break I walked over to a table displaying all kinds of information about other courses available. A brochure about a residential program for teenagers called “Supercamp” leapt to my attention. As I started to read something happened which I can’t explain. My heart beat faster and I became very emotional. I walked back to my seat feeling excited. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to find out more.
On the second day of the seminar, the facilitator, Robert Kiyosaki, announced that there would be a follow-on program called “Creating Wealth” in San Diego in six weeks. San Diego was the location of the headquarters of Supercamp. I thrust up my hand and said: ‘I think I’ll be there’. It was a crazy idea. I had no money and I was running a PR company that was only just making it financially.
I thought about nothing else for two weeks, then I borrowed the money for the airfare, told my business partner what I was doing (he thought I’d lost my marbles), advised Supercamp I was coming and booked into the seminar.
On the morning after the seminar I walked into the offices of Supercamp where I met its founder, Bobbi de Porter, and her staff. Bobbi showed me a video of the accelerated learning program and the results it was achieving in the lives of thousands of American teenagers. She was as enthusiastic as I was about bringing Supercamp Down Under. Three hours later I walked out of those offices in a state of high excitement.
By the time I got back home the word had spread and people came out of the woodwork to offer their support. In early January I set up a small committee to work on the detail and the negotiations with what would be our US partner and I invited a friend of mine, Jo Rawson, to help me set it up. We had regular meetings over the following six months until about early July when we came to the unhappy realisation that the economical and logistical problems associated with importing Supercamp into Australia were insurmountable. Reluctantly we abandoned the project.
We were extremely disappointed but the Universe wasn’t about to let us off the hook so easily. A couple of weeks later Kyosaki was back in town and I went to see him to get some advice about my business. No sooner had I walked through the door than I was introduced to an Hawaiian man called Vic Quitan who was associated with a similar program in Hawaii called “Winners Camp”. We were quickly in conversation. It was an accelerated learning program like Supercamp only on a smaller scale and was designed to assist 13 to 18 year-olds realise their true potential. I asked Vic if it would be possible for us to attend a program. He said yes. “So when is the next one?” I asked. “Monday” he said. This was Thursday. On the way home I phoned Jo to give her the news. The excitement was on again.
I caught a flight on Monday. Jo followed a couple of days later. It was one of the most extraordinary weeks of my life. The program had an emphasis on personal responsibility, confidence and self esteem as well as teaching a number of academic skills that help teenagers learn more quickly and without stress. There were 50 teenagers in the program, most from difficult family backgrounds. By the end of the week we were astonished by the changes in the teenagers and through them their parents.
The Hawaiian facilitators wanted to come to Australia to help us get our own program up and running and the following January six of them came down to facilitate the first “Discovery Program” in Australia with eighty-five teenagers in attendance. It was an outstanding success. Since then hundreds of teenagers and their families from around Australia have graduated from Discovery.
My own involvement with Discovery was short term but the feeling of euphoria around it still remains. For a while I wondered why me? Why did I choose to go down that track? Then it finally dawned on me that in the process of becoming so involved in healing the lives of teenagers I had healed myself.