Tony Lo Mastro is a renowned breathworker who has been helping people unlock the power of their breath for many years. Through his breathwork sessions, Tony guides individuals to tap into their inner wisdom, heal past traumas, and find a greater sense of connection to themselves and the world around them. With a focus on creating a safe and supportive space for his clients, Tony’s work has had a profound impact on the lives of many. In this article, Mystic Mag and Tony dive deeper into the transformative power of breathwork and explore Tony’s unique approach to this powerful practice.

When did you first know that Breathwork was your calling and how did it come about?

In July of 1979, a friend went for a massage and the woman masseuse gave him a Rebirthing breathwork session because of her excitement of her own experience of the breath.

He came to me that same day, a Wednesday, and gave me a breathing session. It was an extraordinary experience of an internal journey that landed me in my body. Out of my mind and into my body. Again, this was a Wednesday. Two days later, on Friday, Bill and I were in Hoboken New Jersey attending a Rebirthing Weekend training.

It was an opening for who I was as an ethnic Italian with Asperger’s syndrome, raised by immigrants in the 1940’s and 1950’s.I met a group of people who got me for who I was as an individual.

The teachers came from New York City to my home in Philadelphia, one weekend a month for nine months, to lead a Rebirthing Weekend Training.

This infusion of students into my home caused me to become an organizer and Center manager, giving me a profession for the first time that I loved and was interested in.

What services do you offer?

Rebirthing Breathwork – Classical Rebirthing

In the 1990’s Rebirthing started to get personalized and called different names.

All through the late 1970s and 1980s, the seminar offerings were The EST training, Life Spring Insight and The Loving Relationships Training (Rebirthing).

In the 90’s, everything split into a myriad of different Yoga and self-help offerings.

My wife Maureen and I offer Classical Rebirthing, and our home as a community Center.

What is breathwork, and how does changing how we breathe can affect our health?

When you do a breathwork session you breathe 60 to 80% more oxygen than you are used to and the body wakes up and is vitalized and restored in healthy ways. The mind becomes quiet and often the emotional body relaxes enough to integrate past trauma and indignities.

A calmness to the nervous system gives a space to feel unburned.Many things happen during a breathwork session, our mind is infinite.

What can a person expect from your sessions?

Making a commitment to a series of ten sessions that occur weekly or biweekly is making a commitment to shift your life permanently.

Rebirthing is learning a relationship with your breath and the power of the breath as a function of the body. Circular, or conscious connected breathing, is normal for the body. Our breath gets suppressed with the emotions and events of the past, possibly for some, starting at conception.

Rebirthing (which is circular breathing for approximately an hour or more) relieves the negative charge in cell memory. Rebirthing sessions with a practitioner aim to facilitate positive change through working with the breath and taking responsibility for thoughts, feelings and actions. The sessions will help one to identify birth trauma, family patterns, inherited attitudes and specific negative thoughts. Rebirthers aim to support clients in using the breath to ground themselves safely in their body during emotional and physical releases and spiritual insights. This encourages the clients’ use of Rebirthing methods independently.

Rebirthing connects us to ourselves and gives an experience of present time. We can observe and make conscious choices from a clearer perspective and feeling of well being.

One of the purposes of sessions is to educate you about your breath so that you can heal and clear yourself, as a therapeutic and Spiritual practice. Only you heal you. Your breath coach is an experienced and educated support person.

An exciting aspect of Rebirthing is that it addresses the core belief or personal lie. For example, ‘I’m not good enough” or “There is something wrong with me.'” Thoughts like these are discovered in the beginning rebirthing sessions. This gives you, as the client, an opportunity to rethink the reasons for being distressed in your body and the possibility of choosing life as a foundation to rebuild upon.

Rebirthing feels good; rebirthing allows suffering to be optional. When people come to Rebirthers, something inside of them is ready to heal and they let their burden down in reference to long standing issues from the past. An added benefit of conscious connected breathing is that the increased oxygenation contributes to the release of stress and an experience of more health and vitality.

What is the most important detail in maintaining a relationship of mutual trust with clients?

To listen, be present, compassionate. Offer the bottom line as soon as appropriate.

What is the best part of your job?

The best part of my job is that I Love it. The honor to be present to someone’s healing, growth. (We are a 45 year community.) I love sharing this work with my wife. Together we are Center managers to the community

— by Maureen Malone

In 1980, I took a seminar called The Loving Relationships Training. It was an extraordinary seminar for its time and among the many things addressed one of the most intriguing to me was the section on rebirthing. The trainers spoke about birth, about the moment the first breath is taken – you’ve left the safety of the womb – the connection with your mother is physically severed with the hasty cutting of the core, held upside down – slapped and forced to breathe. Welcome to the world.

What decisions do we make about the 1st breath. “It hurts to breathe – It’s not safe – I’m separate – to name a few. Most of us are left with a breathing pattern that is shallow. Rebirthing (conscious connected breathing) is about developing a new relationship with your breath and ultimately with yourself.

Ambrose Gage 2024

To begin: pull on the inhale, release on the exhale.
Seek the subtle circular released breath.
Relax the body. (A hint: relaxation feels like: breathing out!)
Let the breath reflect the condition of the body/mind: ‘every breath different’, without preconceived pattern.“Rebirthing: The Practice of Released Breath” (pamphlet, 1991)
- Garth MacDonald

Technique: Conscious Connected Breathing

The Rebirthing breathing technique is also called Conscious Connected Breathing. The technique itself is simple and natural:

1. Inhale actively. Expand and draw the breath in fully, lifting it with intention. Go for an inhale that embraces feeling with an open heart.

2. Exhale passively. Release the breath, as if you were simply dropping it, without a care for how it lands.

3. Merge the inhale and the exhale into one continuous, circular flow, with no gaps or pauses. See if you can find a way to make it feel as if the breaths are almost overlapping.

4. Breathe in and out through the same passage (nose, mouth, both at once), rather than alternating.

5. The only parts of you that need to be physically working are the muscles directly related to breathing. Relax your body, allow your throat to open, leave your chest and belly loose. This will make it easier to follow the process.

The Process: Cycles of Breath Release

Entering a breath cycle, release and relaxation will lead to progressive expansion of breath, increase of perfusion/speed/excitement, thus a body/mind simultaneously in a state of increasing relaxation and excitement, progressively feeling more of the Energy Body: finding, intuitively, the breath that allows relaxation and release, even feeling “this”, whatever “this” is. Then what has been held in denial by the suppression of breath arises into consciousness.

- Garth MacDonald (1991)

During the course of a full breathwork session, many people experience a sense of rising energy towards a peak, followed by release and resolution. A full breath cycle (typically about an hour of breathwork) may contain several smaller sub-cycles within it.With each successive cycle can come a deeper level of relaxation, release, andunderstanding.

This breath induces a non-ordinary state of consciousness, including heightened awareness of sensations and feelings in the body. Over the course of a cycle you may experience a range of things: dizziness, tremors, vibrations, temperature changes, spontaneous laughter, crying, primal sounds, emotional releases, memories, images, insights, etc.. By allowing these sensations to arise and be felt and pass away, they can be integrated through the breath.

Practice: Awareness and Feeling in Detail

This is a present-moment-feeling practice. Hold back for now from conceptual thinking and interpretation – allow understanding to come of its own through feeling and breathing. Keep tracking feelings and sensations across your whole body throughout the process. Whatever asks for the most attention should be given the most attention. Notice how feelings present to you in your body, and then explore them with as much curiosity and attention to detail as you can.

Become intimate with the felt-sense qualities of what you’re feeling: tingling, cooling, warming, clenching, zig-zagging energy, throbbing, humming, thrumming, vibrating, tension, release, etc.

Experiment with your breathing pattern – fine-tune your breathing rhythm until you find one that supports you to feel whatever it is you are feeling with more spaciousness, depth, and detail. You will know it when you feel it.

Throughout the process, it’s helpful to relate your feelings back to your breath –notice the qualities of your breath. For example: ask yourself, how does your breath relate to this feeling now? How open is your inhale to this feeling? How easily do you let go of the exhale?

Philosophy: Holistic Integration

Rebirthing Breathwork incorporates an integrative model of healing. We work with the principle that healing means embracing wider and deeper levels of wholeness, completeness, and connection with ourselves. Rather than viewing our issues and challenges as external problems to be removed, destroyed, or fixed, we want to treatthem as if they are a piece of ourselves that has been somehow isolated from the whole. Your breath is essential to this process of re-integration.

Staying With It

Keep your breath active: present, alive, spontaneous. It is easy to slide into an automatic breathing pattern, which might get the job done in terms of simply moving a lot of breath around, but is missing the key elements of awareness, consciousness, presence.

If you notice yourself going on auto-pilot and not feeling much, try altering your breathing pattern and seeing how that feels. Or, check if there is a bothersome feeling or truth lurking in there that perhaps you don’t want to address (eg. boredom can often hide some frustration or anger behind it ). Whatever you find, see if you can include it in your breath.

Completion: Rest and Integration Phase, After-Care

There is a feeling of peace and a knowing that the experience is over. The breath is open and relaxed and any tetanus is gone.
- Aaron Overstreet, “Rebirthing Basics” (2016)

After the big expansion of the Work Phase of the session, there is a gentle

contraction of coming back to more ordinary awareness during the Rest and Integration Phase. This is equally as important as any other part of the session.

Integration refers to a process of allowing a given experience to find its home in you, so that it may take root and grow in a way that is harmonious with your overall

system. It is most supportive for you to rest and just be at this time, not to jump to any hasty conclusions.

After a session, take care of yourself as you would after any deep emotional or physical release: drink plenty of water, try to be gentle with yourself, treat yourself as if you are more open than you may realize. Water is especially important, as your body has worked up its metabolism.

A Note on Tetany

One common experience is tetany: a tingling and involuntary tightening of muscles, occurring most commonly in the hands, in the facial muscles around the mouth, and sometimes elsewhere.

Tetany can simply be related to body chemical changes corresponding to changes in breathing; however, it is valuable to allow yourself to feel it, like anything else in the session, as a full spectrum event, including whatever it brings up for you emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, poetically, or otherwise.

While it can be uncomfortable, tetany is not at all harmful and will release on itsown. The most helpful things you can do are to invite more relaxation into your exhale,and practice awareness in detail. Staying with the body-sensation and leaving aside thethoughts (e.g. “this is painful, I want it to stop”, or “how can I get rid of this feeling?”),can be a faster and more efficient way to integrate it. You can also adjust your breath as to support you to move through the sensation.

A Note on Hyperventilation

Hyperventilation is a medical term describing the symptoms that accompany increased breathing– often involuntary and in a panic situation– that induces respiratory alkalosis, in which the blood pH rises beyond the normal range. This kind of experience can bring up a lot of fear, depending on how it feels in your body. It can be connected to a belief that something is wrong and there is reason to leave, or it can be a signal that intense emotion is moving through your body and processing its way out. It’s important for you to feel into it to figure out what you need.

Many hyperventilation symptoms also emerge during a breathwork session. The main thing that distinguishes Conscious Connected Breathing and hyperventilation, isthe presence of consciousness and intention. In this practice we believe that the bodyknows how to adapt, integrate, or release things through breathing. If the situation allows for it, we would prefer to support someone to breathe through their feelings to the end, to allow their breath to resolve itself, rather than use suppressive measures in an effort to calm down them down. This breathwork can remind your body and nervous system that it knows how to work through intense feelings with surprising and fluidity

— By Gayle E. Carlton

Rebirthing is a relaxing and energizing technique of breathing in a gently connected rhythm. Its valuable results can be far reaching physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It most often leads to a deeper sense of self-appreciation, self-acceptance and inner nourishment.

Each person is individual in needs, desires, perceptions and experiences. By fully honoring and accepting oneself, one opens to life, energy, an inner sense of ethical choice and individuation. As the experience of life expands, deep personal meaning is revealed from within the self and a feeling of well-being pervades. Rebirthing can be a powerful initiatory tool and/or a valuable skill to use along the way on one’s personal path of self-exploration.

— by Leonard Orr

Conscious energy breathing is an art and a science. It has been called spiritual breathing, intuitive breathing, conscious connected breathing, and rebirthing breathwork.

It also has been called a biological experience of God. It is very simple and easy to do, especially in the presence of a well trained, experienced, breathing guide. When we connect the inhale with the exhale, we are experiencing the duality of the inhale and the exhale in unity. When we experience merging of the inner breath with the outer breath, we are experiencing another duality in unity. It is this unity that is the biological experience of God, Infinite Being, or Divine Energy. This is the essence of life itself. This essence is also the space between our thoughts. It is the thinker, which is the source of our thoughts and everything in the universe. It is nearer to us than our very breath, and it is the source of the breath of life. The space between our thoughts is the infinite, eternal presence. The miracle of this simple connected breathing rhythm is that it brings this presence into the physical body, cleans, heals, and nourishes the body and also cleans and brings peace to the mind.

— by Leonard D. Orr

Energy becomes what it thinks about.

This is the most basic truth about Life.

If you really understand these words, you are spiritually enlightened. Energy becomes what it thinks about. Energy is the Source of all things. Energy is Infinite Being, the Eternal Spirit; Energy is Substance. Energy is God. But Energy is evenly distributed throughout space and time. It just exists and doesn’t do anything. Energy just is!

However, thinking is a quality of Energy and moves Energy. When Energy becomes impregnated by thought, Energy organizes Itself into the form directed by the thought – which may be a physical thing. Energy naturally becomes what it thinks about. Energy directed by thought can materialize into physical things, social realities, or personal feelings and spiritual abilities. ​

There is only one Energy in the universe, but there can be any number of thinking centers of this energy. All thinkers share the same Energy. We are all activity centers in the same Energy. We are thinking centers in the same One Being. We create our own reality, we share the reality which others create, and we become aware of the reality which the Ultimate Thinking Center of Energy has created. We usually call it Nature or God. We are the director of this Energy and so is everyone else, but there is a greater original Creator who has created a very big universe for us to play in.

— by Sondra Ray & Markus Ray

WHY BREATHE? Reason #1

Because if you don't, you will die.

The most essential element in our everyday life is air. It's a food we could not live without. 5 minutes without air, and we are dead. Breath is Life and Life is Breath. Everything breathes. Even the Rocks and the Trees. Especially the Trees. In fact, the Trees Breathe in what we Breathe out; and we Breathe in what the Trees Breathe out. So it's a good deal we have with the Trees. In fact, we should be better friends to them. Really. It's what they call in science a "symbiotic relationship." They could not live without us; we could not live without them. We BREATHE TOGETHER.

Breathwork

Breathwork is a general term for various breathing techniques used to promote physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

NZAB Inc practitioners which include Breathworkers and Rebirthers, teach Conscious Connected Breathing (CCB). Generally, breathing patterns tend to be unconscious and disconnected. CCB, a powerfully transformative tool, supports a client in accessing their essential nature and in developing their true potential. Conscious Connected Breathing supports us to clear unresolved issues, dissolve limiting beliefs and free ourselves from the unhealthy hold that some past events have on our lives.

The breath is guided to a natural, relaxed, rhythmic, flowing and open state. The physical process, while simple, may produce powerful physiological, cognitive and emotional responses. The Breath is the major source of energy to the body and eliminates approximately 70% of toxins.

— by Tony Lo Mastro & Sue Sipos

The sanskrit word for altar is Assan, and it means a seat for God.

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In many cultures an altar is a home fixture; some homes have an altar in every room. An altar is used as a focal point for the family to become united toward sacred worship, meditation, celebration and gratitude. an altar gives you a place to put things that have a lot of meaning for you, like a beautiful fabric to cover the altar, sacred pictures, family pictures, oils, candles, crystals, gems, stones, incense, shells etc. An altar is also a place for your requests and goals.

La respiración es vida, cualquier pensamiento negativo que retenemos, cualquier emoción que bloqueamos inhibe la respiración, lo que significa que se interrumpe la conexión fluida con nuestra nutrición espiritual. Muchos pensamientos negativos están relacionados con nuestra primera respiración fuera del útero materno, es decir, con el temor mismo de respirar, el cual lo asociamos con cambios irremediables, o sea con la lucha. A través de la respiración consciente y conectada movilizamos energía y esto nos lleva a la habilidad de respirar tanto energía como aire, logrando un beneficio orgánico y el poder accesar a nuestro archivo emocional. La respiración Consciente y Conectada de la energía nos permite contactar con los grandes puntos limitantes:

— By OSHO

We are breathing continuously from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Everything changes between these two points. Everything changes, nothing remains the same.

Only breathing is a constant thing between birth and death.

The child will become a youth; the youth will become old. He will be diseased, his body will become ugly, ill; everything will change. He will be happy, unhappy, in suffering; everything will go on changing. But whatsoever happens between these two points, one must breathe. Whether happy or unhappy, young or old, successful or unsuccessful – whatsoever you are, it is irrelevant – one thing is certain: between these two points of birth and death you must breathe.

Meditation Poem (On breathing)

From The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced Tick-NotHan)

The fourth element of our body is air. The best way to experience the air element is the practice of mindful breathing. “Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.” After saying these sentences we can abbreviate them by saying “In” as we breathe in and “Out” as we breathe out. We don’t try to control our breathing. Whether our in-breath is long or short, deep or shallow, we just breathe naturally and shine the light of mindfulness on it. When we do this we notice that, in fact, our breathing does become slower and deeper naturally. “Breathing in, my in-breath has become deep. Breathing out, my out-breath has become slow.” Now we can practice, “Deep/slow.” We don’t have to make an extra effort. It just become deeper and slower by itself, and we recognize that.

– by Dan Brule

So many people around the world are doing this work now. And each person brings his or her own style and focus to the process. As we learn and grow, what we teach and how we teach, naturally changes: as we change, our work changes.

But one thing has not and will not change: it is the specific way of breathing that defines the Rebirthing movement. So I’d like to offer my understanding of it, and the kind of coaching that I give in sessions.

The Rebirthing Breath, also called the “Circular Rhythm” or Connected Breathing.” can be defined or described in this way: “conscious, connected, circular, rhythmic, energy breathing.” It’s the art of breathing energy as well as air. Here in a nutshell are the key elements of the practice: the how to’s and what not’s of Rebirthing.