Clients

What is Causing Your Pain? Part 2

In the Autumn newsletter, we looked at the western or reductionist method of treating pain. You can read the article here. We learned how this approach can work very well for pain where specific causes can be identified and treated. For example, arthritic hip pain can be completely alleviated with a total hip replacement because the arthritic joint surfaces are removed. Once the surgery has fully healed, the pain is gone. Unfortunately, this approach can fall short if the causes of pain are complex.

Thirty-five years ago, shortly after graduating PT school, I had a patient who suffered from back pain. I will call her “Joanie” (not her real name). She told me her pain had started on her wedding night. As we worked together over several sessions, she shared that it was her husband’s second marriage. He had four adult children. One was incarcerated, one was drug addicted, and the other two had additional challenging problems. When her back hurt, she went into her bedroom, closed the door, and lay down for a few hours. 

Even as a newly graduated P.T., I could see that her back pain might be serving a purpose. It gave her permission to withdraw from a chaotic  and distressing situation. My heart sank as I realized that treating the structural problems of muscle spasm and weak abdominals might not be enough. This turned out to be true. Although her muscles improved, her pain did not. Because the structural issues were only a part of the problem, physical therapy only partially helped. 

The idea that pain can serve a useful purpose may sound a bit crazy. Who would want to remain in pain? The answer is no one. For “Joanie”, perhaps having back pain was less onerous than living in her current home situation. I couldn’t know. What I could know was that there were many complex factors influencing her pain that might affect the success of my treatment intervention. The physical issues with her back did not tell the whole story. 

When we hurt, we want answers. More than answers, we want relief. It can be frustrating when those answers aren’t clear. If your back hurts and the MRI says your back is fine, you may feel depressed instead of relieved. In actuality, a normal MRI is a blessing! Yet you don’t have an answer for your pain and the prospect of continued pain is a depressing one. 

The value of understanding that pain can be due to multiple causes as well as structural issues is that it can broaden the scope of where you seek assistance and the types of interventions that may improve your pain. And it can also explain why some interventions don’t help or don’t help enough. 

It’s common to feel some resistance to pain being caused by factors beyond the physical. The idea may feel invalidating, as though the reality of your experience is being doubted. Resistance may create an obstacle that blocks your expanding understanding of yourself and what you may be experiencing. Yet seeking causality in every part of yourself corroborates what we know to be true; that we are all complex and unique, and every part of us deserves attention and good care.

A holistic, non-diagnostic modality like Zero Balancing can be very useful in this type of situation. Read the next article for more information. Click Here

Practitioners

The Power of Donkey Touch

You’ve likely heard these words many times: touching structure and energy simultaneously and consciously. This is the definition of Donkey Touch. It is fundamental in Zero Balancing and differentiates Zero Balancing touch from that used in other types of bodywork. It is one of the most powerful principles in ZB. Can you think of any part of a human being that isn’t either energy or structure? I can’t. So using Donkey Touch automatically connects you with every aspect of your client.

It’s easy to confuse Donkey Touch and Interface. So let’s clarify right here at the beginning of our discussion. Interface is boundary. Knowing where you stop and your client starts. It’s the fence that differentiates your property from your neighbor’s. It’s easy to see why Interface is important when using Donkey Touch. If you are touching every aspect of your client, it’s of paramount importance to know what is yours and what is theirs. 

As we learn Zero Balancing, there are lots of things that demand our attention. Learning the protocol, where to place our bodies and hands, taking out looseness, building and holding fields, clean, clear disconnect. When we progress to the advanced classes there is even more wonderful territory to explore and master. While Donkey Touch is not forgotten, our focus may be on our horizon, filled with the new and exciting things we are learning. This is natural. And returning your focus to the simplicity of Donkey Touch will amplify the effectiveness of every fulcrum, whether Core ZB or advanced.  

An experience that taught me the power of Donkey Touch occurred early in my Zero Balancing training, although I didn’t realize it at the time. It wasn’t until years after becoming a teacher that I recognized the value of the experience I’d had. I was working as a Physical Therapist in a nursing home and was asked to help with a severely mentally and physically disabled young woman who needed casts made in order to fabricate new braces for her ankles and feet. The orthotist making the braces was unable to apply the casting material because she was kicking her feet up and down nonstop. I was asked to help keep her still. This was an impossible task. She did not understand language so words were ineffective. I was unwilling to physically restrain her as it was disrespectful and not the way I would treat anyone. I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I could come up with was to try Donkey Touch. I’d only had ZB I at the time so had very little confidence I’d be able to use it effectively. But since I had no other ideas, I gave it a shot. I stood behind her wheelchair and placed my hands on both upper trapezius muscles. To the best of my newbie ability, I touched her energy and structure. She stopped kicking and started weaving her upper body from side to side. Her caregiver said, “What are you doing? That’s what she does when she’s happy.” I followed her as she moved and, as best I could, stayed connected with her energy and structure. It was enough. Her feet remained still and the orthotist was able to complete the casts for her braces. Mission accomplished. 

If the use of Donkey Touch by a new student of ZB can quiet an agitated young woman, imagine what it can do combined with the fulcrums in the protocol and all the other ZB principles? This is the power of Donkey Touch. 

Clients

Feel How Good It Feels To Feel Good

It’s easy to forget how good you can feel, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you like to feel good every day? Do you think it’s possible? Have you decided the way you feel is good enough? Think about your daily experience. Perhaps you have some aches and pains, but you’re ok. Would you like to feel better than ok? Don’t settle. Read on for a simple way to amplify feeling good.

I think many of us settle for feeling ok rather than feeling good. Perhaps we are just too busy with the day-to-day to even think about these things. As long as something doesn’t hurt enough to stop us, we keep barreling ahead. Or perhaps we believe that feeling good or even great isn’t possible. 

I recall a time as a teenager when my severe menstrual cramps finally let up after hours of pain. When I think of it, I can still feel how great my body felt. The relief seemed to spread through all of me and I felt so good. It was more than the absence of pain. There was a presence of feeling good. And remembering it now actually recreates the good feeling in my body that I had so many years ago. 

How can that be? One way to explain this phenomenon is through the lens of Zero Balancing (ZB). In the ZB world view, everything we experience is vibratory in nature. Thoughts and experiences are held in our tissues as vibration. Vibration can be amplified by attention. Think about the last time you experienced pleasure, something particularly delicious to eat for example. If you closed your eyes and focused your attention on the taste, it tasted even better. Your increased attention amplified the vibration of enjoyment.  

I remember feeling how good it felt to be without those awful cramps and how much I enjoyed the feeling of being pain free. Without knowing it, my attention amplified the vibration of feeling good and it’s still accessible to me all these years later.  

That’s the trick. Simply feel how good it feels to feel good and watch what happens. 

You can practice this phenomenon by noticing and then focusing on a good feeling while it is happening. 

For example, how does it feel when you feel good physically? The next time you have a good workout or a particularly satisfying meal, focus on how good the sensation feels.  

How does it feel when you feel good emotionally? Think back to a time when you felt worried or sad. How did you feel when the situation was resolved? The next time you experience worry changing to relief or being comforted in your sadness, dive into how it feels. 

How does it feel when you feel good mentally? Perhaps your mind has let go of the thoughts that usually chase each other around in your head. Perhaps your mind is engaged in a pleasurable work activity or a creative endeavor. When you next have a creative insight or a moment of quiet in your mind, really feel how good that feels. 

How does it feel when you feel good spiritually? Have you ever experienced a sense of serenity or peace? This may happen while meditating or praying. It may happen when viewing a sunset or walking in nature. Notice the next time it happens and focus on how good it feels. 

By bringing your attention to feeling good, you intensify and anchor that vibrational pattern in your body. You can improve your life by feeling how good it feels to feel good. Try it and s

Practitioners

The Power of Foundation Joints

We are introduced to foundation joints in Zero Balancing I. We might review this information in ZB II, and often that’s the last time we think about them. Yet foundation joints, these hidden places in the body, can account for some of the common and remarkable changes we see after a Zero Balancing session. 

As we all know, there are foundation joints throughout the body, including the sacroiliac joint, the joints between the tarsal bones, the pubic symphysis and the sutures that join the cranial bones. These joints have properties that set them apart from freely moveable joints like the elbow or knee. They have a small or minute range of motion and no voluntary motion. The sacroiliac joint, for example, has a range of motion of about three or four degrees. The loss of one degree can equate to losing 25 to 35 percent of the function. In addition, it’s not possible to move your sacrum independently from your pelvic bones. The body cannot self-correct and instead tends to compensate around the loss. This compensation can have far-reaching consequences throughout the whole person. 

The power is in the restoration of that small loss in range of motion. Using the example of the sacroiliac joint, a gain of one degree of motion can result in a 25-35 percent improvement in function. 

Bringing foundation joints forward in your awareness can be helpful when describing Zero Balancing to a curious listener. While their donkey is likely driving their curiosity, the questions often arise from their rider. Many people think of structure when they think of their bodies. A simple description of the power of working with foundation joints can give their rider something to grab on to. 

It’s interesting to think about how foundation joints function in the transmission of energy or force. When I’m describing Zero Balancing to someone whose world view may not include energy, like some Western trained healthcare practitioners, being able to refer to ground reaction forces is a good way to guide the listener across the bridge to conceptualizing energy. Force is energy. For example, when the foot hits the ground, the ground hits back. The force generated as the heel strikes the ground during walking is equaled by the ground reaction forces. One key area for mitigating these forces is the tarsal joints, an area we know to be rich in foundation joints. Mobility in the tarsal joints is critically important for the foot to be able to absorb some of the ground reaction force as well as adapt to the unevenness of the ground. Adapting to the unevenness of the ground helps us to keep our balance.

When we evaluate the tarsals in Zero Balancing, one thing we can look for is mobility. In ZB, the mobility, or lack thereof, informs us about the balance of structure and energy. If tarsal motion is restricted, the energy cannot move freely through the foot. The ground reaction forces are not dispersed well. The foot is less adaptable to the uneven surfaces beneath it. The person is less connected to the ground, less connected between heaven and earth. 

When we balance the foundation joints in the foot with a few fulcrums, that one or two degree loss in motion can be reestablished and the much larger loss in function can be restored. There is more mobility, improved ability to adapt to the ground, enhanced connection to the earth. One client commented after her first ZB, “For the first time in my life I actually feel grounded! I feel it in my body.” This wonderful outcome demonstrates the power of foundation joints. 

Clients

What is causing your pain?

Many people come to my office seeking help for physical pain. Most are looking to both understand why they hurt as well as to find pain relief. Discovering the underlying cause of the problem helps meet both goals. Knowing what is causing the pain can help one to avoid exacerbating activities. Treatment that accurately targets the cause is more likely to work. What happens when the cause is not where we expect it to be?

Through the lens of western medicine, one might find the cause in the same anatomical area as the pain, in an area separate but directly related to the cause, or in an area separate and unrelated to the cause. After an ankle sprain, the pain is often felt directly over the injured ligament in the ankle. With a pinched nerve in the spine, the radiating pain is usually perceived in an area separate but directly related anatomically, such as when one has pain down the side of their leg in the area supplied by the pinched nerve. The nerve is actually being pinched in the spine, not in the leg where the person feels the pain. Pain in a separate area that is unrelated to the cause is called referred pain. For example, when pain from a liver problem is perceived in the right shoulder. The right shoulder is fine and not anatomically related to the liver. Yet it’s the person’s right shoulder that hurts as a result of liver disease. 

In each of these examples, the practitioner seeks to find a singular cause for the symptom. Another term for this is reductionistic. Often, a western medical approach seeks to explain or reduce a complex phenomenon to its simplest terms. This can work beautifully when the cause is basic. It makes sense that treatment needs to be delivered to a single affected part of the body in order to be effective. An ice pack directly on the ankle to help an ankle sprain. Posture exercises for the low back to help pain radiating down the leg. Medical treatment of the liver to help the referred pain to the right shoulder. 

Things rapidly become more complicated when one considers the individual who has the ankle sprain or pinched nerve or liver disease. 

Let’s consider 5 people with an ankle sprain. All of them have twisted their ankles. However, that is where the similarity ends. One person has just gotten a new construction job, one is a new mother, one is someone who has been dreading an upcoming family event, one is a tennis player training for a competition, and one is someone who fell out of a tree at age 6 whose injuries were ignored. It’s easy to see how a seemingly simple sprained ankle might generate 5 very different experiences. While the ice pack over the injured ligament is still advisable, each individual may experience a different healing journey. The impact of who the person is at their core, their life circumstances and beliefs, whether the injury disabled them by preventing a desired event, or enabled them by exempting them from an unwanted event, can have a big impact on the course of their recovery. Add to the mix the fact that the person may feel grateful, guilty, resentful, ashamed, relieved, or simply be unaware of their emotional response to the change in life circumstances caused by the ankle sprain. While localizing the tissue damage may be simple, the impact of all the other aspects of the person on their healing process can be complex.

This is where a holistic approach can be very helpful.

Watch for Part 2 coming in the Winter Newsletter for more!

Practitioners

Diving into the Witness State

I’ve been wondering about the Witness State lately. When we give a Zero Balancing session in the Witness State, we remain objective and have no agenda, judgment or opinion about what needs to happen, how it happens, when it happens or where the session needs to go. We are not attached to a particular outcome. Considering the many aspects of our nature, I’ve been questioning whether it’s possible to have absolutely no attachment to the outcome on any level of ourselves. Let’s have a think about this together over a glass of wine or a cup of tea.

We teach and learn that as Zero Balancing practitioners, being in the Witness State is an important aspect of giving a good session. Is this true? Why? Would having an agenda interfere? If so, how? What if our agenda is to be helpful? 

Does having an agenda conflict with any other Zero Balancing principles? How about High Regard? Can we have an agenda and hold our client in high regard at the same time?

I recall an earlier discussion about paradigm, also known as worldview, and am thinking about whether one’s conscious awareness of their paradigm has an impact on their ability to remain in the witness state. For example, what if our worldview includes the belief that if someone really wanted to heal they would? And if they aren’t healing, they must not want to. Can we hold this belief unconsciously and still be in the Witness State? Can we hold this belief consciously and still be in the Witness State? 

What about paradigms from other trainings? Many of us were initially trained as Acupuncturists, Massage Therapists, Chiropractors or Physical Therapists. Can we hold beliefs taught in these other disciplines and remain in the Witness State? 

What about our client’s beliefs? Are we in the Witness State if we share our client’s beliefs? If we have a client who was told they cannot be healthy if their pelvis is out of alignment, and we agree, are we in the Witness State?

Are we attached to an outcome when we give a fulcrum? If the purpose of a fulcrum is to balance structure and energy and a fulcrum is indicated where energy is stuck in bone, does the practitioner have an agenda to free the struck energy? If the answer is yes, can one have that intention and still be in the Witness State? 

Is the desire to be helpful antithetical to staying in the Witness State? How many of us have found ourselves wanting to help, wanting the client’s pain to improve or anxiety to diminish? Is this an agenda? Can this desire interfere with healing? If so, how?  

What about clients who feel worse after their ZB? Does that impact us as practitioners? If it does, are we still in the Witness State? 

Can we remain in the Witness State when giving a ZB session to a family member? Or a good friend? Is it harder? Easier? 

Can we honestly say we have no opinion whatsoever about what needs to happen during a ZB session? If the client feels ungrounded and unstable at the beginning of the session, do we feel ok if they are just as ungrounded and unstable at the end of the session? If we don’t, is this an agenda? 

Is compassion part of the witness state? How about kindness? 

Thanks for diving in with me! I hope this has stimulated new insights about the Witness State.

Practitioners

What Is A Donkey Lean?

Most of us experienced the donkey lean exercise in our first Zero Balancing class. Up out of our chairs, back to back or side by side with a partner, seeking that sweet spot into which we could both relax. Remember how good it felt to be supporting your partner while being supported by them? What was that? What made it feel so good? Let’s have a glass of wine or a cup of tea and wonder about it together…

We use the term ‘donkey lean’ frequently when talking about Zero Balancing sessions. We use it to describe the relationship we create with our client through our touch and all the ways we can enhance that relationship. We touch at Interface. We touch the client’s energy and structure simultaneously and consciously, AKA Donkey touch. We might attribute the client’s deep relaxation as a response to the quality of the donkey lean we have created. We practice staying present and keeping our attention in our hands as means of deepening the donkey lean. 

In my ZB classes, I ask students to name what they experience during the donkey lean exercise. Words like trust, safety, support and relaxation are common. What is it about leaning against another person that engenders these feelings? Why does a donkey lean feel good? What is happening structurally and energetically that causes us to feel so safe and supported? 

It is in the nature of the lean to be off-balance. As we lean, our shoulders are no longer over our hips. Our upper bodies are exposed to the pull of gravity and if not for our partner, we would fall. If our partner remains standing up straight while we lean, we won’t fall but the donkey lean feeling is missing. Why? We are safe. They are preventing us from falling and getting hurt. If our partner is leaning with their upper body but not their lower body, they can prevent our falling as well. We are still safe. Yet it doesn’t feel as good as if they are leaning as much as we are. We are still more exposed to gravity than they are. 

We are still more exposed. Is that it? Does the mutual feeling of exposure have an effect? Is it because when our partner leans as much as we do, they need to trust us as much as we need to trust them? We are responsible for each other’s safety, at least structurally. Why would that feel good?  

What about energetically? Can an energetic lean occur in the absence of a safe structural lean? Can we find the sweet spot, relax and trust someone who doesn’t have our back…literally? 

What about the opposite? Have you experienced a donkey lean in which someone leans in with their structure but not their energy? The person is physically there while not really being there? Does that feel safe? Does it feel good?

Have you experienced a donkey lean where you really wanted to lean in but your body just wouldn’t do it? Where you wanted to trust your partner but couldn’t? Why did that happen?

Have you noticed what happens if your partner’s attention wanders? Structurally everything remains the same, yet you instinctively sense a change. What has happened? 

Lastly, how does this phenomenon carry over into your practice? I’m often aware when giving a Zero Balancing session that I need to be present in my touch in order for my client to begin to relax. In donkey lean terms, I need to lean in first. A lot. In the donkey lean exercise, someone also needs to lean in first. Yet we can’t lean too much or we’ll fall before the other person’s lean can prevent it. What is different about these two situations?  

I hope this has intrigued and inspired you to wonder about donkey leans! Thanks for reading!

Practitioners

The Power of Interface

Interface is a term that can have many meanings. As a verb, it can mean to connect or mesh. One might say Zero Balancing works where energy and structure interface, where energy and structure connect or mesh in the body. As a Zero Balancing principle, however, we use the word as a noun. To be at Interface. It’s a place, a state, a border, a boundary.

The principle of Interface is introduced in Zero Balancing I and refined in the multiple classes that follow. It is one of the defining characteristics of ZB touch. Often confused with Donkey Touch, which is touching energy and structure simultaneously and consciously, Interface refers simply to the energetic boundary between practitioner and client. ZB touch is characterized by both Donkey Touch and Interface and employs both principles at the same time. Donkey touch enables us to connect with the whole person and Interface allows us to maintain a boundary between the whole of the client and the whole of ourselves. When at Interface, we are like two neighbors chatting over the fence that divides our properties. 

Many years ago, I was at a study group with a student who stated adamantly that she didn’t see the point of using Interface and didn’t plan to use it. A bit later in the day, she and I had the occasion to practice the sitting assessment. I was the practitioner first and as my hands moved down her back, she became aware of some pain in her right lower ribs. When she was practicing on me, she was amazed to find the same pain in the same place on my lower ribs. “Look at that!” she exclaimed. “We have pain in the exact same place!” As I gently told her I didn’t actually have any pain, I saw the light bulb flash on. She realized she couldn’t tell whose pain was whose. And in that moment, she understood the value of Interface. 

Like the aforementioned fence, a clear boundary serves both parties in several ways. In addition to clarifying what belongs to who, touch at Interface helps the client to feel their edges; where they stop and the practitioner starts. 

Interface also communicates respect and safety. This has vital importance in any therapeutic relationship. There is no intrusion. Energy bodies remain distinct. And touch communicates this truth instantaneously in a way that cannot be conveyed with words. If someone offers you a limp and distant handshake while saying,”It’s nice to meet you,” do you really believe them? Instinctively, we credit touch over words.

Safe touch is foundational to creating a healing environment. We know the sympathetic nervous system becomes engaged in response to a real or perceived threat. It’s an instinctive survival tool and as such, is outside the conscious control of the client. No matter how much the client may want to relax, if our touch feels unsafe part of them will be monitoring us with every fulcrum. This vigilance is often amplified with clients who have experienced trauma. 

Here is a place where the power of Interface becomes most evident. When every touch feels safe, our client can stop tracking our hands. Touching at Interface creates a sanctuary on your treatment table, where clients can drop their guard and drop more deeply into themselves.

Clients

Can Pain Be Your Body Calling You Home?

Many people I work with have pain. Pain serves to alert us to a problem that requires action and care. We experience pain as a physical sensation in our bodies. The natural assumption is to assume the pain has a physical cause. But what if the cause is not physical or not physical any longer?

Let’s define ‘physical’ as pain signals arising from injured tissue as well as from inside the brain, where nerve pathways may still be reporting pain long after the injured tissue has healed. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m wondering about the experience of pain without a physical or structural cause. 

To be clear, I am NOT saying pain is “all in your head.” I don’t think such a thing exists. If someone feels pain, they have pain, whether we can find a physical cause or not. I’m reminded of a client from many years ago who was referred to me to treat her calf pain. Her pain had started 3 months earlier after catching her foot and tripping. I could not find any physical problem with her calf. In addition, the way she had tripped rarely resulted in a calf injury. However, there was no doubt in my mind that she had pain. Her experience of her pain was real. 

If pain is alerting us to a problem and there is no physical cause, what might the reason be? I wonder if the pain is calling us home. Is it our body saying “You’ve been gone too long. Come back inside.”?

What causes me to wonder is this: everyone coming to me for help with pain is taking action to care for themselves. Simply making the appointment is selfcare. Receiving care requires us to turn our attention inside, to see if we feel better, to evaluate whether the heating pad helps or how it feels to do an exercise. Zero Balancing sessions also bring our attention inside. Clients look more like themselves when they get off the table. I commonly hear “I had no idea how out of my body I was.” 

If pain is our body calling us home, why did we leave in the first place? 

Sometimes we’ve left because leaving helped us achieve a goal, like working long hours to get a promotion or simply to make a living. If no one is home to answer the phone, we miss our body’s call telling us it’s time to eat or sleep. We can keep going. 

Sometimes we’ve left because it’s too difficult to stay. Extreme anger, fear from life-threatening situations, inconsolable grief, trauma of any kind. Leaving our body can be an essential survival strategy. 

While we may have had excellent reasons for leaving, once away we tend to stay away. We lose the awareness that we are out of our bodies. Living this way over a period of years has a cost and can deprive us of vital feedback about our internal world. Luckily, our bodies have an inherent and strong drive toward health. This drive toward health may be what sends out the call. And sometimes the only call we can hear is pain.  

Seeking to alleviate pain leads us to take actions that bring us home. Actions that result in experiencing positive rather than challenging feelings. Feeling calmed and comforted by a heating pad. Experiencing the increased strength, flexibility or stamina from treatment exercises. The better it feels in our bodies, the more we will want to come home and stay home.

Clients

Weeding Your Internal Garden

Have you noticed how good it feels to be in a freshly weeded garden? Or a newly cleaned home? We can all recognize the natural cycles of our lives moving from organization to disorganization to organization over and over again. We weed the garden. New weeds appear. We vacuum the bedroom. New dust bunnies appear. Weeded gardens and clean bedrooms feel better. It’s not just the feeling of accomplishment many of us have after cleaning or weeding. We feel better even when someone else has done the work. Organization feels better than chaos in both our outer and inner worlds.

Clearing or cleaning the external space around us has an organizing effect on our internal space, also known as our internal field. The concept of an organized internal field is fundamental in Zero Balancing (ZB). A more organized field feels better than a disorganized field. Receiving a Zero Balancing organizes your internal field like weeding your internal garden. It’s one of the main reasons you feel better after a Zero Balancing session. 

Zero Balancing techniques, called fulcrums, work by introducing a field that is clearer, stronger, and more organized. For an analogy, think of what happens when a magnet is placed next to a pile of iron filings. The magnetic field is stronger and more organized than the field holding the filings in a pile. The filings line up in response. Likewise, your body responds to Zero Balancing fulcrums by becoming more organized. Because patterns of physical or emotional pain are less organized, they reorganize in response  to the stronger, more organized field introduced during your ZB session. The result: you feel better. 

My clients often report feeling relaxed yet energized after a Zero Balancing session. This may be due to the amount of their energy that can be tied up in a disorganized field. In the garden, when vegetable plants are crowded with weeds, those weeds compete for resources like water, nutrients and sunlight. 

Likewise, our internal resources are challenged by having a disorganized internal field. Disorganized patterns tie up valuable energy. This can make daily life more challenging. 

Approaching an important event while internally disorganized can increase anxiety. Whether giving a presentation at work or hosting a dinner party, having your PowerPoint slides in order or a complete shopping list helps with the archetypal anxiety associated with these activities. An archetypal emotion is one that is normal and inevitable given the situation. If you are human, you will experience this emotion when in this situation. It’s archetypal to feel thirsty when in the desert. Thirst is unavoidable. If you organized your trip, you’ll know which pack has the water. If you can’t find your water because you didn’t organize well, your discomfort can be amplified by feeling fearful or frustrated with yourself in addition to feeling thirsty. Situations that are challenging archetypally, like presentations or dealing with difficult individuals, become more arduous. There are weeds in your internal garden, competing for resources. Knowing this can help you to prepare both your inner and outer worlds for our challenging world. The internal organization provided by a Zero Balancing session can help with upcoming surgeries or performances, new jobs or retiring. 

It’s natural to cycle from organization to disorganization. Navigating our often challenging external world is easier with a well-organized internal field, an internal garden free of weeds.

Linda Wobeskya, MSPT