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.

Practitioners

The Power of the Blue Line

In my humble opinion, the power of the Blue Line often goes unrecognized. This unassuming tool can be the key to deepening your connection with your client and increasing efficiency so you aren’t working as hard. Many of us rush past it, eager to get into the fulcrum where the magic happens. Yet pausing at a clear Blue Line is so often the gateway to creating an incredible fulcrum.

I recall my first introduction to the Blue Line, as it did not exist when I began my study of Zero Balancing in 1992. Dr. Fritz Smith was teaching a Geometry of Healing class outside of Boston, MA in the early 2000’s. I learned that as he was creating the brilliant schematic that illustrates the process of creating a fulcrum, he used a blue marker to draw the line that symbolized the first moment of connection with the consciousness of the client. The concepts of looseness, the Blue Line, and the box came into being and we all gained a deeper understanding of how to consciously create more effective fulcrums. 

The concept of looseness and being at the Blue Line is mind-blowing if you think about it. In life, if there is too much looseness, say in planning a coffee date, you and your friend may show up at the cafe on different days and times or even at different cafes! Taking that moment to confirm 3pm Tuesday, December 20th at Molly’s Muffins on 5th Street makes it much more likely you will both show up. The same is true in a ZB. Consciously taking out the looseness and coming to the Blue Line increases the likelihood of both you and your client showing up at the same time. 

Coming to the Blue Line can also be like knocking on someone’s door. As we come to the Blue Line and pause, we are allowing time for our client to approach and open the door. Then we can proceed together.

What are some possible repercussions of skipping the Blue Line? From an efficiency perspective, when we begin our fulcrum in looseness, part of our effort is expended taking out that looseness. Once the looseness is taken out, even the smallest added tension precipitates a fulcrum. As a ZB teacher, I see this as a very common reason people overwork, especially in the hip fulcrum and the Half Moon Vector (HMV) through the legs.

Second, we have skipped acknowledging that all important first connection with the donkey on the table. We have not knocked at the door. If someone is on your doorstep and doesn’t knock, you may not realize they are there. If someone opens your door without knocking, you may feel any number of ways, none of them conducive to deeper relaxation or dropping into yourself. When I have received an HMV through the legs without a clear Blue Line, my donkey has a slightly scary moment of “What’s happening?!!” Even though I’ve experienced thousands of HMVs and know what is happening, on the level of the donkey, the instinctive level, it puts me on the alert every time. 

It’s so simple and elegant. We come to the Blue Line. We pause. With those two actions our touch has connected with our clients on an essential level. We’ve let them know something is going to happen. We have invited them to open their door and come with us. We have deepened our lean. We have created the opportunity for an efficient fulcrum using only the effort required. We have created a safe environment that supports them dropping more deeply into themselves. This is the power of the Blue Line.

Practitioners

What is a Clearer Stronger Field?

In Core ZB, we learn that a fulcrum creates a clearer, stronger field. In the Core Zero Balancing Study Guide clearer, stronger fields are defined as “vibratory fields that are more organized and of greater intensity than those that initially existed in the client.” We all have experienced clearer, stronger fields when both giving and receiving ZBs. I wonder what exactly is happening, don’t you? Let’s have a glass of wine or a cup of tea and wonder about it together.

Sometimes with clients, I will describe introducing a clearer, stronger field as having a similar effect to placing a magnet next to a pile of iron filings. It’s a loose analogy and it’s a place to start. Initially, the filings are in a disorganized heap. Although one could argue that the pile is at least organized enough to remain a heap! Once the magnet acts upon the filings, the heaped shape transforms and the filings line up. The magnet’s field is clearer, more organized, and stronger, more intense, than the field of the iron filings. 

Many times more organization changes the field in a way that feels better. Think about how you feel after cleaning your home or pruning an overgrown garden. Putting aside any feelings of accomplishment that may contribute, the area feels better to be in. If you are having an argument with someone and emotions are running high, one might call the field surrounding the pair of you less organized than it was before the argument began. Once you have reached an agreement, the field is more organized, yet differently organized than before the argument. There is more clarity; you know more about each other. An aspect of the relationship has transformed. 

Perhaps a certain intensity is required for things to change, for transformation to occur. Certainly enough intensity to overcome the current bonds of organization. The intensity of the field during an argument is likely higher than prior to the argument. Is this what’s happening? 

Does the fact a field is more organized actually give it more intensity? And can it cause the transformation of a less intense field absent a fulcrum? The field in my treatment space is very well organized. My clients often comment that they begin to feel better the minute they enter the room. Think of how you feel walking into the well organized field of a library or church. 

Is there an optimal amount of intensity? I’m thinking about tornadoes. One might say a tornado is a well organized system with a great deal of intensity. Certainly strong enough and intense enough to transform the shape of a house in its path. However, that transformation leads more toward chaos than further organization; the shape of the house now resembles the pile of iron filings pre-magnetization. Is it because there’s too much intensity and it prevents the reorganization we see with the magnetized filings? 

Do our own fields change as we give a ZB? Does introducing a clearer, stronger field through a fulcrum for the client also act to organize our own fields? Certainly if one has received multiple ZBs over a period of years, one’s field becomes better organized. But what about when initially learning ZB? My field was certainly NOT well organized when I first started studying ZB. And yet, my clients improved even as I stumbled my way through the protocol. Did something about the activity of giving a ZB create more organization in me? 

I hope this has intrigued and inspired you to wonder about clearer, stronger fields! Thanks for reading!

Clients

The Unexpected Benefits

Most people come to see me for help with physical pain. I am a Physical Therapist by training so this makes sense. Many don’t know what Zero Balancing is, perhaps have not heard of it. However, they want help with back or neck or shoulder pain and perhaps they have heard from a friend that I was able to help. I occasionally use Physical Therapy tools and most always use Zero Balancing. And people’s pain gets better. What my new clients may not be aware of is how Zero Balancing is helping them on every level of themselves; efficiently wrapped up in one simple 30-minute session. However, I’m aware of it. And I observe changes, sometimes profound changes, in almost everyone I work with.

As my clients’ pain improves, I’ve observed other seemingly unrelated aspects of their lives improve as well. People discover new things about themselves and their bodies, become happier, become more truly who they are, become more able to function in the world with greater ease. The changes are usually subtle at first. Someone who has a hard time saying no spontaneously finds themselves saying no. Someone who has a hard time setting boundaries becomes aware they have set a boundary without really thinking about it. Someone whose life is a roller coaster discovers a new ability to ride the ups and downs. These are some of the unexpected benefits of receiving Zero Balancing treatments. To be clear, my job is solely to give the ZB session and that’s all I am doing. It’s the Zero Balancing session itself that creates change. 

I had this experience in my own life multiple times. As I received my monthly ZB sessions, gradually over time my life improved. It was surprising and sometimes astonishing. I felt like I’d been handed a new menu in the restaurant of life; full of possibilities I never thought I’d have access to, feeling grounded, stable, free and happy in ways I’d never dreamed possible.  

We live in a stoic culture. Tolerating pain is expected, implicitly and sometimes explicitly. Those who express pain are often labeled wimps or given other derogatory labels. Emotional pain may be greeted with even more derision. Yet as human beings, most of us are subjected to harmful physical and emotional experiences at least once in our lives. Many experience harm multiple times. 

From a holistic view, harm on any level affects all the levels. When have any of us experienced a physical disruption without concomitant disruption of many other aspects of our lives? If you sprain your ankle, you may have pain in your ankle and need to use crutches to walk. You may not be able to work. You may need help to make meals or to go grocery shopping. Perhaps you are responsible for making someone else meals or helping someone else shop. 

Physically your ankle hurts, yet you are affected mentally and emotionally as well. You may feel anxious or useless when you can’t do your job. You may feel worried or ashamed about not being able to pay your bills. You may feel distressed about letting someone down who depends on you for help. You may need help and find it difficult to ask for or accept help.  

A treatment modality that addresses all these levels at once is invaluable from my perspective. While Physical Therapy may be necessary for treating some aspects of physical pain, the addition of Zero Balancing can help the structural injury and the emotional and mental repercussions as well. A treatment modality that helps all parts of the person is powerful medicine. 

Clients

Why can’t I stick to my exercise program? PART 2

It seems every January brings focus to health and exercise so we are right on track with our spotlight on creating the habit of regular physical exercise! Part 1 presented a self-assessment exercise designed to help you identify your likes and dislikes with regard to exercise. You can read Part 1 here Now it’s time to put this information to use.

It’s worth repeating: the only exercises that work are the ones you will actually do. You will increase the likelihood of sticking with your new exercise habit if your program: 

  • Contains exercises you enjoy. 
  • Realistically fits into the time you have.
  • Happens at a time and place you like. 
  • Contains exercises that help you achieve your goals. 

The self-assessment exercise in Part 1 should have helped you to identify the type of exercise you enjoy, a realistic estimate of the amount of time you have to exercise, and when and where you like to exercise. Here are some suggestions to help you put this information to use. 

Exercises you enjoy: While there is lots of evidence promoting specific types of exercise as most beneficial, no exercise can help you if you don’t do it. It’s a simple fact that people are more likely to continue what they like and stop what they don’t like. There are hundreds of effective stretching, strengthening and cardio exercises. Keep looking for something you enjoy until you find it. 

Exercises you have time to do: You may have read that 60 minutes of daily exercise is recommended. But realistically, you may be able to find only 30 minutes 3 times a week. Impractical expectations often lead people to quit; resulting in no exercise, no movement towards goals, and often a feeling of failure or shame. Not good! Although we may tell ourselves that lack of motivation or laziness is to blame, the stumbling block is more often an unrealistic expectation of what can be accomplished. Commit to exercising during the time that truly fits into your schedule and watch as your success builds a new habit. 

Exercises that happen at a time and in a setting you like: I know of a woman who attended jazzercise classes twice a week for years because the location was on her drive home from work. Both the location and the time fit nicely into her schedule. Find the time and place that works for you and stick with it.  

Exercises that help you achieve your goals: Our bodies are a lot like plants. Give a plant the right amount of sunlight and water and it will grow beautifully. With your body, give it the right type and amount of exercise and it will change. What’s the right type and amount of exercise? The answer varies depending on your goals. Targeting the specific muscles you need for a given activity will help you maximize your benefit for the time you have allotted to exercise. A good Physical Therapist or exercise trainer can help you determine which muscles to target and how much strength and flexibility is optimal, as well as help you to find the exercises you like. 

If you choose a program you like that matches your schedule, you are much more likely to exercise, to continue exercising, and to return to your program if it is interrupted, as can happen so frequently in life. And if you do the exercises correctly and consistently, you are giving your body what it needs. Your body will change and you will achieve your goal.

Practitioners

How Do We Know What We Are Doing?

How do you know? It’s a question often asked…in song, in film, in life. How do you know you love someone? How do you know someone loves you? How do you know which job to accept? How do you know your spaghetti sauce has enough oregano? Is it important to know how we know? Is it enough to just know? These questions have fascinated me for years in regard to Zero Balancing.

On the one hand, it can be very helpful to know how much structure to use or how long to hold a pause. But does investigating how we know have value? As in many Glass of Wine conversations, there may not be a definitive answer. Yet asking yourself these questions will hopefully lead you in some interesting directions!

When we consider how we know the spaghetti sauce is properly seasoned, we might identify that we are using our sense of taste. There is usually a signature taste for “enough oregano” unique to each cook. In this instance, knowing how we know is fairly easy and if we needed to teach someone how to season spaghetti sauce, we would likely instruct them to rely on their own sense of taste and preference. 

Knowing whether we love someone might be a bit more complicated. There may be multiple streams of information from sensory organs, intuition, beliefs, or the opinions of others. If there is a recognizable signature feeling in one’s body it likely doesn’t originate from a single source. However, like learning the “enough oregano” taste, once we learn the “I love this person” feeling, we should be able to recognize its presence or absence fairly easily, shouldn’t we? 

What if it’s someone we feel we shouldn’t love or someone we are afraid might not love us back? What if there is some situational aspect that clouds our internal feedback? Perhaps we feel frightened or anxious and the strength of those body signals overrides the “I love this person” feeling? In this instance, would knowing how we know be helpful? Could it provide us with a more nuanced experience that might help us navigate the cloudiness to find more clarity?  

How do we know what we are doing when we give a Zero Balancing session? How do we know a fulcrum is working or that our client is expanded? In Core ZB  classes, we learn to watch for working signs and listen for voice quality. We learn to recognize the feeling of held energy in bone. We learn to use touch, vision and hearing for feedback. In more advanced classes, we learn internal feedback signals that help identify our own state of expansion. 

Is that all you need to know what you are doing? If the session has gone beautifully or not beautifully, how did you know? How can you determine your client is deeply processing versus dissociating? Where in your body do you get signals? Are you receiving information from sources other than vision, hearing and touch? 

Do your signals remain clear if you are working on someone you want to impress? What if you feel intimidated? If the situation is fraught, would more self-awareness of how you know what you are doing be helpful? Could it provide a road map out of the tangle of emotions you might feel if your ZB session is going awry? Or direction toward something else to focus your attention on? 

I hope this stimulates your curiosity about your own process. Thanks for reading!

Practitioners

The Power of ZB Principles: The Witness State

Welcome to the first in a new series of articles shining a spotlight on Zero Balancing Principles. Let’s begin with The Witness State…

In Zero Balancing, the Witness State can be defined as neutral presence on the part of the practitioner. The ZBer does not have an agenda or opinion about what needs to happen, how it happens, or where the session needs to go. We facilitate a balance between energy and structure without attachment to a particular process or way the increased balance is manifested. Having an agenda or opinion is not a bad thing. It’s just not the Witness State. It’s not ZB. 

There is a relationship between the paradigm of the practitioner and the Witness State. If the practitioner was trained as a Physical Therapist like myself, the paradigm or lens through which the body is seen involves concepts such as body symmetry, alignment, strength, and flexibility. If I am a Physical Therapist treating a client, I am looking for a linear relationship between cause and effect, for the client’s body to change in a particular way in response to my treatment. This is true of many similar and similarly excellent treatment modalities like massage therapy, chiropractic, and acupuncture. We may be looking for a rib that’s out to go back in, a tight muscle to loosen, an acupuncture point to become unblocked in response to our  treatment. An action is intended to create a specific result. 

In the ZB paradigm, the practitioner is not attempting to create any particular change other than energy and structure coming into a better state of balance. This improved state of balance may manifest in any number of ways determined not by the practitioner but by the client’s inherent healing essence. To paraphrase a quote by Dr. Fritz Smith, “The ZB practitioner gives the session, nature gives the experience.”

Remaining in the Witness State often requires vigilance. Our own unconscious beliefs about health have a way of sneaking in and influencing our sessions. Here’s an example: you are giving a Half Moon Vector (HMV) to a client and you notice that one leg feels longer than the other. You decide to pull harder on one leg to equalize the length. That’s you leaving the Witness State. You have an agenda; that the client’s legs should be the same length. Remaining in the Witness State would mean holding the HMV the way you usually do with your other clients. In other words, you are simply witnessing the difference in leg length. 

If nature is giving the experience, then we as practitioners do not have to know what or how much change is best for our client, nor do we need to know how to create that change. Clients on our tables instinctively feel accepted as they are because we aren’t thinking they need to be any different. And we aren’t trying to change them. They feel safe and can drop into themselves more deeply.  And by remaining in the Witness State, we also become witness to our client’s process. Witnessing amplifies the field and creates a sacred space in much the same way a witnessed ritual becomes more powerful. As we witness our client’s experience without intention, surprises can happen. Radical healing. Healing in ways we could not anticipate because we are not trying to move clients in one direction or another.  

We trust the wisdom of nature. And herein lies the power…the magic…of the Witness State.

Linda Wobeskya, MSPT