Part of my passion in writing this is to let more people know of the possibilities of Zero Balancing as a personal growth and transformational tool. Zero Balancing is a type of body work, done with clothes on, founded by Dr. Fritz Smith, an osteopathic MD in California.
ZB focuses on aligning the structural body (the skeleton) with the energy body. The sessions both feel very good receive, are useful for general relaxation and many physical complaints, but ZB has its deepest use as a wellness related therapy that helps put the person into a deep meditative state where deep healing and personal transformation can occur.
One participant in a class I was teaching, a zero balancer herself, said to me “transformation is kind of a big word for Zero Balancing,” indicating she thought that was claiming too much. This brought me up short for a bit and I asked myself if that was the right word. When I next presented at a Zero Balancing Conference I asked the audience how many people thought that their life had been transformed by Zero Balancing. Almost everyone one in the audience raised their hand. So I think transformation is actually the right word to convey the full possibilities of Zero Balancing.
One term for this process of personal development and transformation is self-actualization. Self-actualization is a term originally introduced by Kurt Goldstein in the 1930s and 40s, and followed up later by many others, particularly in humanistic psychology by Abraham Maslow. In Goldstein’s view self-actualization is the“Master”motive and the only true motive. “The tendency to actualize one’s self as fully as possible is the basic human drive.”
Maslow said “there are a hierarchy of needs in life that begin with the physiological needs for 1) air and food; 2) safety. His list of life’s needs continues with: 3) belonging and love; 4) self-esteem, self-respect; and healthy positive feelings, 5) “being” needs – concerning creative self-growth; engendered from fulfillment of potential (self-actualization) and meaning in life.”
He said self-actualization represents the growth of an individual toward fulfilling the highest needs in his hierarchy – those for “meaning in life”and for “being.” His belief was that “finding your core-nature that is unique to you is one of the main goals of life.”
There are many words or phrases for this process that have a similar meaning. Self-realization, self-discovery, self-exploration and self-reflection describe this same idea. Another way of saying it is the “realization and fulfillment of one’s talents and potentialities.”
The quest for spiritual enlightenment, pursuit of knowledge, and the desire to give to and/or positively transform society are other examples of self-actualization.
The fruits of self-actualization include knowing and understanding one’s self, being able to be in the moment, a feeling of joy and peace and a sense of well-being that doesn’t depend on what happens in the outer world. Many systems talk about how to reach the place of self-actualization and what are the qualities of a person living from in that place. The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model lists “clarity, calmness, creativity, being present able to connect to others, eyes bright, and more, as some of those qualities. Other qualities include feeling safe, not anxious; accepted; loved; loving; feeling alive and living a fulfilling life.“
Diana Fosha, the founder of AEDP, has another list of some of the qualities of a self-actualized person, “Calm, flow, ease, compassion, curiosity, creativity and clarity, where the sense of truth comes from deep acceptance and self-acceptance.” InADEP there is a view that we are all wired for what they call “transformance,”the idea thatthere is an innate drive in everyone to grow, to evolve and to self-actualize. In the AEDP literature they talk about someone who is living in that self-actualized place as being in touch with their “self at best”or the “true self.”
There are many paths to self-actualization including meditation, psychotherapy, self-reflection and prayer to name a few. In the general public if people have heard of ZB at all they tend to think of it as beneficial for relaxation and certain physical complaints. This would put ZB in the category of massage, chiropractic or physical therapy. What is much less widely known to the general public is that Zero Balancing is one of those tools which is also beneficial for Self-actualization.
Zero Balancing has several advantages over other ways of getting to self-actualization:
- Zero Balancing adds the element of touch, which can help speed up this process tremendously. Through touch you can often help place the person in a deep meditative state and deep connection to their core self in a short time.
- ZB works directly with the body and with a part of the body (the bones) that gives direct access to the core of the person and deep connection to the Self. In Zero Balancing we believe and have a lot of clinical experience to support the idea that we have body-held memories of many of our early experiences and traumas that are retained in the bones.
- Zero Balancing is very good at reducing or removing the blocks in our bodies that make it harder to access our true self, thus allowing easier access to deeper parts of the self.
- In addition, ZB is based on principles that are applicable to all of life – working at interface, balancing structure and energy, working with a deep part of the person, being in the moment, being in touch with the feeling in your body and your body as an excellent mirror of your mind, emotions and soul.
- To me, self-actualization is the best route to a successful, satisfying, and rich life. (Rich as in full of deep feeling and joy and peace – not in the sense of being wealthy.) The true meaning in life comes from being able to listen your “core self.” And thus living from that place – “letting the spirits lead the parade” – where you feel you are in harmony with both your true inner nature and with the surrounding world.
All of this is to say that Zero Balancing is a wonderful therapy that deserves to be more known and more used. It feels wonderful; it helps a myriad of problems; and it frees and unifies the body/mind/ and spirit in a way that permits and encourages self-actualization