Zero Balancing is based on a model of health, well-being and optimum functional balance. It is assumed that quality attention, unconditional positive regard and deep self-awareness together create a clearer stronger field in which a person can better acknowledge and respond to life situations and processes - including illness.
In healthcare, a blank sheet means not being committed to a role, outcome, interpretation or intervention, prior to or during consultation. Instead, mutually negotiated partnerships evolve between consulting and consulted persons, enabling either to make informed and intuitive choices regarding lifestyle, attitude and treatment.
In this workshop we take the blank sheet approach into the wider world of everyday social relations. We can experience how it allows for greater consciousness and manoeuvrability – especially when a situation is too ‘loose’ or too ‘taut’ for the conversation to be pleasurable or meaningful.
Tim adopted a casual relaxed style of delivery along the lines of ZB as a conversation. As in a conversation there are always a number of possible response and we don’t always know what response we will evoke when we interact with another. By being flexible we remains open to any possibilities and we can assist this process by being fully present and paying attention. He stressed that he had not prepared a set speech for the workshop because he wanted to be more fully in the moment with the group and his interaction with it. He invited us to respond in a any we chose – including walking out if we felt like it!
Tim then drew Fritz’s famous diagram showing looseness/slack, connection and overload and explained the relevance in ZB terms. He then went on to explore how these principles can be applied to any interactions between people. He demonstrated the exercise with tissue paper and then invited us to explore with a partner. He then replayed the exercise with a more rigid strip of paper (the kind you make paper chains with) and showed that when a comfortable connection is established. It is possible for one person to lead the other. We took turns in doing this within our pairs. Our experience was that when we connected clearly and comfortably (donkey/donkey) we wanted to maintain the connection and hence were happy to ‘follow’ the person ‘leading’. My partner and I ended up dancing together!!
Finally, Tim asked us to sue the awareness from this experience in the last exercise. He asked one of each pair in turn to climb on to a chair and to step down with the assistance and support of the other. For it to ‘work’ we needed to find a place where both supporter and supported were comfortable and ‘in rapport’ so to speak. Everyone got very absorbed in this exercise and would have happily continued exploring possibilities had it not been for the time constraints. In debriefing afterwards, Tim suggested we consider the implications of what we had discovered in the context of life situations where we are offering help or support to someone else or where we are being offered it.
All in all an enjoyable and though provoking session. Tim handled the material with lightness and humour and make it accessible to ZBers and non-ZBers alike. I felt he struck the right balance between talking and ‘hands-‘ and the energy in the room was high, especially during the exercises. I feel that everyone left having learned something. For me it was the understanding that learning to dance with a partner (which I’ve always been hopeless at!) begins with establishing a donkey/donkey connection. It opens up a lot of possibilities.
(Anna Colmer CertZB)