inner-flow.uk
  • Home
  • News & Articles
  • How I can help you
    • Benefits >
      • General
      • Authenticity
      • Psychedelic Integration
      • Trauma
    • A typical session
    • More about Zero Balancing
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Corporate Wellness
    • Testimonials
  • Appointments
    • In person
    • Gift cards
  • Workshops
    • Geometry of Healing, May 2025
    • Core ZB I, August 2025
    • Core ZB II, October 2025
  • About me

"The loss of self is the essence of trauma"

30/3/2018

1 Comment

 
Photo of young woman holding a butterlfy in her hands. Photo by John Reign Abarintos.
John Reign Abarintos
I have a huge respect for Dr Gabor Mate. I saw several of his quotes in memes on the internet, and I liked what I read. In just those small sentences alone, he came across as a man with integrity, with a true and deep understanding of the experience of others. Or perhaps I should say the suffering of others.

In due course, I read one of his books - When the Body Says No - which covers a topic I will no doubt write about in the near future. It was a book where I found myself nodding and agreeing with much of what he wrote.

Fast forward to the present moment and I've just finished watching a Tim Ferris interview with the man himself. In this interview, he says something about trauma that I would like to share with you. It has direct relevance to bodywork and why Zero Balancing is so powerful.
"People often think that trauma is what happens to you. So trauma is a divorce when you were small and your parents fighting. Trauma is your mother's depression. Trauma is your father's alcoholism...

Those aren't the traumas. Those are traumatic. But the trauma is not what happens to you. The trauma is what happens inside you.

And as a result of these traumatic events is that what happens inside you is that you get disconnected from your emotions and you get disconnected from your body. And you have difficulty being in the present moment. You develop a negative view of your world and a negative view of yourself, and a defensive view of other people.

And these perspectives keeping showing up in your life in the present... So the issue is not just to recognise what happened ten, fifteen, thirty, however many years ago, but to actually recognise their manifestations in the present moment and to transcend them.

And how do you do that?

By reconnecting with yourself - by restoring the connection with your body, primarily - and with the emotions that you lost.

Once you do, once you've found these things again, then you have what we call recovery. Because what does it mean to recover something? It means to find it again. So what is it that people find when they recover? They find themselves. And the loss of self is the essence of trauma.

So the real purpose of addiction treatment, mental health treatment - any kind of healing - is reconnection."


This is more-or-less exactly how Zero Balancing can help with trauma. During a Zero Balancing session the client is reminded of their physical body in its present state - especially where all their tensions are. There, in the present moment, we assist in reconnecting you with your physical body. According to Dr Mate's quote above, this alone can help people heal their traumas and reclaim their authenticity. And there are more ways that we consciously work in Zero Balancing that amplify this process and multiplies its effects - more on this in future blog posts.

I'm reminded of one of my teachers, who, when asked 'What is Zero Balancing?', responds quite simply, "It's touching pain with kindness."

May your hurts be soothed by kindness.
1 Comment
janis binnie link
7/4/2018 20:59:22

This makes so much sense - having experienced my first Zero Balancing session you describe it perfectly! Thank you.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2022
    July 2021
    April 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018

    Categories

    All
    Authenticity
    Expanded States
    Growth
    Guest Blog Posts
    Lockdown
    News
    Pyschedelic Integration
    Q&A
    Research
    Touch
    Transformation
    Trauma

    RSS Feed


Zero Balancing in Edinburgh with James Salomons

Wednesdays 2pm - 6pm
Thursdays 10am - 9pm
Fridays 10am - 6pm
Saturdays 10am - 1pm

EH1 Therapies
4b Randolph Place
Edinburgh
EH3 7TQ

[email protected]
07938 411 517
Privacy notice
© COPYRIGHT 2018-2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • News & Articles
  • How I can help you
    • Benefits >
      • General
      • Authenticity
      • Psychedelic Integration
      • Trauma
    • A typical session
    • More about Zero Balancing
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Corporate Wellness
    • Testimonials
  • Appointments
    • In person
    • Gift cards
  • Workshops
    • Geometry of Healing, May 2025
    • Core ZB I, August 2025
    • Core ZB II, October 2025
  • About me