In The Name Of Balance

Today I had the distinct privileged of working with a colleague to fine tune the Trager approach. We discussed the intimacy of this approach, and the need to feel confident in our work. Sometimes our emotions reveal us, to the point of losing ourselves in the other person, or withdrawing into our fears, or even our own benefit of the work! How to find that balance of confidence and rise out of ego or self-doubt during a session? Stepping back, pausing, recognizing our place in that moment. Admission, (either verbally with the client, if it can be used as a "teachable moment" or silently, within ourselves)...acknowledging, hmmm...here it is again, that old...(self doubt, wanting to be good, wanting to have an effect, wanting to help, etc) and letting it go. Turning it into humor, we laugh at ourselves, at our old patterns of self-negation or self-righteousness, and move onto the next delightful thing in the session...together.

We laughed together about how long it takes to become proficient...that there are always new feelings that surface, new materials to learn, a new neck to feel...and oh, to stay connected to the journey and not the outcome! That is the real lesson!

To get a better understanding of this, I had an insight to describe a dial, with the needle pointing straight up, which I labeled "balance point". Just as in a tuner for an instrument, when we are right on "key", the needle is straight up, and a green light comes on. If we are "sharp" or off "key" a bit to the right, we may be just a little too helpful, we may feel we aren't doing enough, we may disempower the client, by not engaging them in some way that may be helpful for them. If we are "flat" or a little to the left of center, we may be into ourselves a bit much, taking too much of the others person's time, or not paying attention to their needs to satisfy our own. In both these cases, the light is red, and we are not ready to continue. (We are both musicians, so this made sense!)

In a Trager session, this is when we take a pause, and return to ourselves. We find our center, and from this place we teach others by modeling our process how to get there themselves. This is a life long process, and some learn faster than others, but we all learn eventually.

In Inspiration