Finding Self-Authority in the Body

A reflection on receiving Zero Balancing

I was sitting in a Zero Balancing workshop surrounded by experienced practitioners, learning a modality I loved.

And yet my nervous system felt like it had stuck its paw in an electrical outlet.

My body felt prickly and electric.
My system felt frozen.
And I had no idea why.

It didn’t make sense. I was exactly where I wanted to be.

At the time, I was moving through one of the biggest transitions of my life.

I had just completed the requirements for Zero Balancing certification and officially became a practitioner. Around the same time, my husband and I left our jobs, sold our small home in Austin, Texas, and moved to the outskirts of the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia.

For a while we lived in my in-laws’ basement with our two dogs while trying to find our footing and decide where we wanted to land.

Eventually we moved into our new home. Winter in the mountains felt very different from Texas. The cold, the unfamiliar landscape, and the magnitude of the transition seemed to affect my nervous system in ways I didn’t fully understand.

I felt unsettled.

So when I saw that longtime Zero Balancing teacher Michael Oruch was offering a workshop in Maryland, I was excited to attend. I had heard wonderful things about his teaching and the material in this class. More than anything, I was looking forward to being back in a familiar environment — learning, practicing, and growing alongside other practitioners.

The group was small, maybe ten practitioners from different backgrounds. The workshop was held inside the home of a longtime ZB practitioner.

The space was warm, welcoming, and intimate.

But by the end of the first day, something in my system felt off.

My energy felt like it was outside my skin. Nothing specific had happened that would explain the intensity of what I was feeling, yet my body felt overwhelmed.

The closest comparison I could think of was a cat sticking its paw into an electrical outlet.

I knew I needed support.

So I asked Michael if he might be willing to give me a session to help me ground and integrate the experience of the class.

He listened and then asked if I would be willing to receive the session as a demonstration for the group.

I said yes.

Internally, I was struggling.

Part of me was grateful for the opportunity. Another part of me felt frightened. I was being asked to lie on the table in front of my peers while feeling disoriented inside myself.

I knew it was fear.
I just didn’t know what to do with it.

At the same time, I was glad I had spoken up and asked for help — and that my request had been received.

In that moment, something important shifted.

Instead of pushing through alone, I allowed myself to be supported.

Michael asked me to do something a little different for the session. He invited me to keep my eyes open and stay aware of where I was in the room.

He did a brief seated evaluation of my spine and then asked me to lie down on the table.

Keeping my eyes open felt unusual for me, but it was also strangely empowering. I could remind myself again and again that I was here, in the room.

My awareness moved back and forth between drifting into thought and orienting to the space around me.

I don’t remember every place Michael made contact with my skeleton. But I do remember one moment very clearly.

When he made contact near the base of my sternum — the area of my solar plexus — I felt waves of pulsating energy move through my body.

As that contact settled, something unexpected happened.

A memory surfaced.

I was transported back to a difficult time in my life after graduating college. I had entered the “real world” feeling unsupported and overwhelmed by the transition. During that time, I coped through cycles of bulimia — bingeing and purging to regulate overwhelming emotions.

It was a painful period of my life. I felt trapped in a pattern that seemed impossible to escape.

But in that moment on the table, something shifted.

The memory did not pull me back into shame.
Instead, I felt a quiet recognition move through my body.

I needed support then, and I didn’t know how to ask for it.

When I returned home from that workshop, I began noticing my nervous system with new clarity.

I could see how overwhelmed I had been after such a massive life transition.

Instead of pushing through or pretending everything was fine, I started paying attention.

I sought support — through therapy, somatic work, and deeper study of the nervous system.

I also began practicing boundaries with family members in ways I had never done before.

I reduced my work hours and focused more on what my body and nervous system actually needed.

That process is still unfolding.

But that Zero Balancing session marked a turning point.

In Zero Balancing, the practitioner works with the bones and joints — the deeper structures of the body that relate to orientation, support, and how we organize ourselves in gravity.

It helped me recognize that I could listen to my body, ask for help, and take responsibility for the direction of my own life.

For me, that is what self-authority feels like.

Sometimes a session doesn’t change everything at once.
Sometimes it simply helps you recognize where your power already lives.

—

jenuine bodywork
connecting heart to bone 💚