Let’s revisit the ways Zero Balancing (ZB) principles can help you in your everyday life. Specifically, how applying the concepts of fulcrums and working states can help you cope with change and uncertainty. The term “fulcrum” is used to describe each technique used during a ZB session. A fulcrum is a catalyst for change. Life choices and world events can be viewed as fulcrums that create change, whether chosen or imposed. 

A fulcrum enables movement, much like a stationary board becomes a lever when placed on one. When your ZB practitioner places and holds a fulcrum for a few seconds, your system responds by initiating motion. In response to the practitioner’s stillness, your internal world begins to reorganize and change. This process, known as a working state, is an in-between phase—between your previous patterns and the new ones that are emerging. Each fulcrum, working state, and new pattern are integral to an organic process that naturally progresses you toward improved health.

Life events, like job change, moving house, getting married, a pandemic, can be viewed as fulcrums. Each acts as a catalyst for change, leading to a subsequent “working state.” In certain situations, we actively place a fulcrum, much like a Zero Balancing practitioner. We choose to make a change. In others, we are the ones on the ZB table, receiving the impact of the fulcrum. In both instances, whether change has been chosen or imposed, a working state follows. This in-between state is inherently unstable because things are in motion; things are changing. From this perspective, it’s perfectly normal to feel stressed, for things to feel challenging or extremely uncomfortable. 

Understanding fulcrums and working states can help you understand and cope with your experience. If you have not initiated the change, you are receiving the fulcrum. You have not chosen this experience and yet here you are. Recognition that you are in a working state can help you feel more stable, even if things are still in motion. The stress you feel is a normal, if uncomfortable, response to change. You can anticipate that once the new pattern is established, you are likely to feel better. You realize that you are experiencing a normal part of re-orienting around a change and may be better able to tolerate the discomfort as a result. It may not feel easy, it may feel easier! 

It can be equally helpful to understand fulcrums and working states when you initiate the change. Here, you are like the practitioner. You have placed the fulcrum and you can view the reactions of those around you as their working state. Like a ZB practitioner, your job is to stay present and remain still. Those around you are reorganizing around your fulcrum. Their reactions are a normal response to the change you have created, their discomfort is the normal discomfort of being in a working state. This may free you from feeling you must argue or justify your decision. If you can stay still and present, their reaction often winds down soon and you can both move forward into the new pattern. 

Try looking at experiences in your life as fulcrums and working states. I hope it helps!