Massage Continuing Education: The World Needs a WIFE

By David Lauterstein

In marketing everyone just thinks “What’s In it For Me?” and accordingly that all promotion needs to assume “W.I.F.M.” is primary.

WIFM is true in many ways. I am always struck how most health magazines are mostly sales tools for WIFM – filled with ads for herbal remedies, health foods, and cosmetics. But there’s so much more to life and to health than that.

Studying with Dr. Fritz Smith, MD, the founder of Zero Balancing, has taught me so much about life beyond WIFM. I call it “W.I.F.E.” – What’s In it For Everybody?”

What’s unique and in-it-for-everybody with Fritz Smith as a teacher and Zero Balancing:

1. He is not one-up as a teacher.
2. He is still totally excited about sharing what he knows.
3. He is one of the kindest people I know.
4. He has founded a modality that gives people the experience of non-self-centered health.

Basically, Fritz in his teaching draws upon the realization that health is not something we have, it is something we share.   A superficial experience of health – a good meal, runner’s high, a bit of weight loss – is a good feeling. The deep experience of health, however, is something that sustains us for our whole life.

Zero Balancing taps into the level of the person that lies deeper than personality, deeper than the usual sense of self -the layer of our bones and the energy that flows through them.

When we get in touch with that layer of the self, we tap into the roots of our life. And we suddenly remember, we don’t own our own life, it’s not something we have; it is the greatest of gifts; it is a precious gift which all living beings share. When we are touched with a surpassing level of kindness and knowledge at this level, we remember and experience that we all participate in something much larger than ourselves, we belong and are at home in the larger whole.

It begins to sound mystical? Well, it’s really just common sense! Superficial relaxation, such as Swedish massage, gives rise to relaxation of surface tension. Deeper massage stimulates deeper, longer-lasting release of chronically-held tensions. And Zero Balancing, by stimulating balanced structure and energy flow in the deepest layer of our being, creates a deep, more abiding sense of inner peace.

In the first class I took with Fritz I rather suddenly saw this and leaned over at one point and whispered to him, “Fritz, this is the science of enlightenment!” And he whispered back, “Yes, but don’t tell anyone!”

How perfect. He didn’t want to lay personal claim to this discovery. He just wants people to experience it.

When we experience enlightenment, however fleeting it may be, we get a gift that we will spend an entire lifetime sharing. As the poet Kabir says, “Kabir saw that for fifteen seconds, and it made him a servant for life.”

Each class I attend with Fritz, in every Zero Balancing class I teach and in every session I give, it is this important sense of connection we serve – we must be devoted to the growing health and happiness of all beings. Health comes from “whole” — we are each part of a whole that is larger than ourselves.  To share the experience of unity – rather than division – seems to be the key to the health of our whole world these days.
I am deeply grateful that Fritz through his teaching illustrates perfectly What’s in it for everybody.

My wish is that everybody who does bodymind work make it a priority to experience his teaching and that ultimately we spread this revelatory approach to touch and relationship throughout the world.

Remember Fritz’s Advanced Zero Balancing is Sept. 24-27 – don’t miss it!