My Approach
The Balansa Method
I developed this approach to strengthen the mind-body-spirit connection and achieve physical and emotional balance. Here are its principles…
Change is movement, and movement is life.
Change is all around us. When we breathe, our lungs shrink and expand. Air flows from the outside of our body into our lungs… and then is pushed back out.
Breathing is movement. If we don’t breathe, we die. If there is no movement, there is no life.
Therefore, we should own and embrace change! When we do, we’re no longer scared of it. We can examine it and learn how to deal with it.
We must be responsible and accountable for our choices and decisions.
Our life is the sum of our choices and decisions. We do not control all the changes that come our way, but we are responsible for how we react to them.
Once we own our decisions and their consequences, we can begin to understand whether these patterns serve us or whether it’s time to decide, act, or react differently.
Life is better when perceived and integrated holistically.
When we approach life holistically, we understand that changing a part changes the whole (and vice-versa).
Using this perspective, we can appreciate gradual growth and change, focus on our strengths rather than our problems, observe connections between the “big picture” and the “little details,” and see how the mind, body, and spirit are one.
If we want to assimilate something, it must be embodied.
When we restrict learning to what’s done only with our minds, the experience remains verbal. It doesn’t go deeper.
If we don’t use our bodies to integrate new experiences, we ignore a big part of who we are!
Somatic Movement
Somatic movement is any movement that we practice specifically to attend body-mind-spirit connection and explore how our physical sensation and movement affect our thoughts and feelings.
For example, If you practice yoga to be in better health, become stronger and more flexible, it is wonderful. But it is not somatic work (even though it will naturally have a somatic effect).
If you practice yoga because you want to explore your inner world, understand how physical stability helps you become more emotionally stable, and learn how breathing can help calm your thoughts or be more focused, you are doing somatic work.
In the western, modern world, we divide everything into categories. It helps us understand the world in smaller chunks and make sense of it.
This is why we tend to consider Body, Mind, and Spirit as three separate parts that have a connection, and the more aware we are, the stronger this connection is.
But… this separation is artificial, and body-mind-spirit is actually one! It’s ok to create this separation to explore, but we must remember to integrate them into a whole.
How about science?
Somatic practitioners and therapists had this knowledge and understanding for many years. They understood that emotional trauma creates physiological changes. They understood that changing a physical pattern changes the brain and has an emotional effect. And they knew that a learning process must be embodied to become a part of who we are.
They understood because they were practicing and exploring, but it seemed like a theory with no proof for many people.
But now, science and neuroscience have advanced so much that they can show DNA changes, brain changes, and facia changes in reaction to emotional state and reaction to somatic work.
When I work with you, I will teach you how simple breathing and movement exercises that you can do anywhere can change your mindset forever. I will help you recognize your movement patterns (walking, talking, posture, hand gestures, and so on) and help you make the connection between the movement itself at what it reflects.
You will see that you can begin a change process from three places: thoughts, feelings, or movement.
MOVEMENT is where it all begins.
Before we talk and learn about our environment, we move. We breathe, we eat, and we cry. These are all VERBS, which means movement. This is why changing our patterns through our movement and body sensations takes us to our most primal state, where change can be embodied.
You will probably be surprised that physical pain will disappear through the process. It is all connected.
Embodiment is fundamental in creating change. Somatic practice underlines the Balnsa Method work of therapy, coaching, and healing.
Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis
Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) was an architect, dancer, and choreographer who explored and mapped personal and universal movement patterns through geometric shapes. He was a movement theoretician, created the Labanotation (writing movement), and made dance approachable for everyone.
Some feel like the writing of movement is redundant now because we can record movement with video (I do that sometimes, mostly when working with groups of kids), but what we actually record with the writing notation is ideas and sometimes themes.
The writing of symbols to record what I see is super important for movement analysis:
- It helps me write fast. You will not have to wait while I’m writing during the sessions.
- It allows us to recognize patterns that maybe we missed in action.
- It strips the words of the “baggage” attached to them, which allows me to connect to you without bias, judgment, but with empathy. For each of us, each word means something else. Let’s try it: Close your eyes and think of the word WATER. You might immediately get thirsty, or think of a swimming pool, maybe you have experienced a flood lately, and the word WATER send’s negative sensations throughout your body right now. The use of movement symbols instead of words reflects my core belief that everyone’s experience is different and valid. I prefer to connect through the most primal state, movement, to change patterns from the core.
Laban’s Ideas about directional movement and spatial intention (the directions of where we move from or to, what part of our body initiates the movement, do I feel pushed or pulled, and so on) are the baselines for many other movements and somatic-movement methods, and with the right perspective can make many patterns clear and changeable.
Using our relationship with our inner space (who we are inside, anatomically and emotionally) and the space around us (everything around us, including air, places, objects, and people) is super supportive when creating change. It underlies how the process generally works and helps us create a gradual change.
It also helps us orient ourselves in the world and throughout the process. We learn how to attend to the big picture and notice the details.
Let’s try this: Stand up and try to reach something very high, like picking an apple from a tree. Interestingly, every person will perform this task differently. Are you PUSHING your feet into the ground? Are you stretching straight up or rotating a bit? Are you looking up? Or straightforward? What you did is your default pattern. In the right context, the default pattern can reveal a lot of information about how and who you are in the world with the right tools.
It’s important to understand that you change your brain when changing a movement pattern. There is a chain reaction that affects not only your body, but your actions, thoughts, and feelings.
There is incredible connectivity throughout our whole body, so it changes us as a whole when we repattern.
Irmgard Bartenieff (1900-1981) was a student of Laban. She was a dancer, choreographer, physical therapist, movement therapist, and researcher. Bartenieff continued Laban’s work and created the Bartenieff Fundamentals, The basic 6, a series of exercises based on Laban’s spatial ideas, her development pattern theory, and the idea that we can move without activating big muscles unnecessarily.
Bartenieff created a fundamental list: Breath and core support, spatial intention, weight transfer, level change, and more.
Bartenieff’s developmental patterning refers to the stages of body organization as a baby develops. The baby must overcome the different challenges and create healthy patterns in every stage. If this pattern weren’t created right for some reason, they would have to somehow compensate in the next stage. It is important to understand that these developmental patterns of body organization affect us. Body-Mind-Spirit.
Bartenieff also believed that we can always re-pattern, even in very old age, and science supports this claim.
Ella was in her 60s. She had many wonderful ideas for businesses and projects, but she never started them. As we started to move, I realized that she doesn’t use the ground to push herself. (Try jumping without pushing with your feet off the floor to understand what I mean.) She also didn’t reach very far with her hands. She would get close to it when she wanted to get something, so she didn’t have to reach with her arm. There was no injury or pain-related explanation.
As we talked, I found out that her parents were traumatized Holocaust survivors. When she was a baby, they were scared to put her down on the floor. She was always in bed or their arms. She never really got to practice crawling. We practiced the different stages of crawling. She re-patterned her movement and rewired her brain. The chain reaction began. She learned how to use her ground to push to prepare to launch her business properly and reach without fear to get what she wanted.
It was, of course, a process that took time, but the change was a core change. It became a part of who she is.
If I gave Ella my Agile Approach Coaching, time management, marketing, communication skills, and so on, it would not be enough to create the change that she craved. There would be great tools for her to use, but that’s all they would be.
Ella chose to change on the inside and did it all by moving, rewiring her brain, and now she was strong, stable, and in the right state of mind to grow.
Bartenieff created the Basic 6, a series of exercises that helps recognize movement patterns and change them based on the developmental patterns and the fundamentals.
With these exercises, we can recognize the importance of using support and as little effort as possible to promote healthy, flexible, and creative movements while avoiding injury.
Since our mind, body, and spirit are one, a change in any part affects the whole of our being. So, when we practice the fundamentals through the Basic 6 and bring awareness to our movement and sensations, we learn how to create similar patterns in how we think and behave.
We can learn to live our lives more efficiently, with more support, balance, harmony, and flow.
In my work (and in my own life), I use the Laban/Bartenieff ideas to recognize and discover patterns and change them.
To become a movement analyst, I had to go through a long journey of self-discovery as I identified and gained insight into my patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. Going through this process helped me develop my natural talent for physical empathy. As we work together, that physical empathy helps me see what you can’t tell me with words (or what you don’t even know how to express to yourself). It fosters a deep, nonjudgmental connection between us.
Scrum
“Scrum” is a framework for generating a “big picture” view of a product’s development… while at the same time giving you the power to address small details in the production process.
It is a set of tools and a general approach that makes management easier. It helps you pay attention to things as they happen, evaluate, reevaluate and make an informed decision.
Since Agile is about going with the flow, adjusting, and reacting to change, it is essential to have a working structure to come back to –a structure that keeps you feeling grounded, contained, safe, and stable.
Scrum helps us keep things simple, even when they are complex. It helps break a situation into smaller bites that we can chew.
Ceremonies or Events (requiring events with a specific structure) are fundamental in Scrum.
In Scrum software development, four basic ceremonies help break the process into short periods. At the end of each part, there is a ceremony/event that helps learn about the state of the product, the well-being of the team members, and how to move forward.
The time and depth of the ceremony depend on the size of the piece. (The Daily, for example, should take up to 15 minutes. A retrospective will involve a lot more detail and take more time.)
The Scrum Master is conducting ceremonies. An experienced Scrum Master can be creative and change the ceremony to work for his specific team.
I’m a big believer in ceremonies. They give us stability and a sense of consistency, making us feel safe. Ceremonies can be a family dinner every night, a family trip every summer, a Friday night out with your friends once a month, writing your gratitude every morning, or reading to your children before they fall asleep.
Some of those ceremonies become agreements or even contracts with ourselves and our team members (family or colleagues). They allow us to go with the flow and be more flexible when change comes because we know we can come back to them. They are our rock.
In my family, we have an annual retrospective. My husband or I conduct it as Scrum Masters (according to the already built in retrospective structure and rules). It allows us to set expectations, plan, learn from the past, and make big and small decisions.
The Scrum Master and team members use tools that make information easily accessible and helps promote clarity, transparency, and flow of communication simply and functionally. For example, My husband and I like to use Trello (the app) to organize big family events. We divide the tasks, estimate time, it tells us when one of us completed the tasks, and we can see if there are delays. It saves us arguments and misunderstandings, and allows us to know when we need some support.
There are many other tools. The purpose of those tools is to make life easier. If they don’t work, we choose a different one.
A Scrum Master is a supportive leader, helping their team members connect the dots… and encouraging them to collaborate and maintain open, clear, solution-oriented communication to produce the highest quality results possible. They bring out the best in others.
So how did Agile and Scrum become a part of the Balansa Method?
Over the years, I listened to the different experienced Scrum masters that my husband worked with. I loved their creativity and flexible thinking anchored in the stability, structure, and framework that the Scrum supplies. I enjoyed their ability to empower the team members, encourage self-organized teamwork, and support the team instead of telling them what to do and bossing them around.
As I started managing my business and producing my business events with Agile and Scrum, I realized that my family is actually my most precious team. My husband and I learned how to give our children more and more independence by grounding our family rules, ceremonies, traditions, and setting expectations.
When I work with you, you will become the Scrum Master of your life. I will teach you the skills, making them work uniquely and specifically for you.
The Agile approach combined with the Scrum tools will make you a leader wherever you go. You will be able to lead yourself and others with support and empathy. You will develop great communication and interaction skills. You will get better and better at finding balance and harmony while making decisions that work for you.
Agile at Home
“Agile” is a management methodology created in 2001 by some of the world’s top software developers and project managers.
But it’s awesome for managing and organizing anything!
I fell in love with it about ten years ago when I was helping my husband expand and manage his software development business. I quickly understood its power and endless possibilities.
The Agile manifesto is based on 4 values and 12 principles that help you prioritize the way you manage processes, relationships, interactions, planning, and organizing.
When you manage your life, your family, or your business with an Agile approach, you will always value your well-being and that of the individuals around you. You will prioritize healthy, positive, and constructive relationships and interactions.
Collaboration is valued over negotiation, which means that you get the people around you to cooperate with you and be on the same team as you. You will value working together rather than finding the “middle.”
An Agile approach also values a quick and smart reaction to change. It accepts change as a part of any process and helps you be sensitive to it but not timid.
The combination of these values promotes positive and solution-oriented communication. It promotes and supports flexibility, creativity.
Soft skills and emotional skills such as empathy, compassion, and leadership become a part of who you are when you practice Agile.
These are all wonderful and super valuable in life. But the most significant outcome of managing your life, business, or family with an Agile approach is that it brings great results in a short amount of time. It helps you get a healthy perspective; connect with your inner and outer resources; and react, adjust, and plan your next step as you go while feeling supported and grounded.
Putting it all together…
The Balansa Method is at the core of everything we’ll do together.
Agile and Scrum will provide us with some specific tools to help you foster clear, flexible, and creative thinking, agile reactions to change, and smart decision-making.
And the work of Laban/Bartenieff will guide the movement and analysis needed to give you the deep insight that can only be attained through the physical embodiment of your experience in the world.
When we work together, we’ll combine all these methods and tools to give you the skills and confidence you’ll need to be an effective leader—whether that’s in your professional life or family life.
Let me help you create a path to feeling whole, confident, and capable.
With my support and guidance, you will craft the exact Balansa Method formula perfect for you.
As you create your path to harmony, balance, and contentment, you will feel stronger, more confident, and more precise about the direction you want to go.
There is no point in waiting any longer. Call me for a free 30-minute consultation at (201) 639-1406 and find your path to strength, balance, and joy.