Terry Lilian Segal’s Life Path as a professional practitioner in the fascinating realm of the Healing Arts, began in 1992, following her recovery from an injury she’s sustained as a river guide while rowing a boat down the Grand Canyon.
Terry draws from an array of practices, while honoring the Universal Wisdom that underscores them all. Her skilled touch practice includes various forms of Massage, Bodywork & Energywork, most notably the Art of Zero Balancing. “ZB” is a refreshing, concise and elegantly effective therapy that gently “unwinds” old injuries and holding patterns by accessing the powerful flows that move through the bone. One comes away from a “ZB” session empowered and refreshed, with a deep sense of well-being, inner balance and alignment, improved functionality. The multidimensional nature of this technique, and the profound wisdom of its fundamental working principles, inform not only Terry’s style of touch, but also speak to every aspect of life.
All of Terry’s offerings serve to foster the sacred healing journey back to Wholeness, back to Essence. With this in mind, she also serves as a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant, where she custom-designs and officiates intention-based ceremonies and rituals meant, such as Coming-of-Age Ceremonies, Renewal of Vows, Life Tributes for the living and those who have passed,… mindfully honoring any meaningful life transition or event. Terry’s deep love for Life, for wilderness, community, and the arts all weave into the signature of her work. Having spent decades on the West Coast, Terry currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.
For more information, or to work with Terry, please visit: Terry Lilian Segal | United States | Meaningful Milestones
Music by Manpreet Kaur
This interview was conducted in 2019.
www.sacred-truths.com
Terry Lilian Segal’s Life Path as a professional practitioner in the fascinating realm of the Healing Arts, began in 1992, following her recovery from an injury she’s sustained as a river guide while rowing a boat down the Grand Canyon.
Terry draws from an array of practices, while honoring the Universal Wisdom that underscores them all. Her skilled touch practice includes various forms of Massage, Bodywork & Energywork, most notably the Art of Zero Balancing. “ZB” is a refreshing, concise and elegantly effective therapy that gently “unwinds” old injuries and holding patterns by accessing the powerful flows that move through the bone. One comes away from a “ZB” session empowered and refreshed, with a deep sense of well-being, inner balance and alignment, improved functionality. The multidimensional nature of this technique, and the profound wisdom of its fundamental working principles, inform not only Terry’s style of touch, but also speak to every aspect of life.
All of Terry’s offerings serve to foster the sacred healing journey back to Wholeness, back to Essence. With this in mind, she also serves as a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant, where she custom-designs and officiates intention-based ceremonies and rituals meant, such as Coming-of-Age Ceremonies, Renewal of Vows, Life Tributes for the living and those who have passed,… mindfully honoring any meaningful life transition or event. Terry’s deep love for Life, for wilderness, community, and the arts all weave into the signature of her work. Having spent decades on the West Coast, Terry currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.
For more information, or to work with Terry, please visit: Terry Lilian Segal | United States | Meaningful Milestones
Music by Manpreet Kaur
This interview was conducted in 2019.
www.sacred-truths.com
Terry Lilian Segal: I do see everything from an energetic standpoint. Again, this is the premise of Zero Balancing, this is the premise of creating ceremony, this is premise of living a life of intentionality.
Everything has a certain frequency to it, a certain vibration and to live a life of greater balance and harmony, our mission, if you will, is to identify the places in our lives in which we have some challenge, stagnancy, imbalance, disharmony, and then to find ways that are meaningful to us to vibrationally to bring in some element that has a stronger, clearer field and apply it to that area of discomfort, to invite it, to raise its frequency, and reorganize itself into its innate harmonious state.
Emmy: My guest today is Terry Lilian Segal whose life path as a professional practitioner in the fascinating realm of the Healing Arts, began in 1992, following her recovery from an injury she sustained as a river guide while rowing a boat down the Grand Canyon.
Terry draws from an array of practices, while honoring the Universal Wisdom that underscores them all. Her skilled touch practice includes various forms of Massage, Bodywork & Energy work, most notably the art of Zero Balancing. Zero Balancing is a refreshing, concise and elegantly effective therapy that gently “unwinds” old injuries and holding patterns by accessing the powerful flows that move through the bone.
All of Terry’s offerings serve to foster the sacred healing journey back to Wholeness, back to Essence. With this in mind, she also serves as a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant, where she custom-designs and officiates intention-based ceremonies and rituals mindfully honoring any meaningful life transition or event. Having spent decades on the West Coast, Terry currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.
For more information, or to work with Terry, please visit: Terry Lilian Segal | United States | Meaningful Milestones I spoke with Terry at her home in Cleveland in 2019.
Emmy: Hello, Terry!
Terry Lilian Segal: Hello, Em.
Emmy: Thank you for being with me today.
TLS: Thank you so much, it’s such an honor and a delight.
Emmy: Zero Balancing is a powerful mind body therapy developed by Dr. Fritz Frederick Smith. You’ve described Zero Balancing as a gentle, concise, and deeply potent style of touch to the bones that effectively unwinds old holding patterns. Would you elaborate?
TLS: Yes, thank you for asking about Zero Balancing, Emmy which is also affectionally referred to as ZB for Zero Balancing. I would love to share about that.
I think I would open by offering to express my honor to Dr. Smith whom we refer to as Fritz because he is such a brilliant, masterful provider; he’s in his 90’s now and still avidly teaching across the country. And he developed Zero Balancing, it came to him in a spontaneous moment in a hot tub, but also after many decades of serving as an osteopathic physician, a practitioner of five element acupuncture, and life-long practices in Eastern spiritual traditions and many other influences.
And then they all sort of converged in his consciousness, one evening when he was resting in the hot tub, so he relates, this was many decades ago, I believe in the early 70’s. So, the entire protocol that is practiced in a zero Balancing session came to him in sort of one complete divinely inspired moment.
And so, Zero Balancing is a practice that addresses the whole person. It is very multi-dimensional in that it not only is a beautiful elegant marriage between structure and the energy that moves through that physical structure, in this case it is our bones specifically, but it also speaks to our psycho-emotional constitution, our spiritual constitution so that when the work is being performed, we are being touched as a whole being in every dimension simultaneously. As a practitioner, I subscribe to that orientation no matter what modality I’m practicing. But Zero Balancing is particularly elegant and expressive of that wholeness.
Emmy: Can you explain more how the style touches the bones. What is that about?
TLS: Yes, thank you. There are three primary working principles to Zero Balancing, and there are many other dimensions to it, quite a few other dimensions to it, but I would like to name these three things and speak to each of them through the course of our conversation. One of them is the importance of the pause; another is the use of the touch tool which is referred to as a fulcrum which is the style of touch that is delivered to the bones; and another is referred to working at the interface.
And it’s working at the interface that I’d like to address in this moment is to say that one of the things that is so unique to Zero Balance, as compared to other modalities, is that unlike a technique for example, such as, reiki, which channels universal energy through the practitioner and then delivers that to the recipient. There are many different ways that we can exchange or manage energy, move energy from one person to another.
In Zero Balancing we are not transferring energy from one person to another, nor are we channeling universal energy, so I’m not taking on any of your energy and I’m not delivering any of my personal energy to you.
Rather, working at the interface, which is this, I tend to use and this is just my own interpretation, I use the lexicon of Carolos Castaneda who spoke to this idea of us being in our own luminous egg, that we are each an energetic being in our own luminous egg and that our luminous egg is filled with countless filaments of our own personal energy field.
And again, this is sort of, I’m mixing and matching metaphors; this is not the language that is taught in Zero Balancing, but I do feel that is an apt description. That when working at the interface, it’s as though my luminous egg comes to the edge of your luminous egg. And it’s at this point of connection, which is referred to as the interface where your whole being and my whole being meet one another. And this point of Meeting, with a capital “M”, is synonymous with the present moment, it’s synonymous with infinite potential, it is the place where all change and transformation is invited to occur.
So, Zero Balancing is delivered at the interface. So, it is a neutral yet highly organized space, field that is held and brought to bear to your field. Then when the intention is set to allow for reharmonization, reorganization to occur, all of that occurs at the interface. That is a critical factor to what makes zero balancing so effective and so distinctive from so many other modalities.
So, there is a particular style of touch that is called the fulcrum. So, if you think about how a fulcrum mechanically functions, it’s like a pivot point. So, the touch that is applied to the bone, in zero balancing, referred to as a fulcrum, is brought to bear by the practitioner to an area in the bone that may feel more dense, or disorganized or out of harmony, congested. Perhaps it is a holding pattern from an old injury or from a postural tendency. Lots of different things can contribute to this area of denser congestion or energy in the bone.
And as practitioners of Zero Balancing, we learn how to palpate those areas and distinguish those qualities.
EMMY: I see. And then do you actually apply physical pressure to the body at that place?
TLS: That’s correct, yes. It’s very gentle and it’s very specific. So, when we palpate these areas which are often referred to as “bone gold” and we bring to bear a fulcrum which is a particular style of touch that is unique to Zero Balancing.
It has a very particular signature that indicates Zero Balancing that distinguishes Zero Balancing from other styles of touch. So, this fulcrum is brought to bear gently and concisely and specifically to these areas of congestion. And that point is held with a particular quality and intention behind it, until the energy of that area is invited and encouraged to release back into its innate harmonious state and flow.
And that is done throughout the body in a very specific protocol that makes lots of sense mechanically. We walk the body through and then there is a lot of poetic license taken within the protocol, as it feels indicated in the moment, so as one has years and years behind you to practice Zero Balancing, the work becomes increasing nuanced even as it still remains very precise and specific within the protocol.
Emmy: You have also said that Zero Balance helps maintain a deep sense of balance within. What does ‘balance within’ mean to you?
TLS: Well, I would say with regards to Zero Balancing, one typically comes away from a session feeling a lot lighter, far more fluent and better organized in your body, your movement might be more comfortable. Lots of aches and pains may be reduced or relieved entirely. Sometimes, I’ve had the experience myself of having long standing old injuries absolutely resolved by zero balancing, and sometimes even in a single session.
I’m always very wary as a practitioner of making any promises or predictions.
I never refer to myself as a healer, because I believe that we are our own healers, and that I as a practitioner serve as a facilitator, or a conduit or what have you, but not as a healer per se.
So, Zero Balancing creates an environment for the body to reorganize and reharmonize itself back into its innately harmonious state.
Emmy: And this has to do with emotional balance, mental health balance, is that correct?
TLS: Exactly, and in fact in response to your question about balance, is that one of the beautiful things about Zero Balancing, amongst many, is that it addresses the cognitive challenges that we might have without having to go into the cognitive process.
And that is one of greatest qualities of zero balancing is that it does create emotional, psychological and a sense of spiritual, if I can use that word, balance, just by virtue of its signature, without having to ponder into it or even understand it.
Emmy: And it sounds like it addresses issues that you may not even remember, perhaps a childhood trauma, or something of that nature that perhaps you blanked out, or didn’t know about, is that correct?
TLS: Beautiful question and very apt. And indeed, Fritz Smith is an amazing model and mentor in that regard. Because he is so masterful and he is also profoundly intuitive, so that he can actually put his hands on someone on the table and he’ll be working with someone and within five minutes and say, “So, you fell off your bike when you were five years old and such and such happened with your left foot,” and people pop off the table and say, “How did you know that?” or burst into tears. He is innately gifted in that regard. And yet, one doesn’t have to have that kind of intuitiveness that he has in order for that kind of healing to occur.
Emmy: What did it feel like when you first thought you might be good at this?
TLS: I’ve been practicing Zero Balancing for about 27 years and I consider myself a young student of the work. The work just makes sense to me. It makes sense structurally, anatomically, energetically, it’s very respectful work.
It’s very happy making. People tend to come off of the table smiling and feeling so much lighter in spirit than when they had first arrived.
And that is consistent. I’ve experienced that with every single Zero Balancing session I’ve ever delivered to someone.
Emmy: In yoga, we often can get to that space if we can activate the glandular system, and particularly the glands of the brain, the pineal gland, the pituitary gland, and what we would call the 7th chakra.
Do you know what’s happening in Zero Balancing?
TLS: Yes, actually, I’m so grateful that you mentioned that because zero Balancing is complementary to most other modalities, in that one of the many graceful things that it does innately is that it organizes and harmonizes and balances the chakra system. And you may not even ever encounter that language with a Zero Balancing practitioner however that is an inherent part of the work. It is an innate result of the work by virtue of the ways the energy flows along the spinal curvature.
Our chakras, which spin, energetic vortices a that spin in a conical shape, the front chakra expresses outwardly, opening outwardly to the front, and then out to the posterior behind us. These vortices of energy tend to occur where our spine naturally curves, our lumbar spine, at our cervical spine, and so forth.
Because Zero Balancing organizes the energy along the spine and throughout the ribs and at all the primary joints, it automatically addresses both the major chakras that align along the central spinal cord, but also along the minor chakras at the joints.
Emmy: Is this something you have concluded yourself and you know through your intuitive work?
TLS: It’s actually something that I’ve encountered in my Zero Balancing studies as well as something that I’m aware of from my own studies of the chakras and energy practices.
Emmy: Have you ever doubted yourself?
TLS: Hmmm. I haven’t ever doubted myself in regards to practicing this work. It has really always been clear to me that this is my life’s work, my personal path, my spiritual path and that it is an unspeakable honor and privilege to do the work that I do.
Emmy: Can you describe a little more what it feels like when you are working on a client and you know that your work is effective in that moment?
TLS: (giggles) I often share with my clients with a bit of a giggle, that my work really appeals to my instant gratification personality (giggles) because I feel changes occurring constantly under my hands. I’m observing, you know, visually, I’m observing with my heart, I’m observing with my third eye if you will. Picking up on information multidimensionally. So, everything from the get go is constantly morphing and shifting and transforming and reorganizing, and reharmonizing, releasing, recreating, and I’m keenly aware of that from moment to moment.
Energy is set in motion, it’s like flipping a switch, simply by setting the intention which is also an innate part of the Zero Balancing protocol, is that typically, there is an intention that is stated at the head of the session to frame the session and just by virtue of doing that you are setting in motion whatever the intention may be, to invite it into the mix. To harmonize and organize along with the body structure and energy and so forth.
So, it’s a very useful tool in that regard if you’re working on a specific project or you have a vision or a dream or a goal or if you have a difficult issue in your life that you would like to invite some harmony or clarity around. That is the key moment at the head of the Zero Balancing session in which to articulate that.
So, as to “poof!” you’ve put it out into your field and now you can just rest and relax and let the work do its magic.
Emmy: So, you ask your client to state an intention?
TLS: Yes. Yes.
Emmy: And if someone doesn’t know?
TLS: If someone doesn’t know, which is often the case, I encourage people to simply feel free to invite an essential quality into their lives, perhaps it’s peace, inner peace, or a sense of quiet or calm or joy. You know whatever feels congruent to that person in that moment.
Emmy: So, the session starts the moment they come to your door?
TLS: It actually starts when they first call me or when they first get the idea to do this.
Emmy: It sounds like you have to have a strong sense of balance yourself to do this kind of work. Is that true and how do you achieve that for yourself?
TLS: (giggles) What I know about myself as a practitioner is that I have a natural capacity to hold a clear boundary with my clients. And I don’t offer that in any kind of a self-aggrandizing way, it’s just an innate part of who I am as a person. And I think that that is what has made it possible for me to do this work.
I know many practitioners who really struggle with energetic and psychological boundaries in their practice, and I can really appreciate that and have great compassion for that.
I just know for myself that it has come very naturally for me to not have that be an issue. So, cycling back to your question about finding balance within myself is that by simply doing the work brings a great deal of balance for myself.
Simply running the work through my own body, through my own psyche, through my own intentionality because I’m holding a higher space and energy for the well-being of my client and I’m very focused on what’s going on in your body and your being and I’m constantly watching for what in Zero Balancing we refer to as “working signs”, those are expressions in the nervous system that show that someone is relaxing and dropping into a deeper, more receptive state to indicate that the work is being received deeply and that things are dropping into a harmonious state.
Emmy: It also reminds me, Terry, of my work as a Kundalini yoga teacher. When you teach yoga, one has to put one’s private life at the door and you step into the space of “teacher’, and that is what you are. And it sounds like you step into the space of, I know you earlier said you didn’t want to be called a ‘healer’, but it’s like you step into that archetype realm of healer, perhaps or conduit for healing and that your personal life gets left at the door and you are practicing being present with that person. Would you agree?
TLS: I would agree, and I would also add a thought that really is more a personal signature of my own practice. I’m a very open person by nature in general. And over the years I have found that I tend to share a personal story line with many of my clients, and I always strive to create an environment in which people feel safe, if they so choose, to articulate what’s going on with your life, what are you bringing to the table today so that I can support that optimally. So if we do have that kind of verbal exchange it’s now uncommon to me just in the process of engaging with another person, empathetically, compassionately, to share our life stories back and forth so it becomes like a weaving, and then we’ll take these themes to the table and then drop into the session from there.
Emmy: Have you ever felt that your work saved you or gave you a purpose to go on living?
TLS: I feel very blessed to say that I’ve never had a moment of that kind of despair or questioning. And having said that, I think that I would be very lost without my work.
Emmy: Yes. As you said, your work is your own balancing medicine.
TLS: Yes.
Emmy: Has your work ever helped someone reconnect with his/her life purpose or his/her soul purpose and if so, do you have an example of that?
TLS: One client has told me repeatedly that the sessions that we did together “saved his life”. He shared that with me years after we had worked together, so that took me very much by surprise. It was not something that we went into the session having shared on that level.
I’ve had many, many people blessedly share that the work was transformative for them, that they hadn’t felt so congruent or comfortable in their body, or happy in their heart or, you know any number of things that they hadn’t felt that way in many years or perhaps ever.
I’ve had many people share that kind of response with me over the years.
Emmy: Do you think if someone receives this kind of work on a regular basis that they also become a little more attuned to subtlety and intuition, all these gifts that you use in your work?
TLS: As one receives the work, it is typically administered in a series, as one experiences the work, session by session, the body recognizes the signature of the work and also of me as the provider and my unique style of delivery.
Emmy: It’s interesting when you say that the body recognizes the signature, because in yoga they often speak of certain mudras or certain postures the body will recognize, the psyche will recognize, the mental body will recognize, and respond appropriately to it and then a shift happens, a change can occur. It’s very interesting that that happens in Zero Balancing.
TLS: Yes, and thank you, Emmy, because you just pointed to one of the key, I had mentioned one of the working principles of Zero Balancing is the function of what we call ‘the pause’, which I am sure in Kundalini Yoga is a profound piece of that work particularly with the practice of pranayam, the breath work, so the pause being this fundamentally critical moment, sort of a timeless moment that is afforded along the way to allow whatever has just occurred, to register, to settle in, to integrate, to do its transformative thing.
And during that period, you’ve had this potent pause, and then after the pause, you can pretty well read the body as a practitioner, as to how the pause has its own life and if you wait too long, then again, the pause starts to dissipate. But if you follow the pause, and you’re watching and feeling how the work is being integrated in that crucial moment, then you step back in and you resume the work and continue forward to bring in the next layer of information before the next pause is indicated.
Emmy: Your work entails so much subtlety, and this involves the subtle body which in yoga, is closely related with one’s soul which is the life’s purpose. And just sitting in your home environment and your living room, it’s filled with art, and it’s not just filled with art, but it’s extremely subtle. One could take one’s time in your living room and really look at all the details, everything has been mindfully placed, artfully placed, painted. There is so much expression and so much subtlety all of it is a beautiful, beautiful expression of your soul and that’s it’s no wonder that you’re good with this work because you’re so in touch with your own subtle body.
TLS: Oh, Emmy, you are so beautifully honoring me. Thank you for that acknowledgement. That’s very touching. It is soul work. It absolutely is. It speaks to the whole being.
Emmy: Yes.
TLS: Yes. These are more kind of colloquial terms, you know, it clears your pipes, clears your pipes out and it allows for your, really your highest well-being, your best self to flow, to shine through, to let go of all the extraneous armature that we carry in our bodies, in our psyches, in our heart, that in turn brings us back to our essence. And it’s our essence, I believe, is innately harmonious, and Zero Balancing is intended, it’s designed specifically to bring us back to essence.
Emmy: You are also Life Cycle Celebrant. Creating personalized ceremonies to honor life’s precious moments. You said that a life change is a personal rite of passage. Can you elaborate on that?
TLS: Yes, thank you. That is the other hat that I wear and consider that to be a tremendous honor and privilege as well. As a life cycle celebrant, I have really come to appreciate that our lives are just one constant transition after another. We are constantly moving from one rite of passage to another. We get married; we may get divorced.
Emmy: First we’re born.
TLS: (laughs) Well, first we’re born!
Emmy: (laughs) Huge transition there!
TLS: Yes, let’s start there.
As a certified life cycle celebrant, my work is not affiliated with any particular faith path, each ceremony is designed to serve as a reflection of the values and things that are meaningful and important to the honoree, to the recipient, and honoring these life transitions, starting with our birth, moving into coming-of-age ceremony as we move through our adolescence, which has been honored in many cultures for millennia. Then we find ourselves more contemporarily amidst many cultures that no longer honor these crucial rites of passage, these fundamental phases in our lives that really define who we are, speak to the culture from which we come.
Emmy: So, in some ways, your work, for many people who may have left their religion of their family of origin or some of these traditions that we no longer hold, you bring back some of these traditions or help people to foster them into their lives the way they want to do it.
TLS: Yes, it’s a little bit of both/and. My service as a celebrant is wonderful for people who do not have an organized religion that may have a specific practice that they might choose to follow at a particular passage in life, such as at a wedding or a funeral or what have you. So, my service as a celebrant can speak to those moments in a way that is custom crafted to represent what is meaningful to you as the honoree.
It is NOT exclusive of a particular religious, spiritual or cultural identity. So, that is part of the beauty of what I offer is that my work well, not affiliated with anything in particular, can also mix and match if someone comes from a tradition that they would like to offer. So, I do not serve as a clergy person, however I could work in conjunction with a member of the clergy if that felt fitting for what someone wanted to do. So, my work can either stand alone or it can work in collaboration with people of the clergy or other representations if that is meaningful to a recipient.
Emmy: Yes! You can create something maybe that has never been done before with a client, such as, we don’t really have a ceremony for menopause, for example, or maybe a retirement ceremony instead of a retirement party. Is that right?
TLS: Precisely, and those are wonderful examples, yes! So, taking an event in our lives that is momentous, I call my practice Meaningful Milestones, so, taking those meaningful milestones in our lives, events that change us, that transform us or that have the potential to do so and honoring that in a very deliberate and intentional fashion. That’s what’s my work is all about.
And then finding out, first I would interview you as to what is this event in your life. Perhaps you are moving to a new community or leaving an old community.
Starting a new career, closing an old business or practice. A funeral. A life tribute ceremony to acknowledge all of the magnificent things that you’ve done and achieved and are important to you before you pass away.
Celebrating who you are so you can get like an eagle eyes’ vision of your life and celebrate it with all of the people who are meaningful to you and you can articulate your appreciation.
Emmy: It is welcoming and embracing a pause in life. That’s what it sounds like, coming back to that pause.
TLS: Touché.
Emmy: And giving us a different perspective, perhaps, on our lives, wherever that may be, whether it’s a coming of age, or a new divorce, or a new union. A chance to stop and pause whether it be with a many people or a few.
TLS: Yes, so ceremonies can be done one on one, myself and the recipient who wants to do something that is really important to them and they want to do it mindfully and they’re seeing it as shifting into a whole new expression of themselves. And I have done ceremonies solely with that an individual and it was profoundly beautiful and included not only a narrative that I create after having interviewed you and reflected together deeply into you know, what is this issue that you want to explore, that you want to honor, how did you get to this place, what do you want to be mindful of it as you move through it. What are items, readings, music, movement, all sorts of things that are meaningful to you that we would then weave into this very unique experience that is specifically a reflection of you.
And then, as you had mentioned, there may be 300 people there and it would have all of the same components but and it would be crafted into a larger community
Emmy: It sounds like you’re crafting a ritual.
TLS: Yes.
Emmy: Why do we need ritual?
TLS: I believe that ritual is something that is instinctive to humanity that gives our lives meaning, that gives us something concrete that we can anchor into, that represents a value, a status, a life transformation. Ritual anchors us in our culture. It deepens the value of whatever it is that we’re moving through, because it creates something, a gesture, an item, an action that is concrete that we can identify with this event that is laden with deep power.
Emmy: And it sounds like ritual anchors us through a transition and gives us an insight into the power of the transition.
TLS: Yes, yes. I mean, if you think about a wedding for example, a wedding is a ritual that honors union. It honors our transition from being separate single beings to being individuals who are in a committed union together and yet you are now acknowledging this, what I would call, the third being that is created by the two, and so you are now honoring this third being.
Emmy: Yes, and through ritual and symbolism, in the articles that are chosen, or the music or the words, you are once again calling on these subtle aspects of the self that express the soul.
TLS: Yes, those articles and symbols have a particular energetic resonance. Symbols, as I know you very well know because you are so deeply steeped in working with mantra. Symbols have a frequency, a vibration that is unique to them.
So, for example, the Shri Yantra, which is “the flower of life”. That intonation, “OM”, has a very specific frequency or vibration that is an expression of the whole universe. And so similarly, when I’m doing ceremony with people, and we’re crafting the components to that, what symbols, what rituals, what components do you want in that ceremony, all have a frequency that is representative of propelling you into this next state of being.
You are moving through a coming-of-age ceremony which indicates that you started at a certain phase in your life and development and you are very intentionally moving through certain processes to acknowledge “AH! I’m in a changing station in my life,” for whatever reasons: Biologically, Sociologically. You know, whatever have you. I’m acknowledging that I’m moving into a different state of who I am becoming as a person. So, there are elements in that ceremony that can represent that such as stepping across a threshold with intention.
Emmy: Right! The ritual or the symbol can be very simple, yet very powerful. Or it could be your great grandmother’s piece of jewelry that she brought with her from Europe or something like that, that plays a part of that ritual. It all has a vibration to it that is, once again, the body understands and recognizes this signature.
TLS: Precisely. Yeah, and I would say that that remark is sort of an elegant way to tie us back to the beginning of our conversation, is that I serve as a massage and body work practitioner that is sort of the byline for lack of knowing how else to describe myself. I have one client who refers to me as an ‘interdisciplinary healing artist.’ That makes sense to me, that language, but I also find that that can be kind of confusing or cumbersome, so I rarely use it.
My point being is that I do see everything from an energetic standpoint. Again, this is the premise of Zero Balancing, this is the premise of creating ceremony, this is premise of living a life of intentionality.
Everything has a certain frequency to it, a certain vibration and to live a life of greater balance and harmony, our mission, if you will, is to identify the places in our lives in which we have some challenge, stagnancy, imbalance, disharmony, and then to find ways that are meaningful to us to vibrationally to bring in some element that has a stronger, clearer field and apply it to that area of discomfort, to invite it, to raise its frequency, and reorganize itself into its innate harmonious state.
So, we start with something of disharmony, we identify, okay, this is this thing that is calling for attention, and then we bring intention to this thing that we are attending to and the intention has a higher, stronger, clearer frequency to it and that is the action of healing.
Emmy: You know the yogic philosophy of Kundalini Yoga talks about how we go through these transitions of consciousness, intellect and physical body transitions every 7 years, every 11 years, and every 18 years and when those 3 come together, it is particularly potent, such as age 18, 21, 22, big potent time in our lives. Another time period is 54, 55, 56 and there are other times. So, in Kundalini Yoga we are offered the opportunity to really sink in to these times with our intention to move through the transition with ease is the goal, and joy, and sort of dance through it rather than have it be a turbulent time.
So, how beautiful to fold in some kind of intentional ritual, or some kind of celebration for when we meet these transitions, which all of us meet them whether we’re aware of it or not. Whether something poignantly happens to us such as we get married, we’re still going through, as you said, transitions all the time, and sometimes they are heightened transitions.
TLS: Thank you for that, Emmy, and I would echo that right back to you, as you’ve just expressed, that every yogic gesture, on every class that you teach, every moment that you practice and teach others to practice is a gesture in bringing greater harmony to the world.
Emmy: That is true. Yes. As is your work, yes.
You strive to create an event that captures a person’s expression and speaks in their own distinctive voice. In other words, it sounds like you strive to reflect their own unique expression of divinity, or their own sacredness. Would you agree with that?
TLS: In essence, yes, I definitely agree with that. I don’t typically use the word ‘divinity’. I don’t have a problem with the word myself, but I tend to associate that more with a religious context. I definitely use the expression of ‘sacredness’ which one could argue is synonymous with a sense of divinity, and so yes, I would say the work definitely speaks to someone on a soul level.
Emmy: And their own unique expression of who they are.
TLS: Yes, absolutely.
Emmy: Yes. The goal of a life cycle ceremony is to move forward in a new found stage of life with a deep inner strength and with the courage and freedom to trust oneself more richly than before. This sounds to me like a search for truth that once found provides a connection to one’s divinity, I’ll use the word divinity here, and when one is connected to one’s divinity or one’s own true self, let’s say, courage and freedom pave the path.
TLS: Courage and freedom pave the path when we are living in our truest self.
Emmy: Yes, which is my understanding, is the goal of the life cycle ceremony?
TLS: Yes, absolutely, living our most authentic expression. That is the whole idea of custom crafting a ceremony. It is tailored-made to speak to your truest self so that it is the most authentic expression.
And that really calls us up to amping up our own vibration, living a higher life. Living into our fuller selves more completely, so therefore, in your language, you know, really harkening into our divinity, into our soul being.
Emmy: If you had a motto, Terry, what would it be?
TLS: Well, this may sound trite, and it’s a practice for me as well, but what comes to mind in this moment would be ‘Life is precious, and life is fleeting so cherish every moment.’
Emmy: Terry Segal, thank you so much for joining me today.
TLS: Thank you, Emmy Graham. It was such a joy. Thank you.
Emmy: You’ve been listening to Sacred Truths, Music by: Manpreet Kaur @manpreetkaurmusic
My guest today was Terry Segal. For more information go to her website:
Please visit our website at www.sacredtruths.com
Thank you for listening.