It's quite humbling for me to draw Balance as the word for this week. Once again, I don't think it's a coincidence drawing this word. Probably like many of you, I've struggled through the years with Balance issues. Many, many times, though, I had no idea that what I was struggling with was about Balance. I called it many other things like anger, resentment, stressed, maxed out, overloaded, overworked....I think you get the picture. I think that what we call something influences what we do with the thing. For example, when I used the word "stressed" to describe the issue I was dealing with, I actually became more stressed. We all have a tendency to try to describe or explain issues with labels, not realizing that the incorrect label we use can have quite a negative influence on us. Think about this example: if you're out walking and up ahead you see a long, kind of slender thing on the road and it's not moving, you will decide pretty quickly if it's a snake or a stick. If you decide it's a snake, you will make one decision; if you decide it's a stick, you will make another decision. (btw, it's better to think a stick is a snake than to think a snake is a stick.) All of this brings us back to the word Balance. Once I "got it" that I actually wasn't angry or any of the other labels I used, then I could see that the real issue was around Balance.
If you will stop just for a minute and look at troubling issues in your life, you may discover that what you think is going on really isn't, but rather the issue is around Balance. Knowing what is really going on is very liberating because NOW you can deal with the truth. For example, there's a big difference between anger and being out of balance. If you are out of balance, the choices are very different than the ones you will have if you are angry. If I am constantly angry because my neighbor seems to always get me to do things I really don't have time for, then the issue is a Balance one, meaning that I am out of Balance around the issue of setting appropriate boundaries. Once I set appropriate boundaries with my neighbor, I will feel much more in Balance and probably less angry.
There are so many things for us to be out of Balance around: money, family of origin relationships, work, sex, the children, health, the book club, significant other, exercise... The truth is that we can become out of Balance around anything.
Here's something to think about: when you are struggling with something, first ask yourself this: Is this an area where the truth is that I am out of balance? If the answer is yes, you now have information that will, if you choose, help you restore the Balance.
One last thing about Balance: it's never about things being 50/50. The best example here is a personal one. As many of you know, I was really sick for quite a while and ultimately had surgery. During this time, the relationship between my partner and me was definitely not 50/50. It was more like 90/10; then as I improved a bit, it was closer to 80/20. As it moved more toward my being able to do more and more things, the ratio continued to change. Then my partner's grandfather died and it became 90/10 in the other direction for a while.
My point is that being in Balance will mean different things to different people. In my opinion, Balance is pretty much about being happy. If there's something you're just basically not very happy with, my hunch is that something is most likely out of Balance around that area. All I know is that the more in Balance my life is, the better I do and feel.
I hope a bit of this has been helpful. That's truly my goal.
I liked closing with a quote last week, so here's the one to go with Balance, our word for the week:
To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.
--Confucius
Thanks for taking a minute to read my posts.
I wish you the gift of being in Balance.
Karen
--- Confucius
