Balancing art

Published in the Idaho State Journal and Blackfoot Morning News week of May 30, 2010

What is balance? Balance is one of those words with a lot of meaning, but not a lot of specific defining details. In general, balance is a phenomenon of physics when nothing is crashing into anything else, or toppling over to break into a million pieces. Balance is a magic suspension and symbiosis of multiple, separate things.

What does it mean to have balance in life? Can it be achieved, and if so, how long can we expect it to stick around? And what, exactly, are we trying to balance?

I often talk about balance in context of wellness dimensions—including physical, emotional, occupational, spiritual, social, and financial wellness. In any given day, there’s a lot going on. We have friends, family, jobs, obligations, limitations, and an internal chatterbox providing us with constant commentary on how we’re managing it all.

It’s impossible to balance all that all the time. Having everything perfect and in order all the time goes against the concept of balance, which is about motion, back and forth, and sometimes tipping over and starting from scratch.

But general balance is important; it’s what keeps us upright in more ways than one. And just like our inner ear helps us figure out which direction is up, our bodies and souls will let us know if something is off-kilter. Headaches, backaches, fatigue. Irritability, negative self-talk, lack of motivation. These are all potential signs that something is out of balance. What could it be, and what can we do about it? We often create our own imbalance with unrealistic expectations, hyper-judgment of ourselves and others, and lack of faith about how life is unfolding. We try and go, go, go, when maybe we’re supposed to simply be, be, be.

Sometimes we’re overscheduled. Sometimes we’re saying yes when we should be saying no, or vice versa. Sometimes we’re way too hard on ourselves, and struggle with patience and acceptance. It’s up to us to figure out what we’re doing to create discontent and stress in our life, and to take steps to make things better in areas we can control.

When it comes to restoring contentment and balance, I’m a big fan of small actions. Do you need a little support? Do you need to take care of a to-do item already? Do you need to skip a soccer game? We often don’t give ourselves permission to take a time-out, to take a pass, to take a break. But it’s those quiet, alone times that help us figure out what’s going on, and provides space to listen to our intuition about how we can increase our level of peace, flow, and ease. Often, we know what needs to be done—a little more of this, a lot less of that, but we need to slow down enough to evaluate the core trouble spots and muster up the resolve to take positive action.

Life balance takes practice. We can’t expect to be great at balance right away any more than we can expect to be great at any new skill immediately. Life balance, which is different for everyone, involves self-evaluation, experimentation, and risk-taking. Some days are destined to be out-of-whack, and some days don’t require a balancing act at all. Our personal characteristics such as patience, flexibility, self-acceptance, and assertiveness can help cultivate an even keel more days than not, and can help us recover more quickly when that sense of balance eludes us. Onward!

Nancy Goodman is a licensed counselor with an emphasis on life and career coaching. For questions or to schedule a free consultation (in-person or over the telephone), please contact Nancy at 208-478-1414 or goodnanc@yahoo.com.