I don't like being overly busy. Having unstructured time where I can move to my own internal rhythms is a necessary piece of my well-being. But busy happens. In our fast paced lives, busy can become the norm unless we consciously step out of perpetual doing.
Not surprisingly, the busier we get the more balance becomes an issue. What is the balance between being and doing? Between taking care of ourselves and caring for others? How do we balance the time and energy spent on one aspect of our lives in the whole of lives?
A few years ago the concept of balance brought up the image of a balance scale with the two pans equally weighted and motionless. That image changed for me after my second knee replacement.
One of the exercises the physical therapist gave me was standing on one leg. The first several times I attempted this I kept my leg straight and my muscles tight. When I felt myself wobble, I clenched my leg muscles tighter to hold myself rigid against the movement. It didn't work. After a couple seconds I had to put my other foot down to keep from falling.
Then I remembered something I learned years ago while taking tai chi. Physical balance doesn't come from being rigid and tight. It comes from being relaxed and rooted. Okay, take two...
I bent my knee slightly, followed my breath down my leg and myself sink into the floor. I focused on keeping my feet and leg relaxed rather than on keeping my balance. I let my eyes rest on a blank spot on the wall in front of me...and for a few seconds I stayed balanced on one leg.
Over course of a year the few seconds stretched to thirty seconds and sometimes a full minute. As I continued to do the exercise I began to experience a few seconds each time where I was balanced and perfectly still. Most of the time I was balanced and in motion as my body made a gazillion tiny adjustments.
This experience became my new reference for balance. Balance changes day to day, situation to situation and sometimes moment to moment. Balance is not a still point. It is not a destination, a place I arrive after following a self-help checklist of seven ways to balance my life. How balanced I am depends on my ability to stay flexible and move with what's happening rather than tightening up against it.
Balance is process and process involves motion. My body already knew that. It took the rest of me a while to catch up. The human body is made of trillions of cells all working in concert to support the wellbeing of the whole organism. The myriad of processes the body uses to maintain its internal environment are collectively called homeostasis. Homeostasis is an ongoing process of constant motion.
In order to maintain equilibrium, my body is in a perpetual state of flux. Homeostasis is effected by both internal and external factors like illness, injury, environmental temperature, etc. Each of these factors triggers a response aimed at supporting homeostasis. With a few exceptions, homeostasis is a range not a set point.
From what my body did while learning to stand on one foot I got that balance in the my life is also a range not a point. Negotiating that range means being fluid. I am constantly moving from balance to imbalance to counterbalance and back. All of this is part of process of balance...including the falling over.
We've all experienced being suddenly overcome by how challenging a situation is, how stressed we are and hitting that wall where we just can't keep doing what we're doing. Although the awareness may come to us suddenly, the situation didn't suddenly happen. It built up slowly like weight gradually added to one side of a teeter totter. The seesaw wobbles toward its tipping point where one side crashes to the ground. We often don't notice the additional weight until the teeter totter hits the ground.
Fortunately I don't have to wait till my seesaw hits the ground to begin rebalancing it. If I'm paying attention to how I feel and what my gut says I can often mitigate how out of whack things get...but not always.
Most of us have times when we're asked to show up for something that's hard, intense and goes on for weeks or months. In those times, if I hang onto a rigid definition of balance, I make the entire situation harder for myself. Balance is not limited to a set point where everything is equally weighted and level. A seesaw can stay balanced in the air even if both sides are differently weighted.
The idea of balance where all things have equal weight is an ideal. An ideal is more a fleeting possibility than what actually happens in physical reality. Hanging on to an ideal or making an ideal into goal only prevents me from moving with what is.
Not surprisingly, the busier we get the more balance becomes an issue. What is the balance between being and doing? Between taking care of ourselves and caring for others? How do we balance the time and energy spent on one aspect of our lives in the whole of lives?
A few years ago the concept of balance brought up the image of a balance scale with the two pans equally weighted and motionless. That image changed for me after my second knee replacement.
One of the exercises the physical therapist gave me was standing on one leg. The first several times I attempted this I kept my leg straight and my muscles tight. When I felt myself wobble, I clenched my leg muscles tighter to hold myself rigid against the movement. It didn't work. After a couple seconds I had to put my other foot down to keep from falling.
Then I remembered something I learned years ago while taking tai chi. Physical balance doesn't come from being rigid and tight. It comes from being relaxed and rooted. Okay, take two...
I bent my knee slightly, followed my breath down my leg and myself sink into the floor. I focused on keeping my feet and leg relaxed rather than on keeping my balance. I let my eyes rest on a blank spot on the wall in front of me...and for a few seconds I stayed balanced on one leg.
Over course of a year the few seconds stretched to thirty seconds and sometimes a full minute. As I continued to do the exercise I began to experience a few seconds each time where I was balanced and perfectly still. Most of the time I was balanced and in motion as my body made a gazillion tiny adjustments.
This experience became my new reference for balance. Balance changes day to day, situation to situation and sometimes moment to moment. Balance is not a still point. It is not a destination, a place I arrive after following a self-help checklist of seven ways to balance my life. How balanced I am depends on my ability to stay flexible and move with what's happening rather than tightening up against it.
Balance is process and process involves motion. My body already knew that. It took the rest of me a while to catch up. The human body is made of trillions of cells all working in concert to support the wellbeing of the whole organism. The myriad of processes the body uses to maintain its internal environment are collectively called homeostasis. Homeostasis is an ongoing process of constant motion.
In order to maintain equilibrium, my body is in a perpetual state of flux. Homeostasis is effected by both internal and external factors like illness, injury, environmental temperature, etc. Each of these factors triggers a response aimed at supporting homeostasis. With a few exceptions, homeostasis is a range not a set point.
From what my body did while learning to stand on one foot I got that balance in the my life is also a range not a point. Negotiating that range means being fluid. I am constantly moving from balance to imbalance to counterbalance and back. All of this is part of process of balance...including the falling over.
We've all experienced being suddenly overcome by how challenging a situation is, how stressed we are and hitting that wall where we just can't keep doing what we're doing. Although the awareness may come to us suddenly, the situation didn't suddenly happen. It built up slowly like weight gradually added to one side of a teeter totter. The seesaw wobbles toward its tipping point where one side crashes to the ground. We often don't notice the additional weight until the teeter totter hits the ground.
Fortunately I don't have to wait till my seesaw hits the ground to begin rebalancing it. If I'm paying attention to how I feel and what my gut says I can often mitigate how out of whack things get...but not always.
Most of us have times when we're asked to show up for something that's hard, intense and goes on for weeks or months. In those times, if I hang onto a rigid definition of balance, I make the entire situation harder for myself. Balance is not limited to a set point where everything is equally weighted and level. A seesaw can stay balanced in the air even if both sides are differently weighted.
The idea of balance where all things have equal weight is an ideal. An ideal is more a fleeting possibility than what actually happens in physical reality. Hanging on to an ideal or making an ideal into goal only prevents me from moving with what is.
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