Lately I’ve been thinking that our search for balance is right up there with finding a unicorn prancing in our back yard.
We all yak about being in balance as the Holy Grail of personal growth, but most of us never get close to having it. Why is that?
As in: “I’d love for my life to be in balance. Because OMG I’m so stressed out!”
But somehow, finding that balance is as elusive as ever. No Holy Grail. No 4-leaf clover. No unicorns.
This year, I found balance. It was unexpected. And more surprising was what I didn’t have to lose to get it.
Here’s how the conversation about balance goes:
YOU: “I am SO overwhelmed. I just need more balance in my life!!’
ME: “Why don’t you just get your life in balance right now?”
“What, now? I can’t do it now. I have two papers due, my daughter’s school called because they found her with a vape pen if-you-can-believe-that, and if I don’t get some cash flow I’m going, I’m going to max out the credit card I need to pay for some medical bills!”
“OK, so it sounds like you can’t stop for balance or really bad things will happen, right?”
“Yeah that’s about it.”
“So when will you get some balance going?”
“As soon as I get through all this.”
“And when is that?”
“I don’t know.”
The problem is that balance becomes an ideal – something you can’t have until you’ve done all the hard work getting there.
Balance becomes a prize at the end of a climb. And the whole climb is terribly, awfully, out of balance.
Have you noticed it’s the most hyper-crazy-busy-full people who pine for balance the most? And ironically, they never let themselves have it since they always have stuff in the way first?
And if they get balance for even 5 minutes . . . it feels good then increasingly uncomfortable.
Because they start to feel like, “What am I not keeping up with? What’s gonna fall apart?!” And pretty soon they’re all booked up again and out of balance.
It’s as if we think that by overstuffing our lives, we’re hedging our bets.
We think that because we’re doing all the “right things” (and we just keep adding more things in!), we’ll be rewarded with fewer bad things happening.
In other words, having “no time and no balance” supposedly equals having greater control over bad outcomes.
The more out of balance you are, the more control you think you have (since you have your hand in every freaking pot).
Further if you do sneak in some balance, it’s like cheating – like taking that 30-minute break from the family gathering to go hide in the bedroom. Shit is going down in the living room, and you’re taking a few minutes to yourself, but you feel guilty for it. Guilty for balance. Gotta sneak off to have it.
This year, I was able to break the cycle of constant motion, constant squeeze, and the horrible fear that if I stopped “keeping up,” something bad would happen. Granted, it was forced on me, but now that I know it, I trust it. And I’m going to keep it.
Here’s how it looked for me.
In June, I got a cancer diagnosis. Wowee. Life comes to a screeching halt. I clear a full 50% of my time, since cancer becomes my new part-time job and I must make time for it.
The 50% of tasks and responsibilities I cleared are immediately absorbed by other people, or simply become totally unimportant the moment I say they are.
This is earth-shaking, since I’m still I waiting for Bad Shit to Happen now that I dropped the ball.
It doesn’t. Turns out the Bad Shit already happened. It was happening while I was out of balance.
Balance moved from a luxury item in my mind to something I embraced immediately and without question. It zoomed up to Priority #1.
I’d always wondered, “What will my life look like if I cut out 50% of my responsibilities? What will come crashing down?”
Turns out, not much.
Think on this: everything you’re currently doing out-of-balance will perpetuate the cycle of out-of-balance.
After all, that’s what you’re manifesting: The “I can’t drop these things without leading to disaster” mindset leads to a world where you can’t, in fact, drop anything without a disaster.
I wish you could gradually morph your way into balance. But most of us are addicts. Crazy busy makes us feel good. We’re getting stuff done. We’re in control by controlling all our out-of-control.
Balance has become just another thing we want to earn, through overwork or overwhelm.
We say to ourselves: “Balance will come when the money comes. Balance will come when the divorce is over. Balance will come when I finish my classes. Balance will come when I retire. Balance will come when XYZ has happened.”
Play a game with me: Look at your list of projects in your life.
(FYI, your job is a project. You boyfriend is a project. Your volunteering is a project. Your role in making two friends get along is a project.)
What happens if you write your projects in a list and then ask yourself, “If I had to dump 30% of these tomorrow, which could I dump?”
There, that’s your balance. It’s not earned: it’s made.
Be warned – balance will not arrive right after you clear your list. You’ll just build a new list and start stuffing it again.
Instead, every time you have a list, you have to immediately remove 30% of it. And when you start to face all those blank, empty hours, and get freaked that you aren’t using your time wisely (and all those other feelings that will propel you right out of balance again), that’s when we’ll take the next step.
But you have to get those hours first.
Wishing you all lots of love and joy in this new year!
P.S. Love this talk about balance? Join me and my M.E. School family as we create massive, hoppin’ loads of balance and many other dreamy ways of being this year.
Xo with lots of love and Flow!
