Balance Part 3 (Day 118)

We've all heard the term "spinning plates" as in "I'm just spinning so many plates right now." Or maybe you've heard it's child-term "I've got so many plates in the air." But have you ever actually watched someone spin plates? In case you haven't, here's a video:

Plate spinning on the Ed Sullivan show
Chinese plate spinners

 Plate spinning ranges from beautifully artistic to wacky and amazing, but they all have a few things in common:

1. Balance
2. Boundaries

What do boundaries have to do with spinning plates and keeping your life in order?

Watch the video above and you'll notice a few times when the plate spinner wanted to start another plate spinning but he looked at the ones he already had up there and decided against it. He saw a wibble where there should have been a wobble and he chose to do what was necessary to keep that plate (or bowl) on the move before adding another one to the act. He also knew exactly how many plates he could keep spinning - which meant he knew right when to stop. 

Do you know when to stop? When to hold back and keep what's already in the air going before adding something else?

Being forever unbalanced is unhealthy. Imagine if the spinner in this video couldn't keep a single bowl or plate in the air. It wouldn't be very entertaining, would it?

Being permanently balanced and forever exactly the same also isn't healthy. A key to the plate spinner's act is that his plan is flexible. 

The next thing to understand is that successfully using a lack of balance in your life requires knowing when to hold back or even stop altogether. You have to know when it's time for balance, and when it's time to throw the schedule out the window. 

Balance Part 2 (Day 113)

In order to understand when it's appropriate to toss this whole balance idea out the window, you first have to understand when balance really is needed and why.

Balance is a key part of how the universe works. Planet Earth is in perfect balance within the Sun's gravitational pull and that's what's keeping us all alive. A little lack of balance and we're either burning up or hurtling through space. Take a look around and you see just how necessary balance is to every part of life. Without it we fall over, plain and simple.

In our personal lives, balance is essential. If you don't balance things out, important things might get forgotten or left behind. If you're not being careful to balance your charity commitments, work, and family life, your children may go a few months without actually being able to have a conversation with you that doesn't center around your charity or work.

In my life, true balance means taking care of my husband, and taking care of the house, without leaving behind the need to take care of myself. For some reason, that's often difficult for me. I can do an excellent job of taking care of my husband and myself only to find that my house looks like I just had a birthday party for twelve toddlers. I've fallen over, and that fall causes me undo stress and starts to pick away at all the hard work I've put into taking care of my husband and myself.

There are some areas that just need balance all the time. Without these things in alignment, everything else falls apart. For example: If I ruin my marriage because my balance is missing and I'm failing to put effort into it, then my writing is useless. Just like we're all in trouble if the Earth one day becomes unbalanced in the Sun's orbit.

With that in mind we can understand why every psychologist and mental health advocate cries for balance as the chief need of the world. To an extent, they're absolutely right. No building stays standing without proper balance. It's the way the universe works, so why wouldn't that apply to our minds?

However...

As with all things, there is a point when focusing on balance too much can hold you back and set you up for failure.

Balance Part 1 (Day 110)

For the past few months, there's been one word that comes up in my internal monologue over and over again: Balance. I keep telling myself that I have to find the balance between work, and writing, and my health journey, and being a good wife, and having friendships, and ...well, everything else. Honestly, I've been so focused on getting balanced that I haven't been actually doing much of anything. I keep my living room reasonably clean, my husband reasonably fed (most nights) and then I get so overwhelmed with the idea of 'balancing' everything else out that I just sit down and crochet for a while so I can try to calm down and figure this thing out.

Not my piles, but mine are pretty similar

Which isn't balance, and also isn't terribly productive for anything except my crocheting hobby.

I've talked to a lot of different people about this balance deal. I've gotten a lot of different (really good!) suggestions. But for every suggestion I get, I end up with ten more things that are standing in the way. And all the while I'm sitting here, crocheting my little heart out, and begging myself to just get balanced already.

Today, I've had an epiphany: Maybe I don't have to be balanced.

Okay, so being permanently unbalanced is not healthy, not by a long shot. But maybe being permanently balanced isn't healthy either.

Thinking about it: Nobody looks at the mother of a newborn and says "Oh, sweetheart, make sure to balance that child's needs with the rest of your life." In fact, everybody knows that for the first few months, having a newborn means that you're going to be pretty unbalanced as a rule. You're not going to get much sleep, you probably won't get out much, and anything that requires higher brain function is probably getting tossed out the window for a while. (Those of you who have jobs and newborns must be demigods!) Everybody knows this, everybody understands it, and nobody thinks that a mother of a newborn should just get more balance in her life.

Why?

Because she has a new born! There's a brand new human being that she's responsible for and it can't do anything for itself. She has to devote every ounce of energy she has to keeping this thing alive and that means that everything else - even personal hygiene - becomes secondary (if it happens at all).

Maybe being the mother of a newborn isn't the only time that it's okay to be a little unbalanced. Maybe there are just times in life where everything else has to take a back seat to the one or two things that really, really matter for the moment.