Balance

Balance.

Health is all about the well balanced diet and exercise.

Happiness is about finding the right balance of work and play, love and passion.

Spirituality is about balancing your connection with and to the natural world.

There are a lot of beautiful images displaying
the chakras, but I thought this one was really pretty.
Credit: www.energy-healing-info.com

We've been told as humans, we need to find the right combination- the Yin and Yang, the aligning of our chakras, the strengthening of our core. We need to be one with nature and feel connection to others and to the earth. I'm not going to lie, I believe in most of it. I'm not discounting the value of spiritual groundedness or a physically balanced body. I just don't know how to get there. It's not for a lack of trying either. I think my Yin and Yang are yanking each other around, and my chakras, well they're just all over the place!

I'm not sure how to balance out my life. It seems no matter what I try to do, even with what I think are the best intentions, I'm being flung off the see-saw.

Do what you love. If your heart is in your work, if you're passionate about it, work won't feel so much like work. Maybe that's the balance. Not sure about that. Maybe in this scenario it's just the hard work doesn't beat you down so much so it feels worth it. The balance comes from working hard but also deriving joy from your work.

Find a job where you can leave work at work when the day is over, so you can be with your family and friends doing things you love in your downtime. The balance comes from giving the people and things you love in life the time they deserve. If you don't have that in your job, cut back a little and do things to get yourself where you need to be. Eventually you'll find balance, right? If you work a little harder on one over the other, allow yourself to be off balance temporarily because in the end things will balance out. Really?

I'm beginning to think we never find or achieve balance. I think maybe the lesson, if there is one, is in the constant struggle to balance the different aspects of our lives. If we achieve balance perhaps our work as human beings is done. That would mean we had reached self-actualization. So then what?

I've always had a propensity toward symmetry. My husband likes abstract art, off center wall hangings. Not me. Give me a ruler and a calculator and I'll split the difference down to the fraction of an inch to make sure it's in the middle. We even shift the dining room table when the other isn't looking. I like it perfectly centered on the chandelier, he prefers it's closer to the wall. I like things even, or evenly distributed. The armchair psychologist in me says my need for symmetry, even distribution, or balance could be about a need for control. You see, there are so many things in life we can't control, that finding order among the simple things in front of us can make us feel in control. As a student of brain research I remember it can be as simple as the human brain's natural tendency to sort. It's how me make sense of things in our environment. But again, looking for balance.

I can't help but think back when I hear the word balance. I was a gymnast when I was a young girl, even competed to the state level one year in New York. But funny, my best event was always the balance beam. My dad could never understand how I could perform so well on a 4 inch wide piece of apparatus. Low center of gravity I suppose. I struggled to reach 5 feet in my youth, and topped out at 5'2" as a fully grown adult. Could also be attributed to my power house legs and wimpy arms (bars was always my worst event). But anyway you slice it, I suppose I have been on the quest for balance since I was just a kid.

Often called the Yin-Yang symbol in the west,
the symbol is actually called Taijitu.
http://personaltao.com/teachings/questions/what-is-yin-yang/

So why did this topic surface for me now? I guess it's because my life seems really out of balance right now. I haven't been able to acquire a full time job doing what I most want to do- teach full time at a college or university. The reason I want to do it is because it's the perfect balance of all things for me. I love the overall feel of a college campus. It's like you can hear and feel people learning. I would be able to teach coursework to student teachers, conduct research, and write (all things I'm passionate about), while having some flexibility in the way my day goes. I love the idea of not spending my whole day in one room or one building.

My response to this has been to work as an adjunct (I have been for 5 years). It allows me to do what I love and to continue building my vitae for future opportunities. The only problem is, I also work a full time job. And I have a family. I've tried to embrace the opportunity because it's the work I feel most inspired by. Though I'm often spread too thin- let's call this temporary imbalance- it's building opportunity for me to get that job I want later. Worth it, right? When I'm in class it feels like it, but when I'm at work exhausted, or losing hours of sleep prepping, it doesn't feel like it. Missing out on some of my son's swim meets, and weeknight family dinners with my husband and son, and I really have to wonder. The see-saw continues to tip in the wrong direction.

As I was writing this post, I started reading a bit about the Taijitu and Taoism. I've visited some of these concepts before, often with great interest. Today, I happened upon a page about mid-life transformation. Notice I didn't say crisis. In other cultures it's not looked upon as a crisis but rather a transformation, much the way we view puberty in our culture. The body goes through physical, chemical, and hormonal changes, and it's not "just in your head." I started working out and eating differently about 7 or 8 months ago. I've long obsessed over my work and my job- the one I'm in, the one I want in the future. I think this helps explain my feelings of imbalance.

We are each a combination of Mind, Body and Spirit, yet so many people concentrate on the Mind or Body or Spirit at the exclusion of the other parts. 


Perhaps I'm a little too focused on my mind and body, and in need of a little work on my spirit.