Balance is dynamic. It’s an in-motion kind of a thing.
Imagine standing or walking over big, smooth, round river rocks. You’re tuned into a center of gravity, deep in your core, and every step moves from that place.You can feel tiny muscles all over your body twitching and flexing to keep you upright on the ever-so-slightly shifting stones.
Our bodies really do show us the way.
My body has been out of balance for a long time. I get cyclical bouts of deep fatigue and brain fog, and have for at least the past six years. Then, in the fall of 2011, I pushed hard to launch my self-published book, broke my foot, had surgery, and accepted the presidency of a non-profit board. Under the pressure, my already struggling immune system just crashed. I’ve always been an over-achiever, a go-getter, a make-things-happen kind of a gal, but after this incident, the fatigue really started to put a cramp in my style.
Of course, what I’ve been learning over the past 16 months is that “my style” really hasn’t really been working very well for me.
I was trying to run a small, all-volunteer non-profit; run my own business; teach part-time at a community college; and travel to teach and promote my newly published book while barely being able to stay awake and focused more than a few hours each day. The caffeine and sugar that I’d used for years to push through the fatigue were now only making things worse. I’d also gone through diagnoses and treatment for – to name a few – sleep apnea, anemia, depression, and intestinal parasites, with only minor improvements to the cycles of fatigue.
It was a radical notion that I had to adjust my life to fit what my body could do rather than ramp my body up so that I could do the things I thought I should.
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You know that feeling when you realize your life is a little off balance? It happens to all of us at some point.
Maybe you’ve got a great home life, and some really supportive, good friends, but there are still things out of balance- your laundry pile that’s overflowing, or worrying about that hard conversation with someone you’re dreading having, or maybe you haven’t even started on your taxes yet this year! (please, tell us that’s not just us? ;)
Individually, they don’t look like much, but when we let these things that can throw us out of whack start to pile up, and pile up, they start to tip the scales leaving us feeling totally unbalanced – again.
It’s a cycle we’ve all been through and most of us will experience it many, many times.
Today, we’re sharing our personal experiences with feeling unbalanced and how to recognize it- from raging hormones and stress in our bodies, to our thoughts moving so fast it’s hard to think clearly. And we share our tips and tricks on how we’ve been able to start bringing more balance back into our lives, and how you can too!
A couple of really important aspects to finding balance are: 1.) To identify when you’re becoming off balance and 2.) Once you realize it, to ask yourself, “What do I need?” and then, to the best of your ability, give that to yourself.
Listen to our podcast below to learn more about how to shift in the direction of balance and hear some of our personal struggles, tips and triumphs with balance!
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We all strive for it, are yearning for it- to find balance in our lives.
We want balance between our work life and personal life, between caring for others and caring for ourselves, between being overwhelmingly busy and mind-numbingly bored… it seems like most of us are endlessly searching for a stable resting place between the inner tug-of-wars we have in life.
So how can you finally get to that place of balance, once and for all?
Short answer: you can’t. I know, because I’ve been looking for a loooong time.
I think every major struggle I’ve had in life comes down to wanting to attain that sense of balance.
Over the 30 years of my existence so far, I’ve been trying to find a happy middle ground between some major internal conflicts… Struggles with self-identity and individualism and so wanting to be seen and heard, while at the same time wanting to be liked and accepted and feeling afraid to express myself and my thoughts. Struggles with being a crazy perfectionist over-achiever endlessly looking for that thing I could accomplish that would finally make me feel worthwhile, while also trying to laugh and love and play and maintain some semblance of a life.
I think, in our minds, we have an idea that balance = totally rocking being a great partner, friend, parent, workerbee, community member, citizen of the world AND self, all at the same time.
“If only I could balance it all!” we cry, feeling guilty for all the loose ends and things left undone. Feeling desirous for all those things in life we still yearn to do, and envious of the people who seem to be out there doing ‘em. Feeling unsatisfied that we’re struggling in one (or more) of these areas in our life so that means we must be failing.
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It’s always been a bit of an endeavor aligning the “simple” life I knew as a kid on a family farm and my “glamorous” adult life living in big cities.
In my lifetime I’ve experienced both modes of living, thinking I’d pretty much found the best of both in Portland. When I reached my life halfway point a few years ago I just couldn’t shake the memory of when I was four years old and an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without hesitation, I remember saying “When I grow up I’m going to be an artist, and live in a cabin in the woods near the ocean with a dog.” A simple life goal and plan.
How was I doing with that plan 40 years on? I wasn’t where I thought I’d be.
My dog had just died. And the rest of my life looked nothing like that simple 4 year old’s dream either. I realized that my life had been a series of small compromises to accommodate other people that had come into my life along the way. By this point all those other people were long gone, but I was left with a big compromise of a life.
As an artist and a teacher I advise students to be mindful of even the smallest details of their surroundings and the effect it has on them and their work. It was time to take my own advice. I needed to simplify, realign and redefine who I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it.
This past summer, I sold or gave away most of my belongings.
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This week, we’re sharing five fave documentaries you can watch right now to lift you up and make you feel more connected.
Maybe it’s been a long week, or maybe you’re just feeling like you could use some quiet time with a good movie or two.
When we’re in those moods, sometimes we look for the kind of movies that will make us feel better about the world and our place in it- that’s exactly what these five fave documentaries are all about!
Documentaries are so awesome, but many of them can be pretty heavy, which is great when you’re in the mood for a heavy topic…. But sometimes you just wanna be lifted up and carried away for awhile by a story.
In this Maven Minutes, we share five documentaries that offer a unique look at different people’s stories and the incredible things they do in their lives – from simply being happy (which can be quite hard at times) to walking a tight rope:
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I’m running on pure adrenaline. Sleep is a frivolous thing long forgotten and pushed aside. More important and immediate tasks have taken its place.
The tables and chairs need to be arranged, decorations put up, the registration desk needs to be organized and the printer isn’t working. I’m rushing to accomplish a last minute to do list on the eve of the Summit of Awesome after months of planning, coordinating and stressing.
We were late to start planning and once we found the perfect location we were disheartened to learn of possible overlap with similar events and needed to reschedule so as to not step on the community’s toes.
We don’t know if this is an assumptive platitude or if others give us the same courtesy. But, we chose to forge ahead with our truncated timeline and rushed to get it all done.
With a tiny army consisting of six volunteers, we manage to cross off everything on our list, and the Summit of Awesome is ready for the early morning check in rush.
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Do you have great friends? A loving family? Are you part of a great community?
There are sometimes when we feel like we can’t answer “yes” to those questions.
We all want to be part of a really awesome group of friends, have a supportive family and live in dynamic communities, but we know that there are some relationships in our lives that aren’t quite so awesome. And those relationships, and the amount of time we spend in them, can affect how we feel about ourselves and people in general.
Unhealthy relationships can really bring us down in subtle and not so subtle ways, causing us to have a negative filter in viewing the world and others around us. This so does not bring out your inner awesome.
What kind of people do you want to surround yourself with? What kind of person do you want to BE in your relationships?
To help you figure it out, in this week’s video we’re talkin’ about how to identify and change patterns in your individual relationships, to help create a stronger sense of support and community in your life!
Not all relationships are worth keeping, which this video will help you figure out. But there are also people, like coworkers or family, who we may have strained relationships with but know they’re going to be around no matter how much they might irk our squid- so how do you make those relationships more manageable?
We’ve got ideas! Three steps to be exact.
Ready to be part of the change you’d like to see in some of your relationships? This Maven Minutes video is ready to help:
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