The Myth of Balance

“The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you’ve lost it”. Anonymous

“Can parents have it all?” There is a lot of talk going on in the media, again, about the balance between work and family.

Does your life feel out of balance?  You’re not alone. In fact, most parents feel out of balance.  Part of the problem is the way we define balance and then strive to achieve it. Balance simply does not exist except for fleeting moments. Balance is something that comes and goes, not a static goal to be achieved and maintained.  Just as we sigh and think finally we have found  the perfect balance, a child gets sick, a job changes, we have to move. And just when we think we can’t go on with things so terribly out of balance, something changes. Attempting to retain balance, as a parent, only leads to misery. The kind of clinging anxious misery we are all acquainted with.

It is sometimes soothing to step back and see our lives drawn, from the beginning, as a line of ups and downs. It will, in the end, be a sine wave. There will be the inevitable downs of  illness, loss and hardship and the happy ups of satisfaction, connection, and success. Balancing work and child care, or self-care and other-care is dynamic and fluid. One moment in balance, turns into an  out-of-balance moment and visa versa.

Perhaps a better indicator of happiness would be how kind we are to ourselves and others through the inevitable falling in an out of balance of life.

On The Mat

In yoga we come into balance in Tree or Dancer by focusing on our strong core, our feet rooted on the floor, our gaze on a point of focus ahead of us. We may find ourselves balancing and focused one second, only to start wobbling and fall out of balance the next. This is where the lesson is, the awareness of a shift of attention perhaps, or a destabilized core. We fall out of balance, we are humbled, we pick ourselves up and start again. Over and over we come in and out of balance. We can retain our internal balance, if we can stay strong through the core and spine, reconnect with our focus point and relax the self-critical voice. If we can retain our internal balance of kindness, it doesn’t matter if we are have an inevitable period of too much work,  or too much time at home–we will retain  the perspective that these normal ups and downs are part of life and to be expected.

Off The Mat

So, don’t worry the next time you realize your life is out of balance, you’ve just fallen out so that you can learn how to balance again with more humanity and a stronger  focus on what really is important. Perhaps you will choose to change something about your schedule, or obligations, or perhaps you will simply be aware of the disequilibrium and be extra kind to yourself and your family. Either way, falling out of balance is just another moment, another opportunity.

“May we all wobble safely, may we all land softly, may we all get up and dance some more.”

Alison Rogers is Alison Rogers Ed.D is a therapist in Boulder, CO. She also teaches The Yoga of Parenting  workshops and provides individual Yoga Of Parenting sessions for parents at all stages of of this wobbly path.