The Truth About Balance

When I was 23, I learned something about balance that I never forgot.

That was the year I taught 3- and 4-year olds at a nursery school in the Berkeley Hills.

I did not know back then that I was an artist. I did not know I was creative in the least. In fact, I thought I was the must uncreative person on the planet.

I was one of those people who, when talking to a professional creative, would say something like, “Oh, I’m not creative. I can’t even draw a straight line.”

(As if drawing a straight line has anything to do with creativity! WTF??)

But I digress.

The year I taught nursery school, I had to get to work by 8:00am (which, for me, was a special kind of torture), and with rush hour traffic, the drive took me about 30 minutes. Invariably I’d listen to KQED, the San Francisco Bay Area’s local NPR affiliate.

One morning, while I was freezing my fingers off on the plastic steering wheel of my 1987 silver Acura Integra, the host of the morning show was talking to some guy whose name I can’t remember for the life of me. I don’t even remember the topic of the show.

All I remember is a single comment that the guest made which forever changed my life:

A life of overall balance necessarily contains periods of extreme imbalance.

To illustrate his point, the guest used the example of a hypothetical new mother, whose life revolves almost 100% around the needs of her infant. She doesn’t get enough sleep, she has no social life, she doesn’t get to her biweekly spin class. All the things that used to be a normal part of her balance life are temporarily shelved.

For a good few years, in fact, her life is extremely imbalanced.

However, if her vision of a full, balanced life includes raising children from birth to adulthood, this period of extreme imbalance is necessary. Her overall balanced life can’t exist without it.

A life of overall balance necessarily contains periods of extreme imbalance.

I’m not a parent, but I have energetic “babies” that take enormous amounts of creative energy.

Getting to be in the live studio audience of the Build a Standout Business CreativeLive class with Tara Gentile, which had me in San Francisco by 8:00am for filming five days in a row. (Still a special kind of torture…) (And which, btw, you can still catch the last part of for free this week!)

My new website, which I dove into overhauling immediately after the CreativeLive filming was done, as part of a move from regular WordPress hosting with WebSynthesis to the Rainmaker Platform. (I’ll share more about why I made the switch in another post — sign up to get my Insiders’ Newsletter if you don’t want to miss that.)

My Living A Creative Life Living Room Tour, which has taken a ton of time and energy to design, schedule, and rehearse for, not to mention researching and testing out looping equipment (first three house concerts DONE!)

An upcoming “one-woman show” at my chiropractor’s office, which will require a lot of focus in order to get my vast inventory of artworks all varnished, tagged, and ready to hang.

You get the idea.

A life of overall balance necessarily contains periods of extreme imbalance.

Travel is another period of extreme imbalance for me.

There are people who live on the road, but I’m more of a homebody. I like to grow my roots deep, so when I skip town — as MM and I did for a full week earlier this month, to play two house concerts and visit my red-headed nephew in the DC area — it throws everything out of whack.

I did manage to do a little art while I was away, and even sold two watercolor postcards in a spontaneous auction on Instagram and Facebook:

 

 

 

The upshot, though? Life has been pretty imbalanced for awhile.

But the reality? This kind of imbalance is a normal part of my overall balanced life. 

A life of overall balance necessarily contains periods of extreme imbalance.

So when I fall off my daily creating wagon — or any other wagon I endeavor to stay on — I treat myself kindly. I remember my Golden Formula:

Self-Awareness + Self-Compassion = the Key to Everything Good

I ask myself:

– What is feeling good right now? (Getting stuff done! Making steps toward my Big Goals! Getting away time with my family!)

– What is not feeling good right now? (Not doing my creative thing? Not getting enough sleep? Not getting enough home time with MM?)

– What can I do to have more of the good feelings and less of the not-so-good ones?

– What can I do to get back on track?

– What can I do treat myself with love? (Because beating oneself up never helps, as the world’s foremost self-compassion researcher has demonstrated.)

The real secret is, balance is just a Platonic ideal.

We never actually reach it. We never get to say we’re done. We can simply aim for balance, and keep correcting course when we notice we’re aiming in the other direction.

And when we out of balance in aiming for balance, we can notice that, and self-compassionately adjust.

Onward, ho!

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!