Is Ms. Balance Out of Balance?

My back and shoulders hurt from too much computer time. I’m not sleeping great (too many late nights online). My mind is too busy. I’m more reactive. And, I’m not as present as I’d like to be with my family and friends.

“When are you going to slow down?” my sweet body asked this morning. “Soon, very soon,” I respond.

I ran into one of the moms from my son’s school at Whole Foods yesterday. We caught up for a moment and after I shared how much I’ve been in overwork during the last two weeks, she smirked and said, “It sounds like Ms. Balance is out of balance.” Years ago this comment would have triggered me and I would have felt the need to justify my current schedule. But this time, I let it run off my back, smiled and moved on to the cereal aisle.

My definition for life balance--having enough time, energy and resources for those things that are most important to you—flooded back to me (read Balance is Bunk?! ).

In a flash, I realized that most people still see life balance as this state of perfect equilibrium in all areas of life (unattainable and unreaslistic!), rather than an ebb and flow of how and where we direct our energy based on our current life priorities.

Yes! I am working way more than I want to right now---getting online early in the morning and staying up late every night to complete a big video project, knocking out seemingly endless deadlines, wrapping up spring outreach projects with my team, participating in back-to-back meetings and conference calls, navigating new contracts for speaking and publishing, booking/negotiating workshop engagements for this fall and spring, writing newsletters and articles, handling interviews, guiding staff on web site updates and training new team members---but it’s for a very good reason.

I’ve chosen to enter into this temporary state of overwork in order to give myself the space I need to work on a new creative endeavor during June and July: a writing project and focus that is very dear to my heart. And in order to fully unplug and enter into the “cave of creation” –I needed to devote some extra energy to my two businesses right now.

At this life and career stage, one of the things that matters most to me is honoring creative expression … giving myself the space, time and support to completely unplug, free fall, dive deep and bring forth what’s yearning to be birthed (read my post on Ripe).

And, honoring my own voice--which like an echo in a canyon is becoming louder and more still at the same time--is a big part of this.

So fingers crossed. Two more days of wrap-up and then I’ll be transitioning into my writing sabbatical (read more on my focus in How Bad Do You Want to Feel Good?).

As my son and I sit outside and watch the birds and enjoy our soy yogurt parfaits from Whole Foods this morning, I also give thanks to my mom friend for the reminder that sometimes in order to experience more harmony and balance in the larger sense, we have to encounter some disequilibrium along the way.

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Photo: Me getting my groove on with the wonderful women at our April Kripalu Self-Renewal Retreat. I love dance as a metaphor for coming into balance: attuning, responding, shifting, re-prioritizing and harmonizing our inner/outer state. When I want to feel more balanced, I often put on music and just start to move!