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!

Balancing Being and Doing

Image: Debbie Marie Gallery (www.debbiemariegallery.com)

“Life is not a thing to be managed. It’s a mystery to be lived.” Anonymous

I am in the process of birthing a new way of being. And, like most births, it’s messy and not easy.

Although many would look at my life and exclaim how lucky I am to have a completely flexible schedule, to be self employed, to have two successful businesses I’m passionate about, to be able to create space each day to exercise/move my body and sit down every night with my family for a homemade meal, to be able to serve and support others, to be clear on my life priorities and to have made choices that allow me to be spend time with my young son everyday after he gets out of school and my family in the evenings and weekends-- it’s not working for me. My daily pace is still too fast and doesn’t support how I really want to be.

This morning when I woke up, I entertained the thought of going to the gym for a weights/cardio workout to help combat my recent forty-something weight gain, but decided instead to follow my intuition and set the tone for the week by attending a highly nourishing and soulful yoga class down the street. After a wonderful savasana (the deep relaxation that ends most yoga sessions and is said to be the most difficult asana of all because it requires you to completely surrender to stillness), my 28-year old sister, who was also in the class and is currently in a yoga teacher training program, invited me to tea. I had a stack of work awaiting me, but decided screw it—I’m wanting more spaciousness in my days, so why don’t I act “as if” and start living the life I desire now!

While visiting with her about my writing sabbatical and what was going on with me, tears started pouring from my eyes as I begin sharing about wanting to work differently—wanting the pace of my days to change and “how I worked” to alter, specifically spending more time in meaningful connecting with others through speaking, group work, coaching, mentoring and writing and less time doing everything else it takes to run thriving businesses (particularly answering hundreds of emails each week--truly a poor use of my talents and time).

My yearning for relaxed, spacious, creative days that “flow” and are completely guided by my inner wisdom, my intuition and a deep trusting is palpable. It feels as if my soul, my essence is saying, “Enough!!—this daily schedule may work well for some, but it’s too much for you. You need to slow down for good. And, your creative “well,” which is deep, churning and rising—is begging for stillness, its portal for birth and life."

I can see the inner work and releasing that needs to happen on my part to make this all possible. And, I am reminding myself, that this will take some time (I have a personal goal of being “off” email—one of the biggest emotional drains for me-- by January 2009, meaning someone else would handle this for me).

So, I am being gentle with myself and taking baby steps towards this new way of working and being.

The other night I had a dream that centered around me being tired, exhausted. And, when I awoke, my heart kept aching. All day I sat with the themes of my aching heart and being tired and wondered what message was here for me.

The next day, my six year-old son, had a serious tantrum around wanting to go out to Target to buy new swim goggles—a trip I had refused to take that day. Finally in exasperation, he screamed “Mom, when you don’t listen to me, it makes me feel really bad!” And then--after taking some time to connect with my little one--it came to me: ah, my heart was tired of not being listened to!

It’s time to stop judging the messages I am receiving and start listening to what I know I must do.

Anything your heart has been trying to tell you that you may be ignoring?