Balance
I am not good at balance.
Just ask my personal trainer. It’s one of the many things we work on in my sessions.
I have hypermobility. If you don’t know what that is, basically it means that my joints have the ability to move beyond the normal range of movement. While it makes for a cool party trick when I show people that my knees bend backwards in a way that is not human, it actually can be quite harmful. According to my trainer, this has a pretty big effect on my ability to balance. This is because my body is never tight enough to contract without overcompensating. Overtime my body has learned to balance in an altered state that can and has lead to injuries.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
Because if I really am being honest, it’s not just in the physical sense that I struggle with balance.
Growing up I kept my feelings to myself. Having a voice brought conflict so I decided I didn’t want to have one. I no longer wanted the power to express my needs and wants because I didn’t want to be shut down or rejected for having them.
This is something that greatly impacted my relationships. You can’t be successful in any kind of relationship if there isn’t communication. After learning this and feeling a different kind of rejection because of my inability to speak I tried to do the exact opposite. Except that led to oversharing at times or being the only one in a relationship communicating.
Our subconscious does this to us often. It wants to protect us. It wants to fix problems and traumas. But it doesn’t always take balance into consideration. We can go through something that causes pain and our subconscious doesn’t want us to go through that again. So it changes the behavior and when you get put in a similar situation or scenario you do the exact opposite. But that doesn’t mean that is healthy either.
You know how you can die if you don’t drink any water? Did you know it can also be life threatening if you drink too much?
I’ve seen this balance struggle in so many different ways, in my life and in others.
In regards to relationships, there of course needs to be balance of power. One person can’t be the only one making sacrifices or making effort. My brother and I have talked about the concept of balance of power in relationships quite a few times and the advice he gave me was to ask myself who is getting their way? In a healthy relationship you should both be getting your way sometimes. There shouldn’t be only one person making concessions for the other. This presents a problem for me personally sometimes because I am incredibly indecisive. My indecisiveness can be unhealthy and further teach myself to bury my voice. Both people need to make their voices known in a relationship.
There is also the spiritual aspect of balance. The ways I see this present itself are in terms of our respect and fear of God. There are times when we think that God is a genie who must grant us every wish or times where we believe we are too unworthy to ask Him of anything. It could be that we have an unhealthy fear of Him because we see Him as abusive or uninterested or that we lack any fear of Him at all and we are disrespectful.
Anyone remember that Mike Tyson once had a pet tiger? Well, he did. If you read up on it you will see that she was named Kenya and he loved her very much. She slept in the bed with him, stayed in the room with him, and he had her for 16 years. She also bit someone’s arm off. That’s the perfect example of an animal that requires a healthy dose of fear as well as respect and in Mike’s case, affection.
*Disclaimer*
I do not think it’s a good idea for anyone to have a pet tiger. In case you got any ideas…
There are so many more areas of our life where balance is necessary. Emotionally, physically, or work/life balance. I could go on and on.
All in all, the one thing that is helping me is recognizing the areas where I can do better but also giving myself grace to get there. Giving myself grace to learn. Balance isn’t me trying to fix every area of my life where I see room for growth immediately. That’s not sustainable, and it’s exhausting. Being balanced in our day to day lives starts with understanding the areas where we are not and making small changes that will help us.
And we’ll get there
So here’s to learning, growing, and making those steps each day!