#52
I wouldn’t be surprised if the word of the year for 2022 is “balance”.
It’s the one thing we can’t stop talking about and the one concept we can’t seem to crack.
Mostly because balance is fluid!
Unlike happiness, balance can be created by looking at your outside world. But just like happiness, there’s a component that goes on the inside that you shouldn’t ignore.
And there are lots of different types of balance included in the big meaning of the word:
Balance between feminine and masculine qualities
Balance between thinking and feeling
Balance between taking and giving
Balance between acting and reflecting
Balance between listening and talking
Balance between the self and the world
With all this in mind, it’s easy to underestimate how important for our well-being is mastering the skill of balance.
When you google the word “balance”, the first definition that comes is this one: “an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady”.
The example below the definition, “She lost her balance and fell.”
So we are familiar with the rules of gravity and how one must stand in order to keep their balance. Yet sometimes life gets in the way and you just lose your physical balance, no explanation needed. You laugh it off and keep walking. But when it comes to losing our internal balance, we are quick to judge, snap, point fingers and jump to conclusions.
Why? Because losing our internal balance means that we are losing control over our own life.
We know that life gets in the way in the physical world, but when it comes to our internal world – we are the life. Or so we think. In reality, we are all so much more connected to one another than we can perceive. And that’s not the only thing we are getting wrong…
Even the phrase “work life balance” isn’t just about two things.
When we talk about work, we talk about the qualities, the steps and the goals that drive our progress forward. This can be related to our professional or our personal endeavours. Anything that puts you in an acting mode that will help you get the rewards.
And when we talk about life, we mean the people, the places and the activities that reinforce our identity, so that we can bring our best qualities to work and get the rewards that we will enjoy and share in our “life” time.
There’s a third element, though. The word balance has its own purpose in the phrase “work life balance”. It includes everything that helps you evolve – your understanding, skills, mindset, strength, stamina and so on.
We treat balance as if it’s the reinforcer of work mode or life mode. When in reality, balance is about jumping into a third element. It’s about restoring your own power, seeing the bigger picture and detaching from the outcomes.
Trust that living in the present moment is you doing the best that you can at any given moment. This knowledge or notion will help you switch between the three modes much easier!
