Day 65: Balancing Act

After a spectacular Holistic Moms Network meeting last night, I'm feeling refreshed and ready to tackle life again. But this time, in a whole new way.

I went into the meeting feeling pulled in too many directions, like there wasn't enough of me to go around and like my life was a balancing act gone wrong. I know this leaves me always-behind, hurried, and generally frantic, an energy I'm subjecting everyone in my life to, especially the kids.

I came out of the meeting with a renewed perspective, feeling capable and centered. The tools she gave us were really helpful, and I'm going to put them to good use to go from scattered to focused and from spread thin to covering my bases. But it was the meditation that pushed me over the frenzied hump.

After only a few brief, kid-interrupted minutes of meditation, I felt less physical tension, less stress, less resistance. I was calm. Not the kind I put on to try to provide a peaceful environment for the kids or to keep my craziness from spreading to other moms I'm with. The real kind. The kind I hadn't felt in a while, because I hadn't stopped moving in a while.

Being forced to just be, to not do, was more powerful than I'd imagined. The to-do list, expectations, responsibilities all slipped away, and they took all my tension with them. And in its place they left gratefulness, love, trust, and acceptance.

I didn't realize how long it had been since I had stopped. Other than vegging out with my husband after the kids are in bed, I literally haven't stopped since Max was born. And as much as I love Parenthood and Dexter, they're not exactly helping me find balance.

I've been approaching my responsibilities the same detrimental, default way I had been approaching internal power struggles. Push through, make it work, sheer force of will will get things done. But checking things off the list this way wasn't bringing any relief, and certainly no peace.

So my new balancing act - the act I am committing to in order to find balance - is to take ten minutes, the first ten minutes, of the boys' afternoon nap to just be.

Today that meant meditating and doing self-reiki along with the Lisa's CD, other days it might mean a ten-minute nap, ten minutes of prayer, or ten minutes of head-clearing silence. Whatever they look like, I'm committing to giving myself those ten minutes every single day so that my cup is full, maybe even over-flowing and able to fill up the people around me.

My hope is that this simple act will help me remain focused, actually make me more efficient, and more importantly bring a sense of peace and trust to my day that I can share with my kids.

So here's me trading stress for trust: I am enough. I am capable. I will accomplish what needs to be done. And I will do it with love and gratitude, because those are the reasons the list exists in the first place.