Finding Balance

By Sally Roth

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Balance is an idea that many of us consider as we reflect on a year gone by and look forward with anticipation to a new start. We want to move or rein in parts of us that were perhaps dysregulated, exaggerated, or overplayed and we want to move toward the practices that will feed our souls, bodies, and relationships. We are typically thinking about this in terms of making the scales balance. The weighted coins we are moving around from scale to scale tend to be things outside of ourselves. We want to be the people who are moving through life with agility and intention. So we diligently weigh the substance of responsibility, time, energy, and priorities and try to make the scales balance.

My biggest pitfall in maintaining balance throughout the year or season is NOT my ability to make a perfectly beautiful and balanced strategic PLAN! I think I’m actually very adept at this! It is not in the planning or intention where I believe any of us mostly miss-step. It is somewhere in the everyday, ordinary parts of life when our schedule gets disrupted, our boundaries are challenged, the world is speeding up and so we must speed up to keep up…. It is somewhere among the demands of children, employers, parishioners, and community; it is in the thick of needs, sorrows, pain, joys, celebration, and excitement. It’s in the midst of my ways of coping with pain, protecting myself, and surviving this crazy life that I make the choices that lead me to the UN-balance I feel so guilty and ashamed of.

I wonder if what we are really after when we say balance is integrity. Balance is like peace. I think balance is the reward of conducting our lives from a place of integrity. 

The webster definition of integrity is as follows:

 Integrity - noun

1.   Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.

"a leader of great integrity."

2.   The state of being unimpaired; soundness.

"The building's integrity remained intact following the mild earthquake."

3.   The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

"replaced a lost book to restore the integrity of his collection."

 Soundness, whole, undivided, complete. 

 My favorite way to evaluate how integrity is going is to ask, “Is my thinking, feeling, and acting aligned”?  Am I doing things I don’t want to do? Am I saying I feel one way, but there is a whole other conversation going on inside my head?  Am I doing one thing in front of some people and another in front of others or when I’m with myself? And the truth is I am! We all are at some level.

 I believe we will arrive at MORE BALANCE as we live from MORE INTEGRITY. And to live from more integrity we must attend to our inner world and consider the status of our integrity. 

 We don’t have to be balanced or unbalanced. We are becoming more balanced. Growing in integrity and wholeness. Don’t forget, it’s all a journey.

 Just a few thoughts I’ve been having lately.