Please excuse my appearance, but I’m completely off balance these days. I thought I had it all together but nope. My proverbial plate is too full and now the damn thing has overflowed. I’m moving too fast. My to-do list sprouts two more to-dos for each one I lop off.
I need to slow the fuck down.
How do I slow myself down enough to enjoy life?
As I’ve struggled with all this, I’ve come up with four different reasons why life balance — too often happiness as well — eludes us.
1. You’re searching for something missing in your life.
This is how I felt a couple of years before I finally left NYC. I loved living there at first. I loved if for years and then I had a kid. Raising a kid in NYC is not for the faint of heart. It’s exhausting. The minute you walk out your door, you walk into streets full of movement. NYC changes constantly, but all I wanted was to sit down and relax. Like riding the subway, NYC is an exercise in finding your balance.
Leaving Brooklyn freed me and gave me the space I needed. Two years of travel let me stretch my arms and try different places and ways of living until we arrived in Salta.
This is where I live now! I found the space I’d been missing.
You don’t have to sell everything and move to the other side of the world to find what’s missing. When you find what’s missing, you’ll know, because you’ll feel a sense of calmness. You’ll want to slow down and linger in that space.
2. You’re off balance because you’re adjusting to something new.
Paulo Coelho says “Change is part of life. Friction is part of change. Get used to it.”
Yep, change is hard. Even happy changes take time to feel right. You’ll feel that friction when you get married, have a baby, move into your dream home, or leave home to travel the world. It’s a sign of growth. When you lean into discomfort, you learn more about what you want and who you are.
The Buddhist nun Pema Chodron talks about the importance of accepting the hard experiences and feelings we have, particularly when times are hard.
“Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know,” she says in her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times.
3. You need something different
If change is a normal healthy part of life, if you’re not changing, you’ll feel friction from that as well. Live is a cycle of constant movement, and if you aren’t embracing change, you’re stagnating.
Stagnation isn’t just doing the same thing for a long time. It’s accepting something you don’t want and that doesn’t work for you because you’re afraid of taking a leap.
You know what you want out of life, and you know if something is holding you back from getting what you want. Face the fear of the unknown and take that leap. Do something different, see how it feels.
4. Your desire for more throws you off center.
You’re thinking of the future and past, what you used to have, what you hope to have. You look at your life, house, career, spouse and friends seeing what isn’t there, what could be, what used to be.
This sort of thinking leaves us permanently dissatisfied, because when you’re always searching, you’re never just living in the moment.
Peace lives in those moments when you don’t need anything else.
So Where Do You Go From Here?
Once you pinpoint why you’re feeling off balance, think about the steps you’ll need to take in order to create the change you need. Write it down. Make a list of what you want or explore your thoughts in your journal.
Once you know what you want, then you can seek out people who will support you as you make the changes you want to make in your life. Remember: Change isn’t always huge. You don’t have to sell everything you own and leave with no plan to return. Change can be subtle, too. You can be more open to your in-laws. Or make an effort to be honest with your friends over conflict.
Once you know what you want, then take action. One little step at a time. You’ll be amazed at how quickly those small steps add up to a more peaceful and balanced life.
