Balancing Act

I was told by my Tai Chi instructor that I should be able to balance on one leg for as many seconds as my age. Cool, I’m happy to take 32!

Balance is key to everything you and I do.

We ‘balance our books’, we maintain a ‘work life balance’ (sometimes!), the same goes for our ‘bank balance’, and we take a ‘balanced view’, and so on.

Then there’s the delicate ‘ecological balance’ of the planet, the ‘balance of payments (or trade)’ for a nation, maintaining chakra and energy balance, and more.

To be in balance is to be in a state of equilibrium, it’s the ability of elements or entities to remain ‘in place’ without external support.

You and I maintain that state on a daily basis, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second to ensure that we don’t ‘fall over’ in any context of our lives.

Much of the time we do it unconsciously, it’s a built-in function of our brains. We don’t have to remember what to do while we are walking for example – although we did, early on, need to learn how to do that. We learnt to maintain our balance when we took one foot off the ground to move it forward and trained our brain to do it subconsciously.

And our subconscious mind performs a lot of other ‘balancing acts’ – that we didn’t have to train it to do – functions that just keep us alive.

At a higher lever there’s cosmic balance, gravitational balance that keeps the physical universe in place and spiritual balance between different planes of existence.

But the thing is, balance isn’t ‘fixed’.

Being in balance doesn’t mean that either side of the ‘equation’ is static, rigid, unchangeable, because if it were there would never be any form of change.

We would not progress, we would not move, we would be ‘cast in stone’.

For you and I to change something in our lives we need form time to time, and indeed continuously to ‘adjust the balance’.

Now that’s not just a case of increasing something on one side of the scales and adding something on the other to stay in equilibrium because it’s not that simple.

Balance, you see, is not just two sides of a scale. Not like a scale where you measure an amount of substance against a known ‘weight’ on the other side.

That would just be too easy – and it wouldn’t work because ‘balancing’ is not about measuring or ‘weighing’.

Well, not in the first instance anyway because to maintain a balance you and I do have to measure everything that’s going on as we adjust different elements of our lives.

Because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to understand where we were, and in some way, we’d ‘fall over’.

Changing or adjusting the balance of or within any system requires making a multitude of changes, some small, some large.

You and I do it continuously while driving a car or riding a bike – a constant stream of adjusting this, that and the other to make sure we remain in equilibrium.

But that’s built in – like walking, we’ve trained our subconscious to do all that, so we don’t have to think about it – unless of course we distract our subconscious into working on something else – that’s when ‘accidents’ happen!

All change requires a ‘balance adjustment’.

When you and I start on some sort of ‘change project’ whether it’s to do with our personal or business lives, relationships, health, spirituality, learning, freedom, development, whatever, we have to adjust the balance between a myriad of elements.

If we didn’t do that, or if we didn’t keep the balancing act ‘under control’ then we’d get different results from those we were expecting.

Like a sound engineer you and I have to balance all the levels of the inputs we’re receiving.

As we adjust the level of one thing, it causes us to adjust the levels of several others in order to keep ‘in balance’.

But here’s the thing.

It’s difficult to do that if, to use the sound engineer analogy again, you and I aren’t sure of the ‘sound’ we’re expecting or ‘looking for’.

Because if we get it ‘wrong’ and go ‘out of balance’ then what comes out will be chaotic, or at best, not quite what we envisaged!

There are two things to remember.

The first is to have clarity on the outcome we expect, because, to paraphrase, ‘imbalance is generated through lack of clarity’.

Second, you and I need to know what ‘inputs’ we are working with. Which leads are plugged in on the mixing desk. What is relevant to the change we desire and what isn’t.

Because if we ‘add in’ other stuff, or leave out elements that are relevant, then, once again, we will ‘fall over’.

What’s your ‘balancing act’ right now?

Where are you going and what are the elements that affect that change?

How long can you stand on one leg?