Balance

Last June I attended a conference given by psychologist Dr. Daniel Siegel and neuroscientist Dr. Norman Doige.  It was an amazing conference, and I learned so much from those two brilliant minds.  One of the things they discussed, that I am still processing all these months later, was the concept of balance.

They showed a movie featuring a woman who had lost her balance, literally.  She had some sort of neurological problem that impaired her sense of balance.  She could barely hold up her head.  She kept wobbling forward.  So frightening to watch, but the good news was that the movie highlighted the successful brain treatment that helped her regain her physical balance.  What a relief that was, and not just for her!

In our fast-paced culture where frenetic seems to be the speed of choice, what would it take (short of brain treatment), to help us regain balance?  I think we take our metaphoric balance for granted.  Watching that women lose her physical balance was startling, yet we challenge our sense of balance nearly everyday with our over scheduling and overachieving mentality.   Multi-tasking is not only expected of us, but it is lauded.  The better you mulit-task the more accolades you will receive, certainly in the work place.

In my opinion, though, I think we are short changing ourselves.   I think we try too hard to juggle our lives.

I think the trick is to find the balance. It is right there, waiting for us in each moment.