Finding Balance, Accepting and Allowing All Things

Balance:

1. an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady:

2. a situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions:

There is much said about finding balance, and I often find myself sharing that the answer lies in balance, but what does this mean? What needs to be in balance, and why is balance important?

The areas I think about when I am talking about balance are, a balance of opinions, a balance of drives / desires, a balance of emotions and a balance within life. Is the answer the same for each of these? I would say no, and I think there can be an issue when we approach balance with the same strategy in all areas of our life.

The strategy I most often see get a little tricky is the one of finding the middle ground, much of Eastern philosophy talks about finding the middle ground; the middle way in Buddhism (emptiness) speaking to the space between the two extremes of existing and non existing, and Taoism speaking to the middle way as the path of moderation, the middle ground between two extremes. I am in no way philosophically opposed to these ideas, it is just that I have seen people get stuck following their interpretation of this.

The idea of equanimity offers a genuine gentleness to life. The definition of equanimity is calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation. My interpretation of finding equanimity is that we have learned to hold the feelings, emotions and drives that arise in us in a difficult situation and have built our capacity to fully feel our feelings without being triggered by them, which allows us to remain calm and composed. I would argue that losing our calmness and composure is not caused by us feeling our feelings, but actually us being triggered by our feelings. What if we could calmly feel rage, anger, grief and sadness - we may have big energy, but us this the opposite of composure? I would argue that we lose composure when we judge, react to and push away our feelings… composure is being able to remain present to what is in its fullness.

The problem I have witnessed in the pursuit of the middle way and equanimity is that people can shut out and deny themselves of their feelings, or at least anything that is big. If we are looking for the position between two extremes, what place does excitement, anger, joy and rage have - are we allowed these, or do we need to feel neutral about everything - feeling neutral about everything does not feel at all appealing to me. Working with clients who have chronic health conditions accepting where you are is really important, we need to accept where we are so we can really see where we are, and then from this place we can work to move forward… A way I think about this is that we can’t jump if our feet aren’t on the floor.

Acceptance can easily slip into not having any feelings about our situation, or pushing them down because there is an interpretation that being angry and sad about our situation is not accepting it. “I need to be calm in the face of my ongoing discomfort and accept where I am, so if I get angry or sad I just breath and calm it down” - this might sound very sensible when you are in an ongoing health condition like ME/CFS to avoid being overwhelmed by the difficult feelings from the loss this creates, but what I have seen is that this can lead to a shutting down, and I would argue is not in balance. I had a client who really opened my eyes to this when I told her that we are really trying to find balance, and she said she didn’t want to find balance because balance is death - she highlighted to me that a ba;anced line is totally flat, and she does not want a flat life.

How else can we think of balance? Actually stick to the definition, an even distribution. What would this look like? The way I think about it is that in striving to achieve balance I am actually trying to open to everything, to get the even distribution… can I fully allow my sadness, and fully open to happiness, can I fully allow my gentleness and notice any judgement I might have to feeling weak in it, and also fully allow my anger - really letting life in.

Really letting emotion in can be full on, and in some ways feels like a return to a toddler who swings from big feeling to big feeling… but the main difference being, I am no longer a toddler.. And now as an adult I have responsibility for my emotions, and needed to learn to hold and validate them myself, and not look to others to solve or hold the for me. Is this possible? I am not sure, and it can be a messy path, but learning to really hold our own emotions means we are no longer triggered by our feelings which means we can relate to them no longer as a problem, but for what they really are, which is a clear communication system from our body and psyche that we can use to inform us in our day to day lives.

What if we could allow all things and look for balance not in the fine margins of a small restricted experience in the world but in opening to the full-on-ness of life. What might this look like?

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