Increasing the Balance in Our Health Journey

I’m using my health team actively this past month. I’m bone tired, stressed about work, worried about my health, all without my usual optimism and positive thinking. I’m out of balance. Yet, my mission is to increase the balance people, caregivers, and clinicians feel as they journey together towards best health. I need the balance, too, if I’m going to continue to meet my mission. Thankfully I have colleagues on my health team that can help. My career coach pointed out to me that I spend 90% of my time focusing on the organization I work for and 10% on myself. My music teacher suggested I focus on one music venue and cut out the others for a while. My physicians are helping me manage the path through some elective surgery. My personal counselor suggested time to recover – a weekend of meditation and a long weekend in Newport with my honey. As a leader, I do think about balance with my staff. Family first! But I don’t think we really balance well. I contribute to the lack of balance by pushing, pushing the envelope.

Balance implies constant motion – seesaw-like. Balance occurs occasionally naturally while going up and down. Some time a shift in weight, sometime a major lightening of a load. Balance needs space and time to recalibrate. To think, to reflect, to adjust, to meditate, to vacation, to take a deep breath. How do we help each other create space and then balance? I worked for a Catholic organization that often used the word grace. Thanks for giving me some grace. I could use a little grace here. The agency I work for now says,  first we listen. That’s another kind of space. Sometimes balance is an active process – change something, add a weight, take off a weight. More time at work, more time with family, more music, more exercise, more greens. Sometimes it’s laying back, letting life play out and return to balance as part of the normal see-saw. I’m lucky that I have a low tolerance for being out of balance.  I feel it acutely. I find it easier to be active to attain balance than to give myself some grace and let let the balance return more organically. It’s feels better to be creating space and appreciating space.  More optimistic, better spirit.  Let’s see what happens.