How do you think of balance? In what contexts? What do you picture in your mind? How does it show up in your life? Where do you wish for it?

Chatting with a biology teacher friend last weekend, we agreed that ‘balance’ may generally be perceived as static state–or a goal of such. So to convey the fluidity of nature and the apparently paradoxical concept of stability in constant movement (think of bicycling), we agreed that ‘equilibrium’ may be a more accurate word for what we mean.

I have long thought of balance as a dynamic rather than static state. And now I recognize that it can be both. Of course!

How do I already do balance well?
–Physically, I like doing single leg movements. Squats, dead lifts, hinges. Tree and warrior yoga poses, lunges–I love them all because I feel powerful when I hold them. When I feel particularly confident, I close my eyes for an extra challenge.
–I’m good at letting go unimportant and non-urgent things when life gets chaotic and dense. Hence I live in a relative pigsty, because hello, life is constantly in one state of chaos and wonder or another and housecleaning just does not interest me. I now trust myself, however, to sense the need to reprioritize occasionally, such as clearing off the writing space for a 30 day blogging challenge.
–I allow periods of immersive obsession (eg romance binge [140/180 titles this year], washi art), heavily leaning phases that happily threaten but don’t actually topple life functions. It’s my way of living life on the edge.

How could I do it better?
–Maybe I could tighten my swings, dampen the amplitude of some extreme-ish behaviors, like buying/hoarding books and paper, OH and time spent on social media, definitely yes.
–Tone down, mitigate my agitation at certain things that grate on me, like the brokenness of our healthcare system… get to better equanimity about it…
–This really reminds me of polarity management–Bob Tauber over at Polarity Partnerships gave me such thoughtful and enlightening feedback tonight on that post:
“we suggest referring to poles in a polarity as seemingly opposed (or seemingly antagonistic) because in reality, values, competencies or strategic objectives are always part of an interdependent pair.” So I can monitor how I frame things to be ‘balanced’ in the first place!

How/what does society balance well?

Homeo/allostasis. We haven’t killed ourselves and the planet yet, so there is some kind of balance happening, yes? Some of our systems exist in homeostasis–stable states of being that return to form after a disruption. In his book Master of Change, Brad Stulberg introduces the idea of allostasis, wherein an initially stable state meets disruption and disorder, and instead of reverting to the prior order, evolves to a new, ‘reordered’ state, adapted to consequences of the disruption. I highly recommend the book for its illustrative stories and practical skills for elevating our resilience and joy in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. So I’d say that homeo- and allostasis already occur, regardless and sometimes in spite of our direct participation in any of it. Do you know anyone who is already aware and in front of the best of these states?

How could we do balance better?

Mindfulness and Acceptance. Ooo, just think if we did mindfulness better, how much more easily we could see with equanimity the possibility in what is, and move more seamlessly toward what could be? We could see where/when/how homeostasis is possible, and when not, respond rather than react, and perceive more options, invent them, co-create them. Progress and conservation relate this way–as change inevitably occurs, we are contantly faced with (invited to) choices in tension to flow with or resist. If we made our choices with clear and acute intention rather than by default, wow, how would that be?

Creativity. We get to invent it!! “Fly as we test, test as we fly,” says NASA. Make the thing knowing it’s imperfect but functional. Anticipate flaws and prepare for consequences, ready the teams to respond. Then launch, monitor, adjust, repeat. Start with pilot, alpha and beta trials, scale iteratively. Life is change; the future is neither known nor guaranteed. Embrace it with the best of our ingenuity!

Collaboration. On a societal level, as each of us processes the violent swings of local and global life individually, balance collapses into oblivion when we only fend for ourselves and ignore one another. Societal balance feels like ‘world peace’–yikes, how trite. I’ll stick with it anyway: Ebbs and flows, scarcity and abundance, mitigated extremes. Horizontal and vertical integration of government and business, public and private, personal and professional participation… Huh.

Ooo, fun. That is not where I thought this would go. I had no idea where it would end, honestly. I’m happy with this. Perspective tomorrow! Good night!