What is the number one thing people seek coaching for? Once coaching partners strip all the layers and unravel their true self, they soon realize it isn’t the diet soda, losing 10 lbs, or adding one day of exercise that they are seeking. Those are all easy fixes. What people are really hungry for is deep, centered balance. Balance between work and home, balance between self and family, balance between the internal and external, balance, balance, and more balance. But what if what we are seeking can never happen?
Can your life come into complete equality and balance? Let’s take a balance scale; when the two pans contain exactly the same mass the pans completely stop, and the beam is in balance or a state of equilibrium. But, the littlest things can throw off that balance. If there is one constant in life, it’s that things are always changing, evolving, shifting, and negotiating. Life has many seasons, many waves. There is always movement. Movement of the breath, movement of your heart chambers, movement of energy, movement of thoughts, constant movement all around us. So, how can we be balanced? How can we remain in a state of equilibrium? We can’t!
Balance is a journey not a destination. Balance isn’t constant it’s re-assessment and continual adjustment. Sometimes we need family, sometimes we need work, sometimes we need quiet, sometimes we need laughter, and sometimes we just need to yell. Some days are spent pouring over work, and other days are spent at the pool. Some days we need a coat, umbrella, and boots and other days we run outside in the rain for fun. When you look at the word poised, used as a verb, the definition is to be or cause balance. When we think of poise we think of grace, elegance, steadiness, and stability. What if, instead of seeking balance or striving for balance, we approach balance in life with poise by achieving steadiness and stability through grace? Or stability and transition with elegance?
“Grace is when you aren’t striving or controlling or trying to change or manipulate or make something happen. Grace is when you find yourself carried along, when all that’s left to do is receive.”
What if we approach balance as a journey where we work on resiliency to bring stability to ourselves during the constant transition of life? The constant re-assessment and adjustment. How would that life look? Just as in a balance scale, the steadiness in the center column holds the weight and holds the balance, it never wavers no matter what is on each side. It stands poised, strong, steadfast, and elegant. What if we lived life as the center post of a scale? Instead of moving, adjusting, and forcing the two pans to become equal, we can become the sturdy center column that holds the beam and two pans with elegance, grace, stability, and poise no matter what may come.
