When I hear the word balancing, in term of balancing our lives, it feels like there is pressure. It feels to me like yet another thing to add to my to-do list. I must balance my life, walking the high line, the tight lined rope above the circus floor: kids, cooking, cleaning, work, the car, the breaking down of things around the house, the workouts, the self-care, and then, of course people calling me for my counseling services and my fitness services, my self-help services, plus my community volunteering services and senior citizen assistance. Let us not forget my passion of the writing of books, blogs and reaching out through social media as well. To balance all of these tasks in my life without regard to my husband, the connections and relationships with my large family abroad and in the United States, my work family and my community of writers, the balancing seems almost impossible. These tasks can wreak havoc on my health.
How do I protect myself? I protect myself by changing the word from balancing to blending. When I think of the word blending I think of the word solution, like a salt solution. When I was a kid and we studied science in school, we put a few drops of salt in the water. The salt in the water was a solution, not a mixture like oil and water or salad dressing. The salt dissolved into the water and became salt water. It became something else entirely. So I think of my life as blending. All of the components of my life are blending and becoming something else entirely so that it all becomes something manageable. Instead of a salad dressing or oil floating on top of the water, I'm blending all of the parts of my life into one happy beautiful solution, creating a solution that I can manage. This makes it less stressful for me to comprehend. Does that make sense?