Living Your Spirit #9 ~ Finding Balance

Often, we struggle with where to schedule what in our quest for balance. Paint in the studio all day? Yes, sounds wonderful, but there are other things that need to be done. There are the necessary out of the building errands, correspondence to tend to, both paper and electronic, marketing needs to be met, supplies to organize, financials to manage...and that is just the business end of things.

Then there are the home things, the personal things. Whether you have the responsibility for the cleaning, the laundry, repairs, appointment scheduling, meal preparation, shopping (and I am referring to both males and females here), and personal time for relaxation, social events, outside activities...the list can go on and on. No wonder we feel out of sorts and lopsided some days, as if there are pieces of us everywhere to be collected.

Picture, if you will, an old fashioned see saw, the kind kids used to play on years ago - just a support with a board placed across it, no fancy playground equipment.  You would ordinarily think that the board would be placed evenly across the top of the support so that equal sides of the board would be on each side.  But if one child was considerably bigger than another, in order for them to ride comfortably, the board would be shifted to accomodate the weight difference.  The support, aka the fulcrum, would be in a different place between the two sides.

So the first thing we need to do is properly place the fulcrum between business and personal life. How much weight do we need on each side? There are those that really have the need for symmetry, so they may need to have things perfectly even. As all artists know, however, one can find beautiful balance in assymetry. Do what works for you. Let's place that fulcrum first, then begin to assign spaces, or time chunks on either side. It actually can be fun to see what kind of balance can be achieved. Build a little model to make a fun game of it. Not a bad idea for family members and household chores, too.

One of the things that sometimes comes of this exercise is that  maybe some things will just have to go, or be set aside for a different balance day. Putting too much on the scales will eventually topple the entire thing. Believe me, I used to topple on a regular basis. Finding balance is a process. Finding a way to enjoy the process adds to it .

Donna Welsh, I Believe I can Fly. Miniature sculpture on recycled flooring base. ©2010