In my mid-twenties, I began to crave balance in my life. I extracted myself from my family of origin; gave up my lifestyle of travel and partying; and settled down with a man, a job and a home.
Despite the absence of my long coveted freedom, I was surprisingly happy–er; so I went in search of MORE… balance… cleaning up my diet; incorporating regular aerobic activity; guarding my sleep; attending Al-Anon meetings; delving into spiritual texts, and even taking fiber.
While friends and family members suffered lives strewn with chaos, I strode steadily along my neat and narrow road. I was so carefully balanced, that by the time I had kids, I tipped right over.
It’s challenging to enjoy children when you are reliant on balance. Parenting by nature inhabits a world of extremes. The most vigilant of those among us, however, will keep at it. We’ll institute feeding schedules, bedtimes, chores and limits. We’ll carefully carve out our own time to force our lives back into balance; like shoving swollen feet back into a pair of pumps at the tail end of a wedding reception.
Yoga provides a quick fix. An hour on the mat, and even the most harried parent will find that sweet gift that the yogis call… “equanimity.” I love that word. It represents everything that is perfect about balance.
But don’t expect it to last. The moment you step back into the foray of family life, you’re knocked on your ass.
Until you stop trying.
In his book, The Three Marriages–Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship; author and poet David Whyte claims that “Poets have never used the word balance. It is too obvious and therefore untrustworthy… and seems to speak as much as to being stuck and immovable.”
Whyte suggests that balance is overrated and self-defeating, often leaving people feeling frustrated and exhausted.
This makes me think of the difference between my two favorite yoga teachers–the one who came before my children, and the one who came after. My current teacher, Scott, doesn’t demonstrate the same kind of discipline or severity that my first yoga teacher imposed; but I’m forever grateful to Ann for forcing me out of my mind.
Scott’s looser approach is a better fit for my life now. He incorporates an eclectic soundtrack into his class, even playing Stevie Ray Vaughan. He tells jokes. He encourages us to do a pose “our” way. He reminds us to go to the “steady edge” of our own stretch. He asks us to breathe “santosha” (contentment) into each pose as we express it, no matter how it looks.
I feel like I can bring my “whole” imperfect self to Scott’s class, and this resonates well with David Whyte’s advice about integrating work and family and self: “Separating these aspects from each other in order to balance one against the other serves to destroy the fabric of happiness itself,” Whyte says.
Instead, he emphasizes the integral connection between the core commitments of our lives, telling readers to “stop trying to work harder in each of the marriages and start to concentrate on the conversation that holds them together.”
This reminds of the unique way my yoga teacher Scott leads the class through balancing poses. First of all, he has use the wall for support, and then he tells us to let the “falling” out of the pose be a part of its full expression.
Whyte claims that this sense of “unbalancing” must take place in life in order to push us into a new and larger sets of circumstances.
But is it me, or does this sounds scary–especially to someone who has held her life together with such a fierce commitment to balance?
“Get out of the dynamics of self-entrapment,” says Whyte, “and fall in love–with a person, a future, a work, or with a new sense of self.”
This is the fragile place of imbalance and expansion where I find myself now.
On a recent trip to Chile with my new job, I discover that I can survive without sleep, that I can navigate unknowns in a foreign country (five-thousand miles away from my family), and that I can drink wine with every meal and still be productive.
It was mostly likely this forced freedom from the entrapment of balance which enabled me to say yes to the idea of celebrating my 21st wedding anniversary with festivity.
When we discovered that the only date that was available for the facility we wanted to rent was only a month away, I said yes again, despite my tipping, delighted that this opening fell serendiptitously on the weekend of my anniversary.
When that same week was loaded up at work, I held onto my yes; and when I was completely tipped over by the news that my date didn’t fit into the calenders of my out of town friends and family, I challenged myself to breathe santosha (contentment) into my choice no matter how it looked.
When dozens of local friends joined us for an evening of celebration, but none needed the space we rented for overnight guests, we decided we’d use the space ourselves.
“Why would you sleep on camp bunk beds when you could go home and be in your own bed right across the road?” my sister asked.
She had a point. Staying overnight at Camp Neringa would bring all kinds of increasing imbalance into our lives.
And as I lie there on that thin cot into the wee hours of the night with the rocking and squeaking of the metal frame, I was acutely aware at how I had chosen passion over balance again and again, even in this small way, and I was eager to see how this willingness to “fall” might expand the conversation of my life even further.
I thought back to the anniversary ceremony that my husband and I included in our celebration. We risked disposing of the traditional “renewal of vows” in favor of an impromptu honoring of each other.
21 years earlier, we stood on a carpeted altar, face to face, holding hands, repeating words from a minister. Now we stood apart, among friends, flanking a camp stage like opposite pillars of strength.
From that unplanned and slightly atypical distance apart, we spoke words of respect and appreciation and love–a conversation that wove our hearts and our witnesses together–despite the divide.
The next morning, after we finished cleaning up the camp, we danced to our wedding song that we had forgotten to play the night before.
I then walked home from Camp Neringa alone, while Casey drove the first of our cars across the road.
When he returned by foot to fetch the one remaining vehicle, we arrived at opposite sides of the pond at the same moment.
Immediately, I saw us in the roles of the story he had shared during his honoring of me. It was a lovers myth with the God Shiva and the Goddess Parvati. They too went off on their own to nurture their strengths and visions, and then joined together for a thousand years in “love play.”
As Casey stopped to visit with a neighbor who passed him on the road, I crouched down to dip my fingers into the cool spring waters of the pond and dab them on my third eye. As Casey finished his conversation, we each stepped up onto the dock that spanned the pond and walked toward the other.
Half-way across, we met at the damn, where the waters rushed into the stream, heavy from a week of constant rain. We shared a final celebration embrace, and then continued on our separate ways.
There was a time when our fierce dependence on balance demanded that Casey and I choose the safety of of togetherness over the risk of differentiation; But we’ve discarded the weight of that balance in return for a thousand years in love play.
Kelly Salasin, May 22, 2011
The Three Marriages, David Whyte, Riverhead Books, 2009.
For more information about Scott Willis and Hit the Spot Yoga, click here.
