Thinking About Balance

Gul Zeynep Genc on Unsplash

Recently, I attended a women’s mini-retreat at All Souls Interfaith Gathering in Shelburne. The event, “Balancing our Being,” was facilitated by Reverend Kim Marie Glynn. Around forty women attended, choosing to consider “balance” from an internal perspective by – for instance – writing, or in an embodied way. Like approximately half of the women, I chose embodiment.

The word “embody” has several connotations. For me, it means to physically express an idea. One of the activities in the embodying group was to balance a peacock feather - on the palm and, later, on the tip of a finger. My first thought when Kim Marie introduced this activity was that I would not be able to do it. To refine this thought, I figured I wouldn’t be able to do it without looking foolish trying.

However, as soon as I propped the tip of the feather in my palm, I decided to forget about how I looked. After all, everyone was focusing on their own feathers, not on what I was doing. Once I decided to let go and have fun, it was easy to balance the feather, even on the tip of my finger.

It felt wonderful to move my body in flow with the feather, keeping it as vertical as possible. Sometimes it perched straight up, and sometimes it leaned over. I laughed when the feather went horizontal, and I started over. Shifting my weight as I moved around the room, I danced with the feather, keeping it relatively vertical for several minutes at a time. When it fell over, I never felt as though I had failed; I just tried again.

One thing that Kim Marie pointed out at the beginning of the retreat was that we’re not seeking perfection. It was a relief and a revelation to accept that there was no need to try to achieve perfect balance. Equilibrium (when opposing forces are balanced) is fluid. For instance, one moment I might feel comfortable in a group, then someone will say or do something that throws me. The comfort and discomfort teach me something about myself and others.

During the retreat, the words that emerged for me were “fun” and “joy.” I've chosen to embrace these concepts in my daily life. Does this mean that I’ve failed if I don’t have fun or don’t find joy every day? Not at all. However, I've been shifting my perspective from only seeing what's missing or wrong. I consider what's present and what's happening that feeds my soul, my spirit.

While walking through the farmer’s market at the Bristol Town Green, I shifted from focusing on what I was going to buy and I caught the eye of a little girl doing chalk drawings with other children on the walkway. We smiled at each other. After a restless night, the sounds of birds chirping outside my window brought me joy. I had fun writing with others during a Transformative Language Arts Community Circle because I let go of wondering if my words were good enough. I shared them and I listened with openhearted focus to the words of other writers.

I don’t expect to laugh and sing every moment of my life. I also don’t expect to be miserable every moment either. There will never be a perfect balance between the “good” and the “bad.” I’ll continue to lean into and away from whatever comes, like I did with the feather, moving physically and spiritually in a dance of balance.