Balancing Extremes

  

I was very immature when I was young, and for me there was no balance. Everything was just all or nothing. ~Mickey Rourke

I can relate to Mickey. I had no balance in my life when I was young. I didn’t even know what balance was or that I should have it. I just did what I had to do for the people around me that I loved. That went along well for about 20+ years until one day I realized that something shifted. My life felt wobbly and unsteady. There were lots of reasons that factored into my lack of equilibrium (maybe I’ll write about that down the road--it’s actually best told over a bottle or two of wine).

I am by nature a woman of extremes - all or nothing: I hibernate all winter and want to explore all summer. I am either too hot or too cold. I’m a ridiculous coward when it comes to heights and reptiles, but beyond brave when it comes to facing bullies and BS-ers. I am a serious germ-a-phobic but have no problem with blood gushing or bones sticking out. (If there is a crisis, you want me there. However, if someone has the flu, a fever, a cold, or a cough, I’m secretly wishing I didn’t have to be within a football field from you - which is probably why I hibernate all winter. I once attended a church where they had sanitizer at the end of the pews; we were in complete theological and biological agreement). I can fast like a monk or feast like an Epicurean. I love socializing with people. However, I also have a contemplative and reclusive part of my personality.

These are just a few of my extremes. My friends and husband could provide you with a more comprehensive list. I’m honest enough to know that these things about me will never change. I’ve tried. I’m not fooling anyone. Lately I’ve been asking myself what is true balance: What is the ‘Middle Way’ when it comes to balance? How do I make peace with my extremeness and yet find balance in three areas: body, mind, and soul? At present, the hardest area to give grace and acceptance to is the physical part of my self. I’m more aware than ever that I’m getting older and this ‘ole body’ is changing-rapidly!

I used to teach aerobics back in the Jane Fonda days (which dates me). I often taught 2-3 classes a day and could live off of Snickers and Kit Kat bars, and not gain weight (oh the good old days). This was the beginning of my extreme eating, dieting, and exercising. I was young and naïve back then and had no idea what was coming. Not sticking around long enough to experience this herself, Marilyn Monroe once said, “Gravity catches up with all of us”. No kidding. Thanks for the heads up.

When you’re my age, our bodies start to talk back. First it’s polite and whispers with a little unexplained fatigue, then it whimpers with and ache that won’t go away for six months, and then screams at you like a insolent teenager shouting at you just because you exist. Next thing you know, you have serious symptoms that need prescription medicines that you don’t want to be taking and don’t really seem to help anyway. My body was persistent enough to find its voice and got my attention.

Since I didn’t have the energy to do step-aerobics anymore, and still struggled with getting off the legal crack-a.k.a sugar, I started doing yoga. Being that I’m sort of a hippy-dippy type, yoga seemed like something I would dig doing. Terri Guillemets said of the “bendy” activity, “I tried yoga once but took off for the mall halfway through class, as I had a sudden craving for soft pretzels and world peace.” Terri and I could totally be friends. As for me, I’ve stuck with yoga. It’s taken me some time to lean into it, make it a routine, and now I love it. My body loves it. 

One of the fundamentals in yoga is balance. I quickly learned I didn’t have any. It took me six months to do a full tree pose – I mean arms gloriously reaching overhead holding the pose for a minute or two and breathing naturally. Just this pose alone was something that I had to be patient with because my body lost its flexibility and strength somewhere in the last decade. Oh I could whip the heel of my foot up into the corner of my thigh, but that didn’t mean I was in tree pose and was balanced. My mind was trying to attain perfection, but my body was screaming, “Um, you need to lose a few more pounds girlfriend!” Soon I was learning that the reason I couldn’t do tree pose wasn’t so much that I was curvaceous and flabby, it was because I was not balanced within my mind and soul. Instead, I was listening to a judgmental voice in my head and couldn’t accept my limitations and be content with who I was –now- in this moment. This mean-spirited voice for decades has tried to convince me that what I weigh is who I am as a whole. It is a shaming voice and it's a lie. I am not my weight! Sadly, too often I get tripped up and think I am. For example, if I’m hiding from the camera, I’m thinking negative thoughts and secretly terrified that you'll tag me on Facebook. 

I have a long history of being unkind to myself - seeing myself through a distorted lens – saying mean things that are not true. I can be so encouraging to others but unmerciful toward myself. In yoga, I learned a lesson I wish I had learned years ago: “NO EXPECTATIONS, NO COMPARISONS, NO JUDGMENT.” This knowledge would have helped me to be a better mother, lover, and friend. This insight has been the beginning of me finding balance in my life again. I haven’t arrived - stay tune for the continuing saga.

Even these past few weeks I’ve been beating myself up and neglecting kindness towards myself. After losing 40 pounds over the last year, I recently gained 15 back. I know why it happens. I lost my balance. I’m a woman of extremes: “Oooh, M-Dogs opened in McHenry, lets go!” or "Hmmm, sit by the lake or go bike off the Chicago Style hotdog and fries?"  The extreme of eating and loafing have kept me out of physical balance since May. The fact that I’m thrashing myself emotionally is keeping me from personal forgiveness. Do you ever do that? I get mad at myself when I self-sabotage by falling back into old conditioned habits. However, to my credit, I'm still working out-some. 

What I am learning is externally and internally there are many stages of syncing up body, mind, and spirit. It takes a lifetime to pull off ongoing stability. Yet ‘True Balance’ is something we always have deep down inside of us; we just need to come into harmony with it on the outside. Of course the ‘aplomb heart’ doesn’t come from me, I’m not that accomplished. It comes from God. He put a core center of immovability within me for a good reason – probably because He knows I get tipped over in attaining perfection in tree pose, against resistance to ‘what is’, or my struggle with yummy food, or my worry over germs and judgment. Below the surface of my crazy, extreme self is ‘True Balance’: a level place, a still place, a place of compassion, a place of acceptance towards others, a place where all is well when I take care of myself, a place where gravity (and Hersey Bars) doesn’t pull me off center.