The Toddler Theory of Balance

"I just want to feel more balanced."

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Deep breath, ok.  First of all, you noticed.  Yay for you.  Believe it or not, some people are so far from balance that wanting it never even occurs to them.

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I ask, "what is balance for you?"

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(pregnant pause. client's eyes drift up and to the left, visibly lost) 🤔

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Let's start with an easier question.  Have you ever watched a toddler learn to walk?  I hope so, because it's a truly charming thing to witness.  Kinda clumsy, determined, a little wobbly.  But at some point their muscles, motivation and brains connect all at the same time to produce one step, maybe two, before they fall down again.

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This is the beginning.  From there they try again and again to repeat the process, add more and more steps, and figure out what exactly this new, cool thing is and what it can mean for them.  Tears, scrapes, regressions, and frustration are all part of the process.  But they know it and we know it: the discomfort is temporary and the outcome of being able to move where you want to when you want to, is going to change everything for the better.  They get up, time and time again to keep practicing so eventually walking is just a thing they take for granted, with very little thought.

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That comment, "I just want to feel more balanced," is something I hear from my clients all the time.  Not just clients, I think almost every person I know deeper than surface level has expressed this want to me at one point (is this just a therapist thing or do your people do this to you, too?).

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Balance implies calm, steady, focus, logic, reliability, strength and stability.  Even typing these words brings a bit of peace.  There's a hope that once we find balance, all will be well, our days will move along in synchrony, and the tug-of-war ends.  We can rest easy knowing there's a place for everything and everything is in its place because BALANCE.

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"Yes, that's what I want," says my client.

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Peeking under the hood, I don't think of balance as a place upon which we arrive.  It's more of a skill to keep practicing.  Like any skill, it's built through repetition - mostly the falling down and getting back up part, just like our toddler friends.

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That's why noticing you want to feel different is so cool.  To want something, we need to know first what it is.  And I'm guessing if you want more balance, it's because you've tasted enough of it to know it's worth wanting.  To want more of it signals that you've put some reps in and built a construct of what balance feels like to you or how it looks in your life.  You've felt balanced before (or at least just felt less imbalanced), and you want to feel that way again.  Or, you've seen balance in other people, it looks good, it looks peaceful, and you want some of it for yourself.

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This is exactly the type of thing I would say to a client sitting in front of me, desiring more balance while harboring feelings of failure mixed with confusion (ok, Coree, so what if I've felt balanced at some point before, I sure as heck don't feel that way now).

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My fictional client is ready to dig in and solve problems!  But before we plow forward trying to find a type of balance to settle into, I find it helpful to take inventory.

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I love personal data. I just love it.  Because ultimately you're trying to rediscover the balance that will work for YOU, NOW.  Not what is working for someone else, not what just looks pretty from the outside, and maybe not even what you've been doing in your life up until now.

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A couple things to think through when taking inventory:

• What was your life like at the point when you last felt balanced?

• What type of balance are you seeing in others that you're attracted to?

• What have you tried that actually did not result in feeling more balanced, and why?

• What worked to create balance, even for a little while, but was not sustainable?

• What worked for you, but bothered everyone else?

• What are your top 5 values?​

All answers are worthy of neutral evaluation.  There could be something useful to build on during your next iteration of balance.  We learn from all the falls.

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This is already a lot to think through.  I wonder if my client was hoping I'd recommend just meal prep or give her some unspecific advice about focusing on "what's most important to you" and letting the rest "just fall away"...

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Here's what I'm still wondering: what has changed that makes you want more balance?

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It's likely one of three things: YOU have changed, for whatever reason, and feel mounting internal pressure for your external life to support you.  Something outside of you has changed and now there's a bunch of external pressure to fit in something new.  Or you've seen something in someone else that you want for yourself and now your perspective has widened.

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Something has shifted and you're out of alignment.  Walking is suddenly hard again.  Now what?

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Frustration/grief

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I ask my client, "what is going on that makes you question your balance right now?"

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Something, from somewhere, is pushing on you.  You're feeling unstable.  But how do you know if this instability means you need to totally relearn balance, or if it's just a little wobble, a momentary setback, a frustratingly windy day that makes walking hard?

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In the back of my mind, I'm thinking of a personal example: my hair.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and think, if I could have it all, I'd be one of those women who looks put-together and lovely, every day.  I have friends like that.  I know it's possible.  So should I put time and money toward taming this lioness hair once and for all?

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I sit with this desire for a while because I want to get to know it more. Is it worth listening to?  Reorienting around?  Do I need to add this to my life?  By the time I answer my own questions, I've already thrown my hair into a braid, rolled my eyes, and moved on with my life.  I'm frustrated, annoyed, envious of all the women around me having a good hair day.  But I maybe don't want it enough for myself.  I'm not going to do anything about this want just yet, and maybe never.

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This is the grief.  It's the sadness that comes with accepting that something you want is not important enough to make room for.  Leave it in the periphery.

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And yet, I have another example that landed differently: keyword research.  I'd been humming along jamming search engine optimization, web design, and all things related to the online presence of my business into a life that already felt pretty full.  But when it came time to research keywords, I stumbled and didn't know how to get back up.

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Keywords matter.  Women looking for a therapist need to find me, I want to make it easy for them.  Helping women feel aligned is the whole point of my work.  But this feels like a big addition to my week, and I hate the research part of it.

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So what do I do?  Cry, naturally.  Close my laptop.  Lament that everyone else already has this figured out and I'm way behind (unlikely this is true).  I'm sat on the floor with no energy left.  I don't want to put in any more reps.  I'm just pissed.

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Now, I don't cry about my hair, but I cried about this.  That's the tell.  If I'm reacting this hard, I have to trust that it's big enough to actually deal with.  This is the frustration.  It's the building internal pressure getting bigger and bigger to get you to take action, put in more reps.

 

Balance is still the goal.

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Resources Inventory

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Sometimes it's obvious what we need to make room for, but sometimes it isn't.  My client, she's doing ALL the things: taking care of loved ones, taking care of her body whenever she can, and trying to savor her life.  She's managing a lot and her sense of peace is the first casualty.

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She looks to me to have the answer.  Sometimes I do, sort of - it's usually a conversation about trade-offs.  None of us has more hours in the day than anyone else and everything she chooses to spend her time and energy on means something else doesn't get chosen.  So when she tells me a new thing must be added AND she wants to feel balance and calm, we have an opportunity to get strategic.

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"Ok, let's try this," I say, "we can go through a resources inventory."  Heads up, this resource inventory is not a super polished, well-thought-out paradigm.  It's actually something I made up on the fly when talking to a client who was overwhelmed, trying to communicate how I think through maintaining balance in my own life.  Because I often think to myself, "how can I add ___ to my life and not go crazy?"  Where do I have abundance I can take from to make this thing happen?

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Time ⏳

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Is time an abundant resource for you?  A subset of you are going to roll your eyes at the thought of time being something you have extra to give.  But here's the thing, you've already told me you're going to fit this in one way or another.  You also want to stay sane in the process.  That's the deal we're working with.  So if you're of the eye-rolling crowd, the real question isn't whether you have time, it's whether you can get clever about it.

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An example of clever use of time is spending less of it on things that can drop off the list as you flex to add something new.  A time audit, however seriously you take it, can be a useful thing if you're curious whether or not you're putting your time toward the things that really matter to you.

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I once noticed I spent 19 minutes getting dressed and prepped for a run (ummm).  What am I doing that needs 19 minutes?  Likely I'm avoiding the discomfort of running so I convinced myself that my socks weren't cozy. T here are phases of life when that attention to detail totally fits, conversely, there are times when my whole day will suffer if I don't get my butt in gear and stop lollygagging.  (My socks felt out of place for the whole run but I made it to the meeting!)

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As trivial as this example is, it illustrates properly identifying time as a resource.  I don't go running to feel comfortable, so what's a misplaced sock?  I have time to give, when I get clever.

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Money 💸

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Most people I encounter have either way more time than money, or way more money than time.  If you have a lot of both, I hope to be you someday! But the beautiful thing about money as a resource is that it can buy you someone else's time.

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Recently I heard about a realtor who leveraged money to fit more into her day.  She's busy and has a lot to coordinate.  She drives a bunch and was constantly sacrificing client communication for safe driving.  A common problem for busy commuters, unless you hire a driver, which is exactly what she did.  Now the back of her car is a mobile office, she has more time to do what she wants and she can achieve her goals having hired out something she doesn't like doing anyway.

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That's exactly where I landed with my keyword research.  I didn't want to give it my time, I don't enjoy it, so I'm paying someone else a good chunk of money to do it instead.  Am I thrilled about the expense?  Not really.  But I want the outcome more than I want to keep the money in my pocket.  I decided I needed this to happen, so I had to find a resource for it.

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I've seen this with plenty of women, paying for convenience, paying for support, spending their money to compress time.  Not because they're incapable, but because they've decided their time is better spent elsewhere.

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And that's ok.

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Motivation 🔋

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Sometimes we want something to change, we want the result, but if we're honest, the motivation to do the work isn't actually there.

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In 2023, I knew I wanted more clients in my practice.  I did not, however, feel motivated to chase that.  I tried so hard to fabricate the motivation, which was probably at like 25%.  What am I going to do with that?  I want something and I'm not genuinely interested in making it happen.  I had to lean on self-trust.  So I stopped trying to force it, figured out what I was actually motivated to be working on, went full bore, and waited (kinda anxiously) for my motivation to round the corner back to my work.

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That's balance too, by the way.  Maybe you assumed balance means giving something to every important area of your life at once.  It doesn't.  Sometimes balance means directing your reps toward whatever actually has your energy right now, and trusting the rest will get its turn.  My practice didn't fall apart while I wasn't working on it, it was just waiting for me.

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And it did come back (with an assist from hormones cause perimenopause is no joke).  By early this year, I had more drive for my practice than ever.

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So here's the trick: assess your motivation honestly, and let it be what it is.  If it's low for something right now, that's not a moral failing, it could just mean your reps are better spent elsewhere for the moment.  Trust that what actually matters to you will find its way back to the front of the line.

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Inputs 🎧

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We already talked about time as a resource, here's the flip side of that: not just how much time you have, but who and what you're giving it to.

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If you're taking on something big, if you're learning or relearning balance, you need support, which shows up in a lot of forms.  It might be the people physically around you, the ones who encourage what you're doing instead of side-eyeing it.  It might be a book by someone who's already done the big thing you're attempting.  A podcast of women talking about, well, how great women actually are.  What you're watching, listening to, scrolling through, all of it either helps you hold onto balance while you take this new thing on, or it drains you and makes the whole climb harder.

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Pretty simple, honestly.  Notice what's feeding you.  Notice what's not.  Adjust accordingly.

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This isn't an exhaustive list, just where I've landed so far, in my own life and in the conversations I have with clients when it's useful.  You'll probably find your own resources to add to it.  It is meant to be something you can scale up or scale down depending on the demands being placed on you, either internal or external.

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And, of course, it's worth mentioning that sometimes the thing you're trying to fit in isn't exciting or even chosen.  It's a crisis, a scary thing, or a super big life change that has landed on you and demands everything at once.  You're in one of these phases when you can't really walk at all.  It feels like everything has changed and you're back to taking those first uneasy steps, and really hoping you get back to balance.

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In these phases of life, just being clever about time or money isn't a cure, even if it's helpful.  If that's where you are, just relearning the basics, I feel for you with deep empathy having been there myself a few times.

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Where to resume

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Here's what my fictional client would say: "this makes sense and is so helpful, I'll think through all of this before next session."

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Here's what my fictional client might be thinking: "this sounds like a lot of work and I'm already really tired and I just want to feel balanced and easy."

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Check, check.  I get it.  I really do, cause I've been there before questioning coaching advice and not sure how to actually implement it into my real life.  That's why we start by recalling our muscle memory - if you've been balanced before, none of that is gone.  Relearning is real work, but it's not the same work as learning for the first time.  It might feel hard at the start every time, but you'll catch up quicker and quicker each time after you fall down.

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Even once you get there, even once you feel balanced again, it's still going to be hard.  Saying no to cool things is hard.  Cutting things you want in favor of things you've decided you need is hard.  If it starts to feel easy for a chunk of time, it's probably because you've gotten stronger and better able to manage your full life, not because the pressures actually went away.

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Still confused about how to go from chaos to calm?  That might be a sign you're doing something right.  When we keep trying the exact same things, we often end up with the exact same result.  Anything new is going to feel foreign at first.  But when things start to click and your muscles and motivation and brain all collide into walking, maybe even running, it's pretty freeing.

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I hope my "yay for you for noticing" comment makes more sense now if it didn't already.  You know how a teenager can pull an all-nighter, eat like garbage all weekend, and still drag themselves out of bed Monday without much more than mild regret?  Their sense of balance lends itself to extremes.  You, on the other hand, probably feel it fast.   Even a little change within yourself or a seemingly small addition to your life can veer you off your course.

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I hear that from my clients, I feel that myself, and yet I cannot get myself to think of that process as anything other than evidence of all the work you've done to notice what balance feels like for you.  I'll stick with you in the drudgery of continued refinement, but inside I'm cheering for you, just a little. 🙂​​​