Three Things

So, I left my last post with the question, "...how do I achieve this inner balance?" unanswered. Well, the truth is, I don't really know. However, I've been trying a few things over the past week and they do seem to be helping.

First off, I decided that now would be a fantastic time to do another cleanse. No, I'm not talking about some crazy endeavor that involves consuming nothing but water with lemon and cayenne and the occasional bowl of lettuce for a week. Are you kidding? I don't think my children would survive my doing that. I'm talking about the Quantum Wellness Cleanse, which Stephen and I have done a couple times before (briefly documented starting here and again here). Simply put, we are eliminating caffeine, alcohol, and refined sugar from our diet for a course of 21 days. (The cleanse also calls for eliminating animal products, which we don't eat anyway, and gluten, which we decided not to worry about this time.) I figure if I want to clear my head and become more balanced, it certainly couldn't hurt to flush my body of the deliciously toxic substances I abuse it with on a regular basis. I'm just now finishing up Day 3 and my head is killing me, but I know from past experience that I will be feeling really swell in just a couple days and so I power on.

Secondly, I've started making a to-do list. Every day. I know, I know, it sounds like I'm totally contradicting what I said in my last post, but hear me out. Normally, I spend most of my day with a big ball of "shoulds" swirling around in my head: I should wash the dishes; I should clean the cat box; I should get off Facebook; I should get out of the house... If I make a list of, say, five or six things I would like to accomplish in the day, I have effectively removed that swirl from head and laid it out neatly on a piece of paper. Then, with my "shoulds" turned into "will dos," my mind is clear and free to be present for my children, or my husband, or even for the dishes. When a task is completed, it feels good to check it off the list. And if one or two of them don't get accomplished, well, that's life! Those tasks will roll over to the next day's list.

Finally - and this is the one that requires the most practice - I have been trying to passively observe my emotions instead of letting them define me. For instance, the other day, while Evan was at school, Elinor took a long nap and woke up somewhat cranky shortly before we had to leave to pick up her brother. We had a very short amount of time to get her dressed and walk to the school and she was fighting me tooth and nail on every little detail. She didn't want underwear; she wanted a pull-up. She didn't like the shirt I picked; she wanted a sweatshirt. Her shoes felt funny. Her socks were bugging her. She didn't want a pull-up after all, but a bathing suit instead. All the while, time is ticking away and I'm imagining poor little Ev having to wait in the office because his mom wasn't there to pick him up on time. Aaargh! I was frustrated and starting to get angry, ready to snap at any moment. And then I remembered to try observing my emotions instead of giving into them. This is very different than suppressing your emotions, by the way. Suppression of emotions is very unhealthy in my opinion and should be avoided. To observe your emotions is to allow them to arise but to take a step back from them and simply observe their effects. In this moment of extreme frustration with Elinor, I took a step back from my emotions. I observed how my body felt: tense, tight, hot. I focused on my breath. I focused only on my breath. I did not force myself to breathe deeply while my mind continued to go haywire. I simply focused on my breath, the feeling of air entering my nose and filling my lungs, the feeling of my lungs deflating and the air rushing past my lips with an exhale. Slowly, I felt the tension, the tightness, the heat start to subside. Now that I was calm, Elinor was far more responsive to me and, with a little bit of jogging, we were able to pick up her brother on time.

Similarly, I've been using this observation method to help me limit my time on the computer (specifically my compulsive checking of Facebook). I'm standing in the kitchen, staring at a pile of dishes in the sink, readying myself to dive in and scrub. To my right, is my laptop, innocently sitting on the kitchen counter, ever so quietly calling to me, Come on...open me up...you know you want to...It'll be quick, I promise...You wouldn't want to miss something. Normally, I would give in to this urge and most likely end up on the computer much longer than I intended, with a sink full of dirty dishes and a neglected toddler pulling at my pant leg. Now, instead, I take a step back and observe the emotion which, in this case, is a compulsive urge, a desire to escape my present circumstances. This emotion makes me feel fidgety, anxious. Again, focus on the breath, feel the emotion subside, and get on with my life.

So, this is what I've got so far. Any of you out there have some good tips for staying focused on the present?

Striving For Balance

If the main challenge in my 20s was figuring out who I wanted to be, the main struggle in my 30s, thus far, has been taking all of those pieces of myself that I discovered and molding them together into one balanced whole. In order to live my best life and be the person I want to be, I feel that it's necessary for me to:

• Maintain open, loving, authentic communication with my children; really listen to what they have to say.
• Maintain open, loving, authentic communication with my husband; be a supportive life partner for him.
• Do fun things together as a family.
• Do educational things together as a family.
• Go on fun and/or romantic dates with my husband.
• Spend quality time with my girlfriends; be the best friend I can be.
• Spend quality time with my parents and my sisters; make sure they know how much they mean to me.
• Spend a little bit of time each day meditating, or being still.
• Cook healthy meals for my family.
• Exercise regularly.
• Keep a clean house.
• Help Evan with his homework and volunteer at his school.
• Maintain a vegetable garden year-round.
• Become actively involved in the causes that I care about.
• Explore the outdoors, in my backyard and beyond, with my children, with my husband, by myself.
• Work on my writing.
• Work on my drawing.
• Read, a lot, with my children and by myself.
• Travel.
• Go back to school.
• Strive for eight hours of sleep each night.
• Manage our finances.
• Manage our calendar.
• Watch movies.
• Watch TV, just not too much.
• Learn new things.
• Challenge myself.
• Shower, preferably daily.

I'm sure that most people can relate: when it comes to things I want to accomplish in a day, in a week, in my life, the list is seemingly endless. How do I strike a balance here? How do I fulfill the needs of my children, my husband, and myself? How do I keep the house clean, everybody nourished (physically, emotionally, and intellectually), get in a workout (with a shower afterward!), maintain the garden, correspond with my friends, connect with my husband, and still find time to read, write, and meditate (followed by a full-night's sleep)? Of course, this is the proverbial problem: not enough hours in the day.

Some people deal with this problem by constantly burning the candle at both ends which, while no doubt productive, can have detrimental effects for your health. Every once in a while, I'll find myself in a sort of manic phase where I'm getting a lot done (and feeling really great about it), but simultaneously not taking time to myself (for meditation, stillness, sleep) that I so desperately need to remain productive. And so, eventually I burn out. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I often find myself stuck in a rut, not accomplishing much at all because I'm sitting around thinking about what needs to be done (and getting overwhelmed) instead of actually doing it.

Lately, I've been telling myself to live by the mantra: Think less; do more. And yet, as I write this, it occurs to me that perhaps a more useful mantra would be: Think less; be more. Be in the moment, right here, right now. Because, no matter how much I'm doing, if my mind is off running amuck elsewhere, my life will not be balanced. Perhaps the goal shouldn't be to figure out a way to do everything I want to do. Perhaps the goal should be to realize that I don't have to. All I have to do is be fully present in the moment, wherever that moment finds me. I'm beginning to think that the balance I'm striving for isn't a balancing of actual tasks, but a balancing of my spirit, my inner being. Because the rest, I'm thinking, will follow.

So the next question, of course, is how do I achieve this inner balance? Hmmm...I'll get back to you on that later. There's a ridiculously adorable, incredibly special small child at my side, and she is requesting my presence.