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Health & Fitness

Forget Balance, Practice Resilience

Balance has become another impossible expectation placed on mothers today.  How often do you hear women say, “If I could just achieve better balance I would be happier?” We head out to yoga, experience a moment of bliss, and return home to a messy house, piles of laundry and a cranky husband.  Then we bludgeon ourselves “If I could only be balanced!”

I’m letting you off the hook.  Balance is over-rated and impossible when raising your families and pursuing your own interests.  Balance implies stasis.  It can only be in that moment when everything is perfectly aligned.  That never happens in my house.  How about you?

What I encourage you to do is ask yourself what specific feelings you’re looking for when you say you want balance.

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Why do you want balance?

What will you have when you achieve it?

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What do you experience at your best moments?

My quest for balance is really a desire for inner peace, ease and flow.

How about you?  Stop for a minute.  Take a few grounding breathes.  Get into your body.  Read the questions above and simply write down the first words that come to mind.  Settle on three to five words as your touchstones.

So you have your words, now how do you create more of those feelings in your life?  You do things that make you feel this way, you make your to-do list around your words and most importantly you practice resilience. Resilience allows you to recover from adversity and change, which you will encounter, but you always have choice. Practicing resilience will empower you to make those choices grounded in your values, from the inside out.

Resilience feels like surfing to me.  If you go for balance, you have to exert a lot of CONTROL to keep it, so you’re working really hard at it and even if you’re successful, yes, you might miss the lows, but you also miss the highs.  Resilience has fluidity.  You’re on your board; some days there will be killer waves, some days the doldrums.  Resilience is a practice and you will crash and burn.  Your work is not to look for why or beat yourself up, but to get back on the board because you LOVE the thrill and joy of that ride.

How do you develop resilience and practice it when the big waves hit?  I’ve created a Emergency Resilience Cheat Sheet  just for you.  You can download  it at www.annepillsburycoaching.com , print it out,  and stick it on the dashboard of your van to gently remind you how to persevere when your day has gone sideways three times by 8 am.

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