Let’s talk about balance

The buzz word, the ever elusive, one of the most sought-after qualities of this century! But what exactly is it? What does it mean? & what does it look/feel like?

I’m seeing, reading and hearing so much about the word balance lately.

People talking about it, many of us craving it, desiring it, desperately needing it even. Some not believing in it and me left wondering: what does the word even mean to us? Why is it so important?

I’ve recently seen it described as always having to be 50/50 and therefore deemed impossible to achieve.

I’ve heard medical professionals say bringing about balance in your body takes too long and to “get on the drugs” instead.

Have you ever asked yourself the question “what does balance mean to me?”.

What comes to mind when you do?

What do you consider balance to be/include?

What stories/words/thoughts around the word balance flow through your mind?

How do you feel about balance?

Where I’ve come from with it

Balance is not a word I would’ve ever used to describe myself. I wouldn’t have ever even known my life was so out of balance. If you’ve been with me along the journey of writing on here, you’ll know I was a workaholic, numbaholic party animal.

I never stopped and I was always seen as someone with high energy.

Because I remained undiagnosed for 20 years, my illness invisible and my voice completely ignored by doctors all this time, I would’ve been described as healthy.

Yet I went on to have a mental breakdown in 2016, nearly take my own life and shortly after my Dad died 18 months later, found myself completely disabled by illness. All in my mid 30’s.

All I’ve heard since is that people like me (before all this happened) be described as healthy….until they’re not. They go to the gym before/after work and they eat well.

I wonder if our definition of what health is might benefit from a little change in perspective?

It was through my own health crisis that my complete outlook on life, priorities, wellness, health and balance changed.

Before this happened, my health wasn’t much of a concern at all. Not to me or the countless doctors I went to visit over the many years. This reflected in how I spent my days and weekends.

Sure, I walked a lot and drank plenty of water. But it was everything else in addition to that that had me see no balance in the way I lived at all.

The book Balance Your Hormones Balance Your Life was recommended to me several months in to me waking up to the fact that

“I matter. My health matters”.

This could well have been the first time I encountered the word balance and what it truly meant to live a life in balance. Though to me at the time, it just looked like a crazy number of practices and things to do in addition to my already massively imbalanced life.

Though Dr Claudia Welch breaks down the complex and misunderstood topic of hormones in an easier to digest way, it is a big read. A lot to take in.

The practices outlined to do all before you start a day’s work is enough to make your toes curl.

For me, at the time, it was a case of thinking:

“I’ve already started making changes, including certain ones listed here.

I’m already fully committed to making changes for the benefit of my health.

I’ll keep on making small changes, one at a time and keep going.

Thank god I have ten years on my side to prepare for peri/menopause”.

What I didn’t realise at the time – and have only just found out very recently – is that on a collective and global scale, we have already reduced the age of perimenopause!  From mid to late 40’s to 36!!!

This enormous shift has happened in just the last 10/12 years or so.

Given how I was living my life, and how out of whack and balance I was, I was already likely to have been perimenopausal myself. At the age of 38!!

I read in this book that it takes YEARS to rebalance your hormones.

I’ve seen medical professionals site that as a reason not to bother.

Me? I’m so freakin’ glad I did!

One small change at a time. Really imbed that change, make it a habit before moving on to the next one.

Photo by Amy Reed on Unsplash

3 years

It took me just under 3 years to feel even a remote sense of balance in my life.

I started making changes for the sole benefit of my health in June 2018.

It was around Feb/March 2021 where the word balance first appeared in my mind/body as a feeling. As a descriptive word.

Me??? Balanced!!!!?!?!?!

I remember it came as much of a surprise to me as it probably did my friends!

We might have been under the illusion that I was healthy, but you wouldn’t ever have described me as balanced (arguably an imbalance in and of itself).

Its got to be worth a mention here that in societal terms, in the way I’ve shifted my life to the extent that I have for the benefit of my health I’ve been described as:

Lazy

Selfish

Indulgent

Vulnerable

Woo woo

Lucky

Versus what I actually am:

Healthy

Whole

Vibrant

Balanced

Thriving

That said, it was only after this time back in 2021, that I even got a glimpse of improvement with menstrual migraine.

The sole reason I went at it in such a big and long-term committed way.

I know I’ve mentioned it before but this is really important stuff.  Menstrual migraine is now known as the most severe and disabling of all migraine types. It is the most difficult and challenging to overcome. It is also the most medication resistant.

So when medical professionals are advising not to bother bringing about balance in body and mind and to put a stop to periods and ovulation instead you’ve got to wonder at the intention behind this. Where is this advice and guidance leading us?

I feel like we’ve been told that health is one thing and then only through the greatest of adversities (like in my case) might we find out that its completely another.

I’m now 2 years on from experiencing my first glimpse of balance in my body, in my life and once out of lockdown, my business. My practices to help me achieve this have been imbedded into an irreversible way of life for me.

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

What does balance in my life look like?

Priorities

Ever since that fateful day back in 2018. Where I woke up to the fact that I was now disabled by an illness I had told doctors for 20years I had, HEALTH FIRST has been my number one priority.

Incidentally, this doesn’t mean I haven’t had any other responsibilities. I was, at this time, after all, left without sick pay, mortgage insurance and no immediate family to help. I was told by the NHS that there was no support available to me at all whatsoever. Despite the fact that I was living with the world’s 2^nd most disabling disease a person can live with.

I had a mortgage of £700 a month to pay on my own. A crippling disease no one, including the specialist as well as loved ones had any idea, understanding or interest in. It’s just that even though I had all this responsibility on my own without any support, my health was – as if out of nowhere and only for the very first time – top of my list.

Flexible working

I retrained to offer a mobile beauty service so that I could work around chronic illness. This no longer meant 10-12 hours a day sat behind a computer Monday to Friday, but sporadic appointments; daytime, evenings and weekends.

5 years on, I have no set times and yet its somehow always flowed.

I’ve since found that going with the flow of life is an important part of health, wellness and…balance.

Resisting the flow of life is part of the root cause to migraine disease (Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life).

I later went on to train to be a yoga teacher and bodywork therapist. It’s only really now onwards that I’m looking to introduce Retreat With Me experiences on set days of the month – now that my health has improved to the extent that it has.

Living mortgage free

As if being completely disabled by illness following a breakdown, near suicide and dad’s death wasn’t enough to contend with, but then came along the pandemic!

The first of the 3 lockdowns here in the UK taking away my income for the 2^nd time in as many years.

On the back of all this, I made the mammoth decision to sell my apartment in the city.

Because of the uncertainty amidst all the crazy, I chose to rent a room in someone else’s house for a year or so.

I got clear on what I wanted – a large room in a village location surrounded by fields – and meditated.

The next day a woman who wasn’t even looking for a lodger was introduced to me and I moved in a month or 2 later. Not only did she have a big house with a big garden in a village I’d never been to or heard of, she had fields with animals (2 horses, 2 sheep and a pig).

Meditation has been a big part in all I’ve overcome:

-          From changing my relationship to migraine

-          To selling my apartment at high value

-          Then visualising life as it could be, as I dream it to be and not as it currently is or is perceived to be or told is/isn’t possible for me.

-          As well as unprecedented healing, to the extent that my brain has received healing (abnormality of the brain being one main root cause to migraine in the medical field) - many thought patterns, behaviours and beliefs have been replaced with new ones.

It’s a helluva powerful practice. Powerful beyond measure.

It’s a huge, if not incremental, reason as to why I am as well as I am now. Living a dream life, a life I love and one in which I only expect to get better and better.

I now live in a holiday home on 200 acres of land. I might not have any central heating and the washing machine is outside, but I achieved my goal of living mortgage free so that I could continue prioritising my health above everything.

Time

I no longer tell myself that I don’t have enough of it.

Time is one of my gifts.

I have time to do the things I WANT to do as well as NEED to do.

It’s one of the most precious commodities we have.

Yet, we’ve come to see it as just that – a commodity. As though it can be bought and sold. As if there is a way to have too little and too much.

Ultimately, we all have the same amount of time apportioned to one minute, one hour, one day.

It’s what we do with it that matters. What we CHOOSE to do with it. And it is all about choice.

At one time, I described healing from chronic illness as a 24/7 job. By contrast, disability by chronic illness is also, a 24/7 job. I didn’t begrudge the work I had to do – because it aligned with my priorities. And health became my number one priority.

Where I am now to where I once was has all been a series of choices and decisions made.

All decisions and choices I made based on the belief that

“I matter. My health matters”.

Where I am now

Do I consider myself to be in perfect harmony and balance?

I chose to drop perfectionism a few years ago now - after finding another link to that and migraine disease (thanks Louise Hay).

Do I get it right all of the time? Hell no!

I don’t even want to. I don’t even try to.

Right from the off. I haven’t gone for perfection. Too much pressure. Too much stress. And that’s the obvious link we’ve made to migraine disease and illness.

When it came to making changes, I eased off on any pressure and stress and getting it “right”.

These days I feel a sense of balance in my life, my body and its hormonal/reproductive, nervous, lymphatic, digestive/gut and immune systems. I find I am becoming more in tune with imbalances. I can tell when I’ve eaten out of balance, done too much (which still happens a lot). I can tell by how I feel.

As I have pledged to do and as I find myself continuing to do over the years, I introduce little changes that feel aligned with what I want, my priorities and vision of full health and vibrant energy.

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

The next 2 practices/changes I am looking to introduce:

1.       Radio silence on the way to my monthly retreat day. 1.5 hour drive and a big chunk of time I would otherwise spend in my head, distracted by the radio. I’m intrigued as to the benefit and impact of balancing my overthinking mind with presence and stillness. The first time I did this the other week, I found as much as I wanted the peace and calm of the present moment, I was quick back into thoughts overload and couldn’t stay tuned in to stillness for more than a moment at a time. Yet I could sit with never ending thoughts – one after the other after the other.

2.        Less DOING and more “being”. Yep, even less doing than I do already with my part time work and my slow mornings. I’m starting to see how I’m overdoing it each week of my menstrual cycle, leading me to attack and burnout over my period. I’ve been aligning each week of my cycle with the seasons/various archetypes. A hugely transformational aspect of my physical, mental and emotional health. Positively impacting all areas of my life, business and relationships, as well as health and wellness.

I’ll keep you posted on how these go.

The one thing I do know is that every little change I’ve made in the past 5 years has led to big change in my life further down the line. My life is unrecognisable. The contrast is stark.

For me, I do believe balance is possible.

And like most things I’ve found to be true on this journey, its down a question of what you believe. When it comes to balance in our life, I do not believe it is based on any number, any even split or 50/50. It isn’t that it isn’t worth bothering or takes too long to even try. It’s about what’s important to you. And me getting well and living a life I love was of paramount importance to me. This made it worth it. I am worth it.

Now I’m left wondering…

Have the systems we’ve created (education, work, healthcare, banking, legal etc) been created with the systems of our body in mind (hormones, immune, respiratory, nervous, lymphatic etc)?

Were these man-made systems created with any respect, concern or focus on achieving balance for the benefit of our body, our lives, our health?

As it turns out, I’ve had “balance is the key to life” on my vision board for 5.5 years. Back when I didn’t even know the meaning of the word, never mind what was to come.

Is balance the key to life?

What do you think?