The art of losing and finding balance

The equinox is the moment when day and night, at every point on the Earth’s surface, are of equal lengths. There’s a big sigh of relief in the Northern Hemisphere as we can almost taste the return of long, light evenings.  At the equinox, balance is a moment. In life, it’s something we keep returning to. 

Chasing balance

Balance is the dream. When life is in balance there’s time for work and relaxation, exercise and stillness, connection and quiet. 

Achieving that balance is tricky. All the cliches about keeping multiple plates spinning are all too viscerally real for the sandwich generation – those of us looking out for elderly parents and adult children, while working and writing.

My response is to do more of the things that I know make me feel better. More exercise classes, more walking the dog, more gardening, more books, more adventures. And that usually works – for me balance is achieved by moving fast, like going downhill on a bike. 

The trouble is, it doesn’t take much to disrupt the equilibrium. My Dad has another fall, I get a cold, or the dog is ill. Something happens that means I can’t do any of the things that keep me on an even keel, and it all falls apart for a while.

Then it’s a matter of starting up again, slowly, until I can get back up to coasting speed and relax.

Sharon — Content Director at Cohesive

Balance and Me

Balance was never something I paid much attention to in my younger years. The scales were firmly tipped toward excess. I was impatient, impetuous and impulsive. Oh, the exuberance of youth!

The seasons came and went. Nature happened largely unnoticed around me. I was too busy focusing on a life that I somehow forgot to truly live. In hindsight my balance was insanely unbalanced!

I carried this into my working life. Running a business became an obsession. All-in with clients. Excessive encounters with journalists. Chasing down the next ‘big’ opportunity. And all the while feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility to look after our people – create good jobs, for good people, to do good work. And then making sure there was enough money at the end of the month to pay them.

I’d become an extroverted introvert. Smiling and schmoozing on the outside, while quietly doubting and despairing on the inside. Safe to say, the scales finally broke. It took ill health for me to realise that the ‘lifestyle’ business we’d built felt more like a ‘deathstyle’ one! It had taken acute imbalance to recognise I needed greater balance in my life.

In latter years I’ve become more in tune with family, friends and myself. I’m deeper into nature and much more aware of the natural world around me. I’m living more outdoors and less in my head. I’ve started to notice nature’s beauty more. In fact I saw my first ever kingfisher the other week on my morning river walk. It was magnificent and only took 60 years to see one in the wild!

I’ve finally discarded the blinkers of bad business and discovered better work along the way. I’m reading more, still slowly, but I’m reading nonetheless. Writing has become my new counter balance when the scales of life start tilting. I’ve found some great writers to inspire me and luckily have two amazing mentors in Andy and Sharon, who I get to work with and learn from every day. I don’t consider myself a writer, yet. But I am trying and I am learning. 

So, with the Spring Equinox upon us, I finally understand the need for balance more than ever. I know there will be dark days ahead, but I also know that brighter days will follow. You just need to find the things that shine light on the shade and bring you back in balance. And whatever happens, always remember to keep on keeping on!

Mark — Co-founder at Cohesive

Imperfect equilibrium

Rarely, if ever, is any system in perfect equilibrium. As a cyclist I know as I ride my bike (even in a straight line) I am continuously and essentially correcting a series of minute wobbles: to the left, to the right, to the left again. To borrow from the brilliant Douglas Adams, cycling is “the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing,” over and over again. 

If cycling is not your thing, try spinning a coin on its edge. At first the spin can seem perfect — the coin tracing an ephemeral sphere of fluttering, scintillating copper. As it slows, the wobble in its spinning axis that was always present,* becomes exaggerated. The sphere flattens and hollows out until the coin, in a rising metallic shrill of escaping energy, comes to rest on one face. 

Where’s all of this leading us then, Andy? Well, I’m building up to a confession. It’s taken me a really long time to see in my own life what was obviously true of physical systems: that my quest for balance was impossible and misguided. And that what really matters, is achievable, makes the difference, is the dynamic art of balancing.

What I’d love, is to live in a state of perfect equanimity, always. 

What I can achieve, is a visit to that still point on my way back from some off-centred place. Which is also to say, on my way to some other, less stable configuration. This swaying is unavoidable and essential. The coming back is everything.

In those moments of almost-stillness, I know what peace is. I glimpse a fresh perspective. I sense that, deep down, I’m okay.

It’s fragile, and fleeting, and unforgettable. 

With practice, my wobbles are a bit less alarming, and the re-balancing a bit more instinctive. 

Which isn’t to say there aren’t moods and moments when I still spin out and, with my own inner scream rising shrill, come to rest on my face. This is the human condition, right? The difference now is I know things won’t stay that way: and I can find my own way back to centre. 

Which practice? Mindfulness. 

If you want to remind yourself what that feels like — go ride a bike.

Andy — Co-founder at Cohesive

[*The Earth’s spinning axis has the same wobble. Its tip traces a circle in the heavens over a period of 26000 yrs. Which is why Egyptian pyramid builders looked to Thuban (in the constellation of Draco) as their ‘pole star’ and not Polaris (in Ursa Major) as we do today.]