Losing Our Balance For Love

There is a season for everything, and I suppose the truth is there’s also a reason for the season.

Things don’t come together when we want them to but when they are meant to and it seems half of life is spent in angst because we don’t understand, or rather our egos don’t want to accept this fact.

We’re humans, well most of us are anyway, or at least we’re living an existence as such and this means that we battle ourselves as our own biggest demon more than anyone or even anything else. We battle what we know, what we feel, what we want, what we think, what we desire…all of it, it seems, until somehow, we get so tired of our own storyline that we are forced to make changes.

We’re forced to seek balance.

Inside all of us we carry elements like the ones we think of that exist within the natural world; earth, air, fire and water. I’m not speaking of astrology but of our core soul, those parts of us that speak of passion or depth that are represented by one of the elements. When we find someone who’s energy feels good to be around, who inspires us to be better what we’re really picking up on is that this person’s elements are balanced.

Their parts are equal, or rather as equal as we are meant to be; harmony, synchronization. It means we’re grounded but still we dream, we feel and shed tears but still can let the flames of passion inspire us. We’re us, but we’re also connected to the earth’s rhythms, we’re connected to the spiritual realm and so we vibrate differently, we vibrate in tune with the world and when we do that then it almost seems as if we’re not a part of these earthy things.

And so, it’s about balance.

Balance of heart, balance of head and balance of spirit.

Recently I was watching Eat, Pray Love of course a favorite amongst those on a spiritual journey, or maybe just those who’ve been divorced who suddenly are wondering who the heck they are after abandoning their true selves. But I watch it sometimes, because there aren’t many movies that inspire me to think and this is one of them.

At the end of the movie, the lead character is struggling to hold onto balance and yet still be in love. She’s spent almost a year healing herself, exploring herself and the world and finally she believes she found balance and as we all know when we first feel that tender equilibrium we hang onto it for all it’s worth.

And so, she walks away from love citing that she didn’t know how to be both; to be in love and to be in balance.

Maybe this is where my soul currently sits.

Because to love, the very truest essence of love asks us in fact to let ourselves go; to surrender to love, to surrender to the person we’ve offered our hearts to and in that process, it’s scary because it makes us feel off kilter, it sets us off balance.

It’s easy to feel like we have it all together when we’re not loving anyone because then there is nothing to challenge or trigger us, however, we also will only be able to grow so far by ourselves.

I speak with clients a lot in my coaching practice, and I always reassure them by saying most of our spiritual leaders are in fact leading solitary lives because it’s a lot harder to find balance when you have three kids and are trying to figure out the afterschool schedule, who’s going to make dinner, dentist appointments, overtime at work, your spouse’s schedule, a sick parent…and the list goes on.

So, our balance has to have a fluidity to it.

And maybe that means what balance actually is has to be redefined as well. I went through a similar process after my divorce, although maybe I didn’t fall in love with a Brazilian in Bali, I still fell in love. It was against my better judgement and honestly against my intentions as well, but still this heart of mine tugged me along.

I resisted a lot, even if it looked like I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to be in love but because I didn’t want to get hurt, to find out I was played for a fool, and of course to once again lose my balance. It seemed for me my balance was secure only when things stayed the same even though of course the law of nature is nothing in fact stays the same.

And so, I had to find a different sort of balance, or as Tikut states in the movie, “Sometimes maintaining balance is about losing our balance for love”. So, I had to decide to lose my balance a bit, to let my heart lead me in a direction I never expected and to trust that the person my heart had fallen for had the same intentions as I.

There are no guarantees in life, but sometimes we cross paths with another soul and it’s not that we think it could end that terrifies but that deep down we know it never will.

I suppose it’s that realization that lets me learn that part of my balance is to let love leaves me unbalanced at times. It’s to give my all and then some, to not be ashamed of this heart of mine and of course to let myself go.

To surrender to love; to the person who has my heart.

Knowing that the only way to have true balance is also to have love.