Balance Is Not a Place You Arrive
I've spent more time than I'd like to admit believing that if I could just get everything organized properly, I would finally feel balanced. Maybe you know that feeling too. If I could manage my time better. Create the right routines. Get ahead of the things that keep falling behind. Make enough room for work and rest, other people and myself, all the practical things and all the things that make me feel alive...
Then perhaps everything would settle into place. And sometimes it does. For a little while. Then something changes. Someone needs us. Our energy shifts. A plan falls apart. A season ends. Life happens. And suddenly the balance we worked so hard to create doesn't fit anymore.
Maybe that's because we've misunderstood balance. We tend to imagine it as a destination. A place where everything finally receives the right amount of attention and nothing pulls too heavily in one direction. Nature offers us a different picture.
At the Autumn Equinox, we pause at a threshold where day and night come close to equal length. There is something beautiful about that moment. But the Equinox doesn't stay. The very next day, the relationship between light and darkness begins changing again. Nature doesn't hold herself at the point of balance. She moves through it. I've been thinking about that lately.
What if balance was never meant to mean keeping everything equal?
What if it is our ability to stay in relationship with what is changing?
To notice when something needs more of us. To recognize when something needs less. To feel when we've moved too far from ourselves and gently find our way back. That kind of balance feels much more forgiving. And much more alive.
When Balance Becomes Another Expectation
Sometimes even the things meant to support us become another standard we're trying to meet. Balance can become one of them. We tell ourselves we should be resting more. Meditating more. Spending more time outside. Making more room for creativity. Being more present with the people we love. And somehow our desire for balance becomes another list of things we're not doing well enough.
I've been there too. But I don't think the Wheel asks that of us. The Wheel reminds us that there are seasons when life moves outward and seasons when it draws inward. There are times for creating and times for resting. Times when we have much to give and times when we need to receive.
Sometimes one part of our life genuinely needs more attention than another. That doesn't necessarily mean we've lost our balance. It may simply mean we're responding to the season we're actually in. And our inner season doesn't always match the one outside our window.
We may arrive at the Autumn Equinox feeling energized and expansive. Or tired. Tender. Uncertain. Ready for change. There is no correct way to arrive here. The invitation is simply to notice.
A Sacred Reorientation
This is where balance begins to feel less like something to achieve and more like a practice of listening. When we feel pulled in too many directions, our first instinct is often to ask:
What should I do?
What needs to change?
What should I stop doing?
How do I get myself back on track?
Those questions have their place. But perhaps another question can come first:
What is asking to be remembered today?
Maybe your body is asking you to remember rest. Maybe a relationship is asking for your presence. Maybe you've been tending everyone else's needs and something within you is quietly saying, Please don't forget me. Or perhaps you don't know yet. That's allowed too.
Sacred Reorientation doesn't require an immediate answer. Sometimes it is enough to stop moving for a moment and recognize where we actually are. Because we cannot return to ourselves if we're constantly measuring our lives against where we think we should be.
Perhaps balance begins there. With an honest noticing. A small adjustment. A willingness to listen again tomorrow. The Wheel will keep turning. Life will keep changing. And we will keep changing with it.
Balance doesn't ask us to hold everything perfectly still. It asks us to stay in relationship with ourselves while everything moves.
A Remembering Practice
Sometime this week, find a few quiet minutes and sit with your journal. Instead of making a list of everything you need to bring back into balance, begin by noticing. Take a breath and ask:
What feels most present for me right now?
Then:
Where does life feel spacious?
Where does it feel crowded?
What have I been giving a great deal of myself to lately?
What might need a little more of my attention?
You don't need to solve what you notice. Choose just one small act of remembering. Maybe you close the laptop earlier one evening. Ask someone for help. Take a walk. Return to something you've missed. Say no to something that can wait. Or simply give yourself permission to leave one thing unfinished.
See what feels true for you.
Let that be enough for today.
Continue the Wheel
September brings us to Remember Balance on the Wheel of Remembering, with its invitations of alignment and reciprocity. The Autumn Equinox gives us a beautiful outer reflection of this Remembering. Light and darkness meet for a moment, then continue their movement through the year. We can allow ourselves that same movement.
There will be seasons when we give more. Seasons when we receive more. Seasons when we know exactly what we need, and others when we have to listen for a while. There is no wrong place on the Wheel.
We aren't trying to master Balance this month. We're simply noticing what it might have to show us this time around.
A Sacred Reminder
Balance is not something we achieve. It is something we listen for, adjust toward, and return to again and again.
A Blessing
May you walk gently.
May you trust your own rhythm.
May every return remind you that home has always been within you.
🌙
Until Next Time...