Ways to Find Balance

Eliza, my daughter, is now age 12 months. She has been singing and chanting a very age-appropriate song. As she sings, she changes intonation and bounces her body, “Me, me, me.” This is a very sweet and endearing sound to my ears. And I love how she’s so happy when she does it.
 
In reflecting on this, and now as adults, how do we balance ourselves between finding self-care and not be all about ‘me’? In my experience, we have to begin to look at how we need others and how we serve others.
 
In looking at how we need others, there is a paradigm shift happening where we are realizing it is not necessary to view our needs as a weakness. Being human means having needs. We can strive to have the wisdom and self-awareness to recognize these needs, and then the courage to reach out and let them be known. Reaching beyond yourself to something greater, larger or simply different. This is important because often times the help flowing towards us is ‘different’ and we discount it, dismiss it or refuse it. This is unfortunate because then we remain ‘hungry’ for our needs to be met, not realizing that we blocked what was naturally and abundantly flowing towards us because it looked ‘different’ than we expected. How we need others and how we receive their care are essential pieces in finding an authentic balance.

In looking at how we serve others, I’ve noticed a paradigm shift that is happening in regard to giving from a ‘full-cup’. Meaning that we no longer need to work so hard and give, give, give to the point of depletion. Giving from depletion only equals more deficit. How can we find ways to live and give and be full? Our ability and capacity to give originates from our capacity to receive. An ebb and flow takes place, flowing in a cycle. You cannot have one without the other. Recognizing when you are full and then giving to another (serving another) from your inner abundance is another essential piece in finding balance within.
 
Another aspect of being full, is recognizing your inner gifts and your wholeness. What are your gifts? How do your gifts shape your wholeness? (We’ll be exploring these themes further in my upcoming Women’s Workshop in September.)
 
Self-care can be in receiving or giving, inward or outward, active or still. Even when we are inward and still in our self-care, we are always vitally connected to others in a web of life. This is seen in the South African philosophy of Ubuntu, “I am because we are.” Michael O. E. also says it well, summarizing the meaning of Ubuntu.
 
“Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am.”                          ~ Michael Onyebuchi Eze, an African intellectual historian
 
 
So as I relish in my daughter’s song, “Me, me, me” and how mine and John’s lives are centered around her needs right now, I also reflect on myself as an adult and how I both need others and serve others and ways to find a balance. I notice myself in giving and receiving and how to become better at both. I reflect on my own inner gifts, as well as those around me. I am so grateful to have my friends and family in my life. All of our gifts coming together creates such a beautiful song, “We! We! We!”
 
Written by Janet Wepner
 

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