Winning at Home: Finding balance
Balance is a tricky thing, isn’t it? I was out on the water this past Labor Day weekend, and saw lots of ways that balance showed up. I saw people skiing behind a power boat. I saw a family with an inflatable pergola that had a picnic table in the middle. They towed it out to a quiet part of the lake and hung out there.
I saw people riding around on stand-up paddle boards. All three of those activities took careful attention to balance and movement in order to avoid falling into the water.
Obviously, the “consequences” of losing your balance in this context are very low stakes. But there are lots of situations in life where that isn’t the case. When it comes to balancing work life and family life, being off balance can be more serious. That’s also true when it comes to balancing rules and freedom as you’re raising kids. Or balancing affirmation and talking about areas for growth in your marriage or with your loved ones. In other words, relationships require a lot of balance, too!
I’m guessing we've all experienced the moment right after we said something that would have been perfectly appropriate and enjoyed in one setting, before realizing that what we just said isn’t appropriate for the setting we’re actually in. Maybe we gave a 15-year-old-appropriate answer to our 5-year-old. Or we made a sarcastic comment that would be perfectly in line with how we talk to our buddies, but that was hurtful to our spouse. Or maybe we typically motivate ourselves with critical self-talk, and we used that same harsh approach with our teen or child.
Where and how this has shown up in your life might be different from these examples, but you see what I’m getting at, right? I hope you’re following me and you’re seeing just how important balance is when it comes to relationships. It can be tempting to get home from work or from running errands and to let ourselves kind of go on auto-pilot, where we can conserve energy and relax a little bit by being less careful about how we’re coming across or about the exact words that we use in the moment.
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And what is the best way to handle these moments when we find ourselves slightly (or majorly) off balance? Just like with the watersports I mentioned above, we’ll start to feel that slight wobble build and build before we actually end up crashing and burning.
But when we first feel that wobble, the best course of action is to stay calm and to focus on whatever is “off.” Maybe you change your footing or the way you’re leaning. Maybe you grab on to something stable. When it’s a relationship or a conversation that's off balance, the corrective actions are different, but the general idea is the same. That wobble is an invitation to pay careful attention to what we’re doing and to make some changes if we’re hoping for the best possible outcome.
As you work to do this in relationships and in conversations, please know that you won’t have a 100 percent success rate. Even the most careful and attentive among us will sometimes say or do the wrong thing or approach things with a negative tone or attitude. Don’t be surprised if learning to keep your relationships in balance feels like learning a new skill. But with time and patience, you’ll see movement in the right direction!
— Dan Seaborn is the founder of the Zeeland-based group Winning at Home, which supports and nurtures marriages and families. Email questions or comments to hometeam@winningathome.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Winning at Home: Finding balance
