I remember that in the early years of my relationship with my husband, I asked the question, What's me, what's you, what's us? Essentially it was a question about balance. Then when we had our first child, the question became What's me, What's you, What's us, What's you with baby, What's me with baby, What's us with baby? The balance became more complicated. Finding the right balance is an important quest of any relationship, and when our relationships are imbalanced, problems occur.
This wondering makes me think about how we find that balance. What can we do?
First, it's important to make sure your life routines include the essentials--the time and endeavor that keeps you and your loved ones healthy and happy. You have to have time for yourself and time for those you love most. Sometimes imbalance occurs because we don't make time for our own self care or time to honor and nurture the relationships closest to us. When we ignore that needed time, our relationships and our own health and wellbeing will suffer.
Then, it's important to consider the time you spend nurturing other relationships on your own and together. Equations for this will differ substantially. There are people who always build in significant time for girlfriends or guyfriends. There are others who spend lots of time with their children, grandchildren and neighbors. The way we spend our time and who we spend our time with differs considerably due to all kinds of life circumstances.
The bottom line is that if you don't nurture relationships in a positive way, those relationships will suffer. For some, right nurturing may be as simple as exchanging a holiday card and for others, the connection is much deeper requiring lots more time and attention.
This morning I considered this balance as I thought about people outside of our home that mean a lot to us--people I want to see regularly and people I help out from time to time. I don't want the relationships to suffer and I want to be there to help out. In these situations, there's a fair amount of complexity since there's great potential for good nurturing and lots of people involved. The balance requires the right mindset, communication, scheduling and care.
No one can project on another what the right balance of care, attention and time is as for every person that will be different, but we can try to work together to nurture those we share love, interest and perhaps, responsibility for.
To balance, we have to have a loose-tight mindset with regard to what we do. This is important because the facts of life are always changing, and we have to be ready to pivot while also retaining a good sense of consistency too.
I'll think a bit more about balancing my allegiance, care, attention and focus today with an attempt to make time for all that I care about, love and support. That thinking is important now and then. Onward.