Balance

Balance seems to be a hot topic lately: Balancing our free time with work time, our children and their needs with ours and everyone else in our homes. And, let's not forget community needs. We are still in the midst of recovery from two horrible floods here in this county and it's like living in a war zone with the grief, physical damage and an overall feeling of destruction. How do we balance that with regular daily needs? It's a daunting task, but thankfully, we are usually not presented with more than we can handle. We can look at this cosmically or just physically...what ever way you view it, your life may seem like it has 'too much' in it or going on. If that's the case, can you control the 'too much' part? Is it a case of choices you are making that are creating the 'too much'? Scaling back and creating simple, small chunks of time for just you can do wonders. A great example is something I have done to help alievate my perpetual feeling of having too much to do and not enough time in the day: I write down what I need to do the night before, or when I'm thinking of it. That gets those 'to do's" out of my head so I can concentrate on other things. Then, another simple thing I do is pick up my book while dinner is cooking, instead of cleaning or doing some other chore. Granted, I need to do those chores, but It's more important I chill out for just five minutes so I can proceed to dinner and not feel so rushed. Between those two very simple sounding solutions, I feel much better and not so worried.
Another good idea with balance, and this is for all of us women...is to do something for us, just us, as often as possible. This may be a dance class, a phone call daily with a friend or sister or time set aside for reading. We need to balance all that we do for others with doing for ourselves. I don't think it will ever be even, the scales will always be tipped toward us doing more for others, but we can try. Happy Fall!