Ep 46 Can Busy Be Balanced

Is balance something we can achieve or is it just an idealized concept that we’ve made up for ourselves? And if it’s the latter, what else is available to us when we’re feeling the weight of it all? 

Today, believe it or not, we’ll visit some good news as it relates to stress in our lives, and we’ll dive into a few contemplative questions that can help us find those places of spaciousness and freedom. May your heart be blessed with warmth today!

#Balance
#Adjustments
#Ideals
#AskingQuestions

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Transcript

 SUMMARY KEYWORDS
balance, idealized life, connection 

Dominic Kaiser  00:06
Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens. 

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser. We're glad you joined us. 

Christina Roberts  00:24

Hello, it's great to be with you. Today we are going to be talking about balance.  I find that balance is a topic that often comes up. We read articles about work-life balance, we are looking to feel a sense of balance in our stage of life with personal needs, perhaps family needs, I think especially during the holiday season, we can feel the sense of being "out of balance" with our schedules. And all of a sudden, something like a holiday party or an activity, which is designed to be fun and a chance to connect can somehow become a burden. And so it makes me wonder, what does it even mean to be a balanced person? And is this an invitation from God? Or is it something that maybe society has labeled as an aspiration and not really something to be striving for? So I'd love to take some time today to talk about how does the contemplative help us approach this notion of balance?

Kristina Kaiser  01:21

Well, I am so glad that we get to talk about this, because balance is an ongoing conversation in my head. I feel like I'm always trying to assess, Is everything where it should be? Am I getting enough of all the things? They even talk about this in you have your physical, your emotional, your spiritual, right?  You have these other, so many ways to be balanced. And so even now, as December's approaching, it's like the end of October in my world. And I'm already thinking, what do I need to be doing ahead of time in order to make this work and feel reasonable? But this is kind of the story all the time. I'm in the middle of life. And so I've got a lot of kids’ doctor appointments, I've got my own work, I'm trying to get an extra project done that I'm really excited about. And so this comes up in my own experience all the time and definitely worth talking through together. 

Chris Roberts  02:21

I think I like the concept of balance. It's this idea that things are maybe out of control in your life or out of sync. But I think in reality, like if we think about a pendulum swinging, you know, it's this back and forth. I think you give attention to things, whenever you do notice, and I think that's what the contemplative does, right? You're paying attention, you're trying to notice things that are coming up in your life. And I don't know that exact balance is always achievable. Because I don't think without being a little bit out of balance, you can notice where you need to make these adjustments to other areas of your life. So I think balance is a great idea, a great concept. But I'm just wondering, if this whole idea of making these adjustments to get balanced, you're actually never in balance, you're just swinging the pendulum to the other side a little bit.

Christina Roberts  03:30

Yeah, it makes me think of years ago, a mentor of ours was talking about this idea that balance is death. And he's a chemist and was talking about a kind of scale, like a balance scale.  If there's balance, then there is no longer movement going on. And instead offering this picture of a seal, balancing a ball on its nose with these micro adjustments. And so that's a much different picture of balance, where there's this movement happening. And I really appreciated that because life is not static. There are definitely times where we are moving. And sometimes I think, to your point, a little bit even more extreme than others depending on the season of life or what's going on. And so I think I appreciate this, this idea that there is movement, not just a static-ness to our existence.

Kristina Kaiser  04:12

That is a relieving way to think about it. Maybe the achieving of balance is not perfect, but there are these little adjustments we can make, even throughout the day. And this is meaningful. Even just a couple of days ago, I was sitting in my space, if you will, and just realizing how many days go by where, you know, the kids get out of school and they say, Mom, how was your day? I say it almost every day, I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to. There's so much more that I had in mind. And so I was sitting in this space and just going through all the things and praying and journaling and doing the things and as I sat there.  I realized there was an attitude shift that occurred from feeling super overwhelmed, I want to do this, on to this, etc.. I am actually the reason that I'm frustrated is because I am excited to do all of these things. It's not because they're a burden, it's because I'm so excited, I want to do all of them. And so there's this urgency that is coming into play. And just being able to see that to become clearer and coming to view somehow changed my perspective. From feeling weighted and frustrated to feeling a little bit more open, a little bit more excited. It did not fix the fact that I cannot move faster. But it did change my attitude and my perception of the day, and the next day, which is really meaningful, I think.

Christina Roberts  05:42

Yeah. And I think there's a difference between, Are we feeling under productive because we have to prove our worth? And so we have to do all the things to make ourselves feel worthy, or like our place in the world, etc. Or what I think I'm hearing is, Are we so caught up in what we're doing, because it's our craft, we love what we're doing? I think it was in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary where her husband would have to remind her to eat, because she was so immersed in her craft, and she loved it. Or different artists, Mozart, or whatever, where they would kind of go into a hole for hours at a time because they were immersed. And to me that feels like we are caught up in losing track of time out of a sense of freedom and joy versus this sort of idealized thing.  Maybe society places on us that the distribution of our hours, and what we're producing is somehow tied into our worthiness. So I appreciate that nuance that you're offering.

Chris Roberts  06:33

Yeah. And I think, coming up, you know, we have the holidays, and this idealized time.  We're going to see my family for the first time in two years because of the pandemic. And I think, in my mind, I have these idealized scenarios of how time is going to be spent with my family members. Some of the things that have happened in the past and that I'm thinking through, I'm contemplating is we've done all these sorts of events, we've gone to this place to this place to this place. And I think, coming into it, I'm wanting to have more quality time, because there has been a gap, a two-year gap in having physical connection, closeness to my family.   What would it look like to say no to some of these, these errands, these big events that we're going to do, rather than finding moments of connection, just sitting in the living room, and talking and having more moments of connection. And so I found myself thinking about this idea of a balance during the holiday season. And so I really liked that we're talking about this.

Kristina Kaiser  07:51

That reminds me a little bit of a conversation I was having not too long ago.  I think playing into what you love is kind of a big part of this experience that we were talking about. Are we trying to give gifts to everybody? Are we doing some sort of like pull names thing?  And I love cooking. I love sentimental stuff. And so I was like, you know, it's whatever, we don't have to do this. But if you wanted, we could share recipes. And I'd be happy to compile all those things. But I don't like shopping. I hate shopping.  But I would happily create this thing that feels like a little piece of all of us. And so in the midst of finding it, what does that look like for you? You are who you are. Your personality and where that goes. And what do you offer up in the midst of it. It's like Christmas cards. My husband does not like Christmas cards, I love Christmas cards. He doesn't really touch them. And I don't begrudge him that because I know that this is my love. I see it as a little way that I'm connecting with the world. And I love connecting with the world. But this helps, knowing who you are and what you love.

Christina Roberts  09:11

And I think it's important to sort of identify this internal balance with whatever is being offered to us. And so whether it's holidays, or we're talking about our work- life balance or whatever.  I think sometimes we can live in this idealized place or time in the future where all of a sudden, all my circumstances are going to line up and I'm going to be balanced and it's gonna be great and perfect. And we can strive and live for this idealized place rather than recognizing, okay, what is life is offering to me? That's why I don't prefer the word balanced so much. But I think what does it mean for me to be centered? What does it mean for me to be grounded? What does it mean to be God directed? And I think for me, even changing up some of those words, takes me away from the societal expectations into being centered or grounded or God directed, right? Now maybe the God directedness for me is this particular week or day, there's gonna be a lot of “X” happening and little bit of “y” happening. But you know what that's I feel directed in.  There's an internal peace and a sense of goodness and “balance” in that. So I think even changing the word has really helped me in this particular area.

Kristina Kaiser  10:23

Yeah. So, Chris, your example with family, right? If you're a person that loves to connect, (and I kind of feel like you probably are), then being able to do this thing of, I am grounded, I am centered in my connection, that feels like a really important part of the story.  As opposed to the ideals which it must look like, that is stressful.

Chris Roberts  10:46

Yeah. And I appreciate talking about ideals. I think, sometimes we create expectations, because of our ideals. And I like what, what we're saying here is just sort of be in the moment of what is coming to you what is happening. And I think this is going to help me in my time with my family. Because if I create all these expectations for myself, or for my kids, or for connection to happen, I'm maybe missing what is the Divine offering in given moments. And so I feel like I'm more ready to look for what God is bringing in moments with my family, rather than creating these expectations. So I really appreciate what's been coming up today. 

Christina Roberts  11:40

Just one more thing to add would be even foreshadowing towards the new year. And I think a lot of times people like to think about, you know, intentions for the new year, or some people like goals or resolutions or whatever, you might label that. And I think that's important too, as we're kind of looking into the new year really taking some moments of okay, I don't have to.   There's the intellectual, the spiritual, the physical, all the things. And I think when we approach it, maybe in a season, or, you know, looking at it from this frame of contemplative and groundedness, what's the invitation from God?  It may look different than what society is telling us, it may seem a little bit out of whack. But we know that for our own good, we maybe need some extended rest, or we need some extended work hours because there's some projects that we want to get done or work through or connection time, or fun or whatever. And so I think there's a lot of freedom as we marry the contemplative with these ideas that we're talking about today.

Well, thanks for a generative conversation. Very fun. Now we are going to transition to the part of our podcast where we talk about what we are into this week. What are we into?

Kristina Kaiser  12:51

I can't believe it becomes true almost immediately as we think about the holidays but I am so totally into twinkly lights.  I got a new kind of LED lantern thing and it's lighting up the living room in special ways. And it's getting dark sooner. And I don't know what it is about twinkly lights, but they warm my heart in a special way.

Chris Roberts  13:16

Oh my gosh, what am I into? I am torn. I'm into a few things. But I guess I'll talk about a new book series that I'm into. I love to read fantasy, particularly in the fall, I don't know, I think when I was a kid, I started these new projects, new reading projects with different books. And so I'm into a new fantasy series that I've really enjoyed. And so I'm into reading this this fall.

Christina Roberts  13:50

Well, I am into chocolates. And I love all the different chocolates of this season. Kicking off with Halloween and my children, with our neighbors, they have these trading posts where they have all of their Halloween candy, and they trade with different flavors. And who wants this one?  And I'll trade you for that...There's like all of these amazing things that you can do with chocolate around Halloween. And then going into the peppermint seasons.  I love a good mint chocolate and peppermint tea. And so I just find like sort of from the end of October to the end of the year, kind of all these fun chocolate flavors that emerge. And I love trying them and being part of the chocolate world. So that is what I am into. 

Well, thanks so much for joining us today. If you're looking to go deeper in your spiritual journey, we invite you to check out the spiritual direction page on our website, which includes even more practical information about spiritual direction and companioning. 

And we also invite you to subscribe to our newsletter which comes out twice a month with some helpful little nuggets around contemplative life. Until next time, make it a great week.