Finding Balance

"I'll be working here forever,
at least until I die"
                              - Huey Lewis

We all have one day a week that knocks the wind out of us.  For a lot of people it's Monday, but for me it is Tuesday.  I've really begun to hate the second day of the work week.  Due to the nature of my work schedule Tuesday often feels like the real start of the week.  Most weeks as I slowly decompress over Saturday night and into Sunday I manage to forget the loads of work I need to get done.  Monday I am usually hyper-focused on teaching Monday night at the dinner and discussion gathering we do at the teen center where I work.  So when I wake Tuesday morning the to-do list I mentally put away sometime over the weekend comes roaring back into my consciousness.  Adding to my Tuesday reality slap is a weekly mid-morning staff meeting.  If I'm not feeling totally overwhelmed already by 11am Tuesday, I feel like I'm drowning by the end of this meeting.  And so it was today.  I really am starting to wish Tuesday didn't exist.

Recently, I have started doing yoga occasionally.  I have made a couple of discoveries as I have tried to contort myself in to higher flexibility, strength and a relaxed mind.  First, I am not flexible!!!  Second, I dig the focus on breathing and that does help me clear my mind.  But the biggest discovery is something the yoga instructor on the cell phone says during the session I have been doing with my wife.  At one point the voice on the app says, "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."

Did you catch that?  "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."

In the middle of days that feel very overloaded - days like Tuesday - I keep thinking about that simple phrase.  What exactly does it mean to "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?"

For nearly all of my life I have operated on one side of that equation, effort.  I have always approached challenges, struggles or problems in life with effort.  I would simply take the issues that presented themselves and work harder.  It comes from being a part of a family, and sub-culture, where working hard and being busy were the things that got you into heaven.  As I have gotten older what I have discovered is that all the effort has a price.  The price you pay for being almost exclusively on this side of the equation comes to you when you least expect it.  For me it comes out in tears and anxiety.  I have a simple indicator from when I am overloaded - I cry.  I don't "have a good cry."  It is not something I plan.  Crying sneaks up on me.  I cry at something I hear on the radio, or some mildly touching song lyric, or while singing in church.  It happened recently as I wrote a letter to a friend in a coffee shop and I found myself bawling like a baby.  Crying is not something I do too much, especially in a public space.  So I knew something was up.  But the crying is not a big deal, or at least not as big as the toll all the effort takes in the long run.  All the years of pushing through, powering on, working harder wears down one's soul.  For me that slow sanding on my soul has left me tired and filled with anxiety.  The product of always fighting, is that you end up with no fight left in you at all.

The other side of the equation is relaxation.  I've never been too good at this.  A couple years ago as I sat on a beach in Hawaii my wife asked me, "Are you OK?  I've never seen you do nothing."  That pretty much sums up my experience with relaxation.

So how does one "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?"  A clue might be found in the Biblical idea of Sabbath.  God takes a day off after his work, and expects us to do the same.  This practice is meant to teach us that God is in control and doesn't need us to make things happen every single day.  God is perfectly capable of providing all we need without us making it happen.  When we stop working - stop putting in effort - we are trusting that God will take care of it - whatever it is.

The motto of the college I graduated from is "ora et labor" (meaning pray and work).  Is it possible that my alma mater's motto and "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" are connected?  Could they be the same thing?  Are we to work / put in effort and also simultaneously relax into what my counselor calls "a restful reliance on God?"

All I know is this.  On a day like today, where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water, I find my mind wandering to that yoga voice saying, "Try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" and praying that I can find that balance in my life.

Joel K