(ThySistas.com) “You have come so far you’ve got so far to go.”-Junie Morrison. These words come from his song “Tightrope” where he expresses his feelings about his partner being afraid of opening herself up for him to love. He wishes she would stop trying to balance on the rope and just…well…fall for him. The worst she could do for herself is fall in love with someone that actually loves her. However, the songwriter never questions why she is so afraid to fall. If he did, he may learn something that most women know too well: the balance is never easy.
Most women are creatures who have to walk a thin line between emotion and logic. We have to work a job and then take care of a home. We have to care for children and support our spouses. We also have to practice maintenance to fit into a society while defining self-care in our own terms. Yes, it is a lot. No, it is not impossible. However, the fun is in the journey to defining the balance for yourself, the openness to shift your weight, and releasing anything that may throw you off kilter.
As a person who grew up letting others define who she was, I have read a lot of self-help/motivational books to try to make some sense of everything. I was looking for validation. I was looking for comfort. I was also looking for excuses. Eventually, I learned that self-help cannot help you do not want to help yourself. I had to define what the term balance meant to me. Books could help me. Friends could support me. Family could love me regardless of my decision. In the end, I had to define what I could and could not handle along with deciding when change needed to happen.
Change: the ever-constant word like time. It will always happen no matter how much we love and cherish routine. When you have to shift your weight to balance, you have to change. This does not mean that your routine is wrong. It means it no longer works for who you are and what you want to accomplish. If we fear losing our routine and comfort, we will forever stand in one place on a tightrope that we will never get across. (For the record, standing in one place for a long period of time HURTS!) Our stubbornness, our pride, and our shame will keep us from getting to a place of safety and a place of newness. It will also make us hold on to things we really need to let go.
When my grandmother passed away, I had to clean her house. I learned how much of a hoarder she was. She used to have plastic bags full of pieces of mail that meant absolutely nothing to her. She had pictures and mail that belonged to her children that she never gave to them. She did not want to let anything go. So, there was not really room in her house to get anything new. Her choice to keep the old kept her from experiencing something new that she may have liked. We do the same when we hold on to weigh when we are attempting to find balance. We hold on to grudges, bad relationships, baggage from friendships, and so much more. Sooner than later, we are trapped under the weight of things that are unnecessary.
You can wear all the yoga pants you want. You can sit Indian-style on a carpet in complete silence. You can light incense until the neighbors call the police for all the smoke. None of that matters if you are not willing to do the work to find your balance. You really have come this far. Yes, you do have a long way to go. Enjoy the journey on the tightrope so you can appreciate when you finally reach something solid and stable.
Staff Writer; J. W. Bella
May also follow this talented sister online over at; JWB Writes.