The Balancing Act
As a person with long-term health issues, life is a balancing act. I have to stay exquisitely aware of how much energy I am using and how I am feeling. If I do too much on a day where I am already compromised, I pay a heavy price. On another day, when I am feeling better, I have a wider range and scope. Some days I can hike, other days I may not have the energy to walk around the block. If I expend too much energy for too long or experience too much stress for too long, I can end up right in the soup for a long time - I imagine it a black bean soup, and I’m down in that black bean sludge at the bottom of the container.
I have found that over the years I have gotten better at this balancing act, but it’s extraordinary how often I misjudge, even now. It is never in the direction of doing too little, and always in the direction of doing too much for what my body can support.
Years ago I studied with a Tai Chi and Chi Gung master in Seattle, a Chinese woman in her 90s. She was an extraordinary teacher, and was still practicing with a SWORD at her age! But she said something I have never forgotten: “Never push yourself in Chi Gung. If you are too tired to do the practices while standing, do them sitting down. If sitting down is too much, do them lying down. Pushing will not help.”
Our culture is all about pushing! The teaching I learned years ago in Chi Gung runs directly counter to our Western approach of “no pain, no gain”. There’s a reason that we have coffee places everywhere in this country - we use caffeine to push ourselves beyond our limits, all the time, and some people with strong bodies can get away with this for years or even a lifetime. Others, not so much.
In the work world I remember being told as a minister that I shouldn’t expect to work a 40- hour-a-week full time job as a minister, when so many in my congregation worked 60, 70 or more hours a week. It wasn’t “fair”, since they were paying my salary. I remember thinking that the whole idea felt like a race to the bottom, but at the time I gulped and tried to understand, suspecting that both my body and spirit would crack under that schedule, as indeed they eventually did.
Knowing our limits and living within them might be the definition of maturity. If so, then at almost 60 I am finally coming into my maturity - on some days!!
