Yesterday I killed it. I biked to the pool, swam 1000 yards, biked home and even lifted a few weights while watching Lucifer on iTunes. (I like dark bad boys)
Today I ate two bowls of chocolate peanut butter granola (after my breakfast) and took at nap at 10:30 this morning.
I have never been told; you are a really well adjusted balanced person. Teachers hounded me about being more consistent in my work. Bosses and people I work with call me intense, lazy, or both. I exercise too much or not at all. I eat 10 cookies or none.
I have never in my life only wanted one beer, cocktail or glass of wine.
Even my body can’t seem to get balanced. I have chronic problems with my left leg, foot and gluts. The latest is the left gluts just don’t seem to work when they are suppose too.
I am literally half-assing through my life right now.
Imbalance is a consistent thread that runs through my life. I have spent that the last few days trying to figure out why. What “made me” this way. As if know the origins would somehow give me the magic key to unlocking the path to balance live.
Is it s middle child thing? Was it the childhood trauma? The absence of an internal regulator? Am I just a lazy insecure person trapped in a Type A drive for acceptance? Do I fear success?
The truth is that the origins don’t really matter. There is no magic key. All or none of these things may be true. This is who I am. Knowing the why and the how doesn’t change what is.
Pema Chodron talks about how as humans we are always searching and seeking solid ground – a solid unmoving piece of earth to stand on. This is a fruitless search, nothing is solid, because nothing is permanent.
The never-ending search for something unchanging, something permanent, somehow makes sense to me.
Another paradox of the human condition. (Cue Alanis Morrisett’es Ironic.)
How can I accept things I don’t like about myself? When I try and remember that acceptance does not equal approval, I am more willing to accept things I dislike. If there are behaviors I want to change about myself, I can do that, but not by beating myself up and judging myself. Change is hard. It is really fucking hard. It doesn’t happen when I think about doing something, it happens when I actually do something different. Going against my basic nature and conditioning is an exhausting, confusing and painful process. It takes time, and includes failures and successes. It doesn’t get easier, but I can get better and healthier.
Like doing my glut exercised. Eventually my muscles will balance out, but I have to do them, keep doing them and change to something more challenging when I get stronger.
No one has a balanced life, just like no one has a unmoving and unchanging piece of earth to stand on. We are all seeking balance. With some acceptance, maybe I can learn to live less in the extremes.
Time to go work my ass.
