There Should Be Balance!
By Dr. Marcia Davis-Dawkins
Mother’s Day 2020 was not a normal one. It seems like it would be just another COVID-19 day, one that we were quarantined and would sit and be grateful for being alive and well unlike so many others who had succumbed to the dreaded pandemic. After all, Mother’s Day will be special for me whichever way I took it.
My daughter decided that she would surprise me and teach me to ride a bicycle! This sounded crazy especially since most people at my age can ride a bicycle, so the comments I usually get include, “How come you can’t ride a bicycle?” “You really can’t ride a bike?” “Were you just a scaredy-cat?” Little did they know that not everyone is privileged to have access to a bicycle, and that was not priority when I was younger. Anyway, as I was learning I realized that there had to balance and that was the key to my being successful. I needed to face my fear of falling and learn how to balance on the bicycle! Albert Einstein’s words rang in my ears as I tried the arduous task of balancing. He said that “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” I have taken cycling classes before at the gym and in fact, seen this quote on the wall of the cycling class but it didn’t matter then since the bikes were stationary and all I had to do was pedal to get going and the more I pedaled the faster I would go which would mean that I burnt more calories. This I had to put in place the hard way and truth be told, I learned the hard way because I tried to do things my way and let fear get in the way. Now I have a scar on my shin to show that I need balance in my life!
How many of us can remember being on a seesaw as a younger you? Well, I can especially since being on a seesaw was not much of challenge, so I mastered
the art of see-sawing! Well, think about it if there is balance with the see-saw then both sides are on the same level. For those of you who are unsure what a seesaw is it a common playground equipment that features a board balanced in the center. One person sits on each end, and they take turns pushing their feet against the ground to lift their side into the air.
Taking care of ourselves includes having a balance so that we are not indulging in too much of anything. It means that we are listening to our bodies and ensuring that everything is aligned and feels good or okay. Many of us can tell for instance, when we have eaten too much and feeling stuffed. If we eat too much, then we will feel stuffed as well as gain too much weight. Then there is a spiral effect, if you gain too much weight then, there could be health issues like diabetes, or heart problems which then means that we don’t feel good about ourselves.
Setting boundaries is part of making things balance. If we are not balanced emotionally, then we are always down on ourselves. For instance, we might spend too much time watching the news, which tend to be sad and disturbing so watching the news can cause us to be depressed and unbalanced emotionally. We should therefore set emotional boundaries, so we don’t become too upset or even angry. We should be emotionally okay so much so that if we feel as if we need to talk to a therapist, then we should and avoid the misnomer that people will assume we are unstable if they are aware that we are seeing a therapist.
Balancing can also mean management of people we listen to or the types of people we surround ourselves with. Most times if we are surrounded by negatives people in our space then we tend to think just like they do which can become draining. Get rid of toxic people, who thrive on getting us down. Take time to breathe and feel save. Talk to friends and family who make you happy and confident. Sometimes our space has too much unnecessary noise and we find that people are saying things without even aware of facts versus false news. We should consider fact or just simply knowing the truth. Sometimes if we are uninformed, we can read to get informed and read from reliable sources so we can get in the know. Again, know when we are reading too much – stay balanced and know when to take a break and even say the right thing to others. Everyone’s mental health is not the same so we should balance and choose our words wisely.
Another important part of the balancing act in life is learning exercise often, so that we will stay healthy and even feel good about ourselves. This also ties in well with eating healthily so that we can no doubt feel happy because we won’t develop chronic diseases. Overall, we take care of self emotionally, spiritually, and physically. But in everything, don’t overdue things, don’t overeat, don’t over exercise, don’t over talk, and so on. As educators, we tend to take care of others, before we take care of ourselves. We must ensure that we are sending the correct messages to our children and believe it or not they will know when we are not taking care of ourselves. Help our students celebrate wins, especially when a skill is learned. Sometimes we extend ourselves too far, too much time for family and none for self – set balances. If there are no balances, then we eventually get burnt out. Be and feel valuable, affirm ourselves and feel confident! After all, our bodies should be our temples.