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When children first encounter a seesaw on the playground, they sometimes stop and watch for a moment. Are they trying to figure out how they will avoid being left dangling in the air or trying to think about ways to prevent being painfully bumped on the ground, jolting their bodies? How can they find a way to maintain balance and equilibrium, and for how long? How long can any of us achieve balance?
Are these children trying to figure out the best technique to avoid being dropped or imbalanced by their playmates? Are they trying to get the right amount of lift and bounce with one another in a rhythmic way?
Life is a little like that seesaw; finding balance between our emotional needs, social needs, physical needs, and other needs all take time, patience, frustration, and a lot of hard work to get right. Sometimes, we experience the joy of finding more balance and we feel relieved, rejuvenated, and more alive. We want to hold on to that feeling and have more of it.
Who teaches us to find balance in the way we think, speak, behave, feel, and run our day-to-day lives? What happens when the seesaw comes crashing down?
In a perfect world, our parents and family members, teachers, neighbors, friends, colleagues, supervisors, mentors, partners, religious leaders, and others all come together as positive forces, teaching us how to cope, how to handle things. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world and life can be challenging (to say the least), which can interfere with the balance we seek in our lives.
Balance is not a perfect act, nor do we ever truly “get it exactly right.”
Therapy can help us to explore and find more balance in our lives by processing, understanding, validating, and encouraging us to take steps toward being more in tune with ourselves, the world around us, and those we love.