Balance

Here comes a quick News Year’s Eve / last night of Hanukkah post. Fair warning, several glasses of wine and champagne have been drunk, because when you have a <2 yr old, your New Year’s Eve starts at 4pm.

The theme of this end of year post is: balance. And for me, 2016 was a turning point.

I have struggled with balance for years.

Up until about 2012, I thought mostly with my head, and pretty much ignored my heart. From 2012-2016, I pretty much rebelled against my mind and felt only with my heart. 2016 was a turning point, when I felt my head and heart begin to find balance.

Another way to look at this imbalance is in the “nadis” of yoga philosophy. The 3 main nadis are “ida”, “pingala” and “sushumna”. Ida represents the feminine or lunar energy (read feminine, NOT female), or comfort. Pingala represents the masculine (read masculine, NOT male), or solar energy. Sushumna goes straight up the middle of these 2 serpentining energies and leads to enlightenment, but can only be achieved when the ida and pingala are in balance. You need to both have the fire and motivation and power of the pingala and the nurturement (is that a word?) and comfort and love of the ida. You don’t want to have too much of one of the other. You want balance.

So, in yoga terms, up until 2012 I feel like I was out of balance and had excess pingala energy. After 2012 until having our son, I felt an imbalance in the opposite direction with excess ida energy. And 2016 was the beginning of finding balance between the two.

2016 was the year that I began to feel a sense of self again after feeling like all I would ever be was someone else’s mama. It was the year where I felt empowered to take care of myself again. The year that I started investing in my own learning so that I could pursue a path that makes me happy going forward. The year where I felt proud of what I was able to accomplish with consulting projects, volunteer work, and mosaics. A year where I felt confident in my abilities as a mother.

2016 was a year where I volunteered for a committee to try to raise funds for a playground for our neighbourhood, and put together an art market to help raise those funds. And we just met our fundraising goals. 2016 was a year where I worked with an incredible friend and artist to put together and present a proposal for a public art mosaic mural (no, we haven’t heard the results yet) and I am so proud of what we came up with and what we accomplished. 2016 was the year that I started working on my own health (mental, emotional, physical) again and made huge progress.

I’m not gonna pretend that all things 2016 were fine and dandy. Some scary things happened in the world in 2016, and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of them yet. We are about to see a world leader take over who has so much excess “pingala” that it’s crazy. But all I can do, looking into 2017, is appreciate where I am, work on being the best version of myself that I can be and try to maintain and pursue that balance.

For the year to come, I wish you balance as well.

Happy New Year everyone! Wishing you light and love on this last day of the year, and last night of the festival of lights. Bring it on, 2017!

Doesn’t this little face look like trouble?