Trying to Find a Balance

Part of growth is balance.  Part of balance is knowing one's limits. Part of knowing one's limits is listening to one's self and honoring the built in alarm system the body has.  Honoring that alarm system is tough, because sometimes honoring it means that we have to make decisions that produce judgment both within oneself and, more than likely outside of oneself. On top of that- balance and knowing my limits have never been personal strong suits for me- I'm either balls to the wall, or complacent, and I usually get to the edge of a cliff, shut my eyes and jump.  These are not new revelations for me- I have know these things about myself for quite some time- the new revelation is that now I am ready to take those awareness's and do something about them.  I truly want to find that middle ground, instead of burning hard and bright until I burn out, I want to figure out how to keep my candle lit (on only one end) for the long run.  I want to look over the edge of the cliff and figure a way to climb down as opposed to crashing at the bottom.

For a while now, my alarm system has been sounding, it went in to over drive in January with my tonsils, and since having my tonsils removed the alarm has shift to my tummy and my heart.  My heart beats fast most of the time, and my tummy has gone back to bounding itself in knots on the constant. It has been sounding so loud I have found it difficult to ignore, and today I have decided to finally honor it. Most of the judgment is self inflicted- because the decision involves withdrawing from school for the quarter.  Leaving school for the quarter seems so paradoxical- my studies are what have catapulted my growth process in the last 6-8 months, but now that growth is coming so fast and furiously I can scarcely keep up.

Juggling working near 60 hours a week, trying to finish up my papers from last quarter, getting into the new material for this quarter all while trying to sustain my personal growth is just too much.  I am not complaining, I am grateful for my jobs and the fact that they both support me in every way possible.  I am also super grateful that my prof's from last quarter granted me in-completes in order to have time to finish the course work up and get credit for those courses.  I am merely looking at the parts of the equation I can control in order to balance myself out- and not taking on additional work and stress is the most obvious answer.  I know that life is not a 100 meter dash, it is more like several consecutive marathons, so I need to be able to pace myself.

So, for today, I am going to honor my inner alarm system by taking the necessary steps to get myself to a place of balance.  I have written before about how growth can only happen when the proper amount of support and challenge is present- so, for now, I am going to back off on the academic challenges so as to attend to the personal ones.  And really, the only judgment I have to deal with is my own.  I have to remember that this is not a dualistic situation- where withdrawing from school is failure and continuing is success.  In this case, it is more like taking a step back to walk another mile.  Jeeze, this growing stuff is crazy sometimes!