How does one find balance?I was playing with exercises for balance with a client (big up R!). We tried balancing on both legs and feeling how stabalizing the arms, shoulders, and core helped keep tension in the body so that we were rooted from our feet up through our heads. Then we felt how if we adjusted one part - pushing the chest too far forward, or pushing the knee further outward while in tree pose - it could throw us off or help keep our balance.
When we finished with a set of balances on both feet and on one foot, with eyes opened and then closed, she opened her eyes and I saw them light up. She felt something... was awake to something in a way she hadn't been before. We laughed and talked about how even just finding balance for one moment means that we can recognize it again in the future. Our bodies have cell memory and muscle memory... this makes it so that with practice we can find movement or a feeling again even after we've put it out of our minds for a time. This was a metaphor for life! Not only do we have the task of uncovering what balance means for ourselves - and not by some outside standard - we also might realize through living it that like a pendulum, we might swing from one extreme to the other from time to time... or often. But as we go, we pass through that center and our eyes light up and we may even stay there for a minute until off we go again.
