Finding Balance

It is amazing to me how easy it is to lose one's self and get out of balance.  Something begins that seems really awesome, whether it's a job or a friendship or just whatever. I tend to throw myself 110% into a new project only to find that it's often not as shiny as I thought it was in the beginning.  It takes something traumatic or self destructive to make me realize I have made a mistake sometimes, but I usually manage to figure it out before any real harm is done. 

I have been going full bore for so long, I don't even know what it is like to stop.  Every time I think I'm going to have a weekend to myself I end up giving that precious time away to do something for or with someone else.  I recognize that this needs to stop and that I need some time just to exist.  I had that for a few hours in the horse trailer when I was locked in several weeks ago, but I didn't carry it forward.  I need to rely on myself and my own instincts and move forward with my own goals, whatever they are...heck, does it matter that I don't know what my goals are right now? I'm thinking maybe I don't need any goals for now except to find peace and relaxation in my heart.

The past six months has taught me to steer my own ship a little more effectively. I have learned to stop asking advice and to tell people when I think they are wrong (though I do try to be kind) I have been learning not to care about other people's opinions quite so much and to figure out what it is that I want out of life.  Sometimes this is really hard because many people in my life have very strong opinions.  but I am learning and feeling stronger every day. I have learned that I have good instincts and thought not always popular, I really am in pretty good control of my life.

This week taught me how quickly life can turn on you.  I spent a lot of hours in a the hospital with a sick friend and I sacrificed some of my own work for it. He had thought he was healthy, just going through a time of stress, but instead he had had a heart attack.  I discovered that he didn't have a lot of people there for him, and I tried to take some of his stress off of him.  Unfortunately, it backfired on me, and I made a client angry in the process. Honestly it was someone I didn't enjoy seeing anyway.  and now I can start a little later, relax a little more, work a little smarter. I had no free time on either end of my day trying to work late and start early. I could not have continued to work that way in the long term. Now I only have to be anywhere early one day and I can work later the other days knowing I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn. I can fully begin to embrace my night owl self. 

I also learned how many things people don't know about each other.  No one ever knows what motivates you. No one can know what your stress or comfort is and most people don't want to share this part of themselves.  It's so much easier to hide  yourself than to risk judgement on both sides.  I have begun to wonder if we can ever really know someone.  I came to see that someone can have an absolutely good side but then they can have a bad thing that is a deal breaker for the entire relationship.  It's why we should all be careful what we say to each other and how we treat one another because we never know what another person's safe place or deal breaker status is.

Today's song (this week really) has been Landslide...not the Stevie Nicks version, but the Gweneth Paltro Glee Version. I can't get it out of my head. There is a message there.