The theme percolating in my mind this week is “Balance.” The quest for this elusive state of equilibrium has come up numerous times this week, with clients trying to find some level of peace and tranquility amidst the challenges of parenting. I’m not just referring to the every day challenge of raising children, during a global pandemic, political division, and climate change. The parents in my Practice have the additional task of parenting exceptional children. Those brilliant, impulsive, oversensitives, whose emotional and physical reactivity can go from zero to 100 in an instant. “It’s exhausting,” a client shared with me,” and I can’t help blaming myself on some level.” Exhaustion and shame, a lethal combination. Having myself parented two children with significant health needs, I reached into my own experience and remembered the difficulty during those years to find balance.
In the Introduction to her book, “Dopamine Nation*, ” Anna Lembke, MD begins with this statement:
“This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about the relationship between pleasure and pain, and how understanding that relationship has become essential for a life well lived.”
It seems to me most of us, myself included, are on a continual quest for pleasure. We notice what is painful in our lives and try our best to quell it or avoid it altogether with the pursuit of various pleasures, or anesthetics.
Life, however, has a tremendous sway towards balancing itself. The COVID pandemic is a great example. In the midst of sickness and death, we are experiencing incredible job growth. I think about the decreased ability to travel, and yet the lack of pollution restoring certain wild-life arenas. I think about job losses due to childcare needs, leading to a growth of digital home careers that allow more family time. I think about being unable to see loved ones, eased by digital platforms that allow us to communicate visually with those far away.
Of course, sometimes awful things happen, pure tragedies, and it’s difficult to see any balance in the Universe. My Mother died of bone cancer two years ago, and what followed was a period of imbalance, pure dark pain. But simultaneously I found myself in a new home with a beautiful garden which gives me hours of joy, plus a safe COVID free haven in which to see clients and friends. My Mom’s happiest place was outside tending to her garden, so when I miss her it’s where I go to feel her spirit. It’s there, that I find my balance restored.
Balance makes me think about the debt I was drowning in for years as I struggled to pay off years of student loans, and enormous medical debts from the life threatening illnesses of both my children. As I paid off interest only, year after year, I was convinced I would only be free from debt upon my death. But one day I was headed home on a local highway traveling 50 mph when out of nowhere a FedEx truck plowed into me from a side street. There was no way to avoid the impact and I suffered months of PT and shoulder surgery as a result of that crash. But the monetary award that came out of that event arrived just as COVID was threatening my income, and bestowed me with just enough money to free myself from my crippling debt.
Several years before, I was mowing my lawn when I crossed over an underground hornets nest. One of those buggers flew after me and gave me a sting that implanted so much venom, I developed a rash around the sting site. A week later I awoke with such vertigo I could hardly get out of bed. Before long I was suffering from a complete neurological melt-down. My eye sight went, language and memory began to fail me, and I was given every diagnosis under the sun from Myasthenia Gravis, to Lyme disease, to a stroke. The MRI’s up and down my spinal column, and numerous tests pointed to nothing remarkable that would cause such a reaction. But by sheer chance a tumor was found wrapped around my lower spine. The mysterious condition that led to my melt down disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. To this day, no one knows what it was. But, had I not gone through that terrifying event, my tumor would have never been detected, and easily could have led to the inability to walk and function.
There is no panacea for painful events. They land upon us, we survive them however we can, and try our best to recover. Sometimes balance can be restored by intentional action, sometimes by chance. If your life is 100% about giving to others, look for ways to receive. If it’s 100% about work, seek out ways to play. If it’s 100% about being a parent, find a way to nurture yourself. When the balance tips too far one direction or the other, we can fall into either despair or, as Dr. Lembke writes, “Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for is own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind*.”
If you are privileged with enough fortune to have a life full of pleasure, then balance suggests you would do well to give. And if you have a life full of pain, see if you can find pleasure in the natural sources of pleasure around you: flowers, rain, snow or sunshine, a sunset, a forest, a beach, a pet, your loved ones, a smile from a stranger. Drink it in and restore your balance.
On my way to coffee this morning just off Hawthorne Blvd. I was walking down an alleyway full of trash when I heard a stunningly gorgeous voice singing a lovely melody. I was sure someone was pumping a recording into the alleyway. But as I grew closer, slumped over and covered in dirty garments was a houseless person combing through the garbage. I realized with awe, the golden sound was emanating from this person’s lips. My tumor-free spine tingled. There it was again, beauty and trash synthesized into harmonic balance.
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Disclaimer:
Neither the publisher nor the author are engaged in rendering advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions continued in this blog are not intended as a substitute for consulting with a licensed mental health and or child development advisor. All matters regarding the health and development of your child require professional supervision. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestions in this blog.
*Lembke, Anna MD. “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.” Copyright 2021 by Anna Lembke. Dutton An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. penguinrandomhouse.com