Balance (In All Things)

Over a month ago I biffed my toe - Bad!

(or badly as my parents would prefer I say)

It was my big toe and I landed right on top of it jamming it directly into the joint. It’s taken time (and some torture by my massage therapist) to get it almost back to rights - it’s still bruised.

For the month that I couldn’t walk normally because I couldn’t push off the toe, I had to compensate in the rest of my body.

What did I notice?

My opposite knee and inner thigh were not happy. My neck was super tight and both of my calves were balled up something fierce. 

The other thing I noticed?

How much we need our toes when we balance (or at least I do!)

Unfortunately, I was also much clumsier

My sense of where I was in space (aka my proprioception) was not as flash as usual, such that I kept banging my injured toe into things. This not only invited expletives to fly from my lips but for me to perform what I can only describe as “The Hoppy Dance”. 

But let’s go back to my balance

I like to say that our feet are our foundation and that we need to build our alignment from the ground up. 

Feet are pretty freaking amazing as well as pretty complicated little structures:

• Remember we have 26 bones in one foot so our two feet count for almost a quarter of the total number of bones in our body (206 if you’ve forgotten)
• There are 33 joints
• There are 29 muscles of which 19 are intrinsic - they are wholly in and solely operate in our feet - did you catch my pun? We use these intrinsic muscles for fine motor control, like moving our toes (which I could not do at all for a while).
• We have more than 30 ligaments (those puppies connect bone to bone) and also some tendons including that biggie, The Achilles Tendon.
• The Achilles Tendon begins at the base of our two calf muscles (they join together to become the tendon) and then runs down the back of our ankle and attaches to the heel bone (the calcaneus).

Here’s the thing

Because of the old, heel bone’s connected to the leg bone, and the leg bone’s connected to the thigh bone, and the thigh bone’s connected to the etc. etc. etc., we know that my big toe biff had a flow on effect up to the rest of my body.

Yes, my balance was bad.

Since my toe was taking longer to heal than I thought it should would, I really had to focus on keeping things like my plantar fascia, my calves, and my hamstrings free and open so I could stand on that foot to the best of my ability.

It’s not like I wasn’t taking care of my toe but I had to change my focus and look at what I could more easily work on to support my whole body during the healing process.

Let’s flip this lesson…

Let’s take it out of the physical realm…

Let’s apply it to the BALANCE we struggle to find in our lives…

Yes my injured toe was in the physical realm, reminding me that my body parts are connected. I mean, we are the grooviest, most dynamic of organisms!

But that physical injury - my toe was literally stuck - also caused me to reflect on other things in our lives we might perceive as immovable or unchangeable - places we feel stuck.

Does this sound familiar? 

• Sometimes we bang our head against the wall about things (thinking that will help)
• Sometimes we complain about how long things are taking to change (impatience - oh yes!)
• Sometimes we even tell ourselves we’re powerless to change things (I admit, in some instances we are..)

I definitely feel these things but…

Move Up The Chain

How about if instead of feeling stuck we moved up the chain?

What do I mean by that?

My foot is literally at the end of my leg and ultimately at the end of my body so I moved ‘up the chain’ to my calves, knee and neck.

Let’s put what we see as immovable (in my case my toe taking too dang long to heal) at one end of a chain (of links, of things - it doesn’t matter). 

Can we move away from the stuck end of the chain (whatever that is in your life) and put energy further up into other things, things we can actually change?

This is a worthwhile endeavour - I’m sure of it!

photo by Thought Catalog 

Work - Life Balance

We hear about work/life balance all the time and I can harp on about it with my clients but sometimes not walk my talk. What’s that saying? All work and no play makes Bec a dullard (okay I know that’s not how it actually goes…)

Here’s an extremely recent example of me moving up the chain, figuring out what I could control, making a decision, and feeling empowered once I did!! Woot woot. 

We have lovely friends with Australian connections (she is Aussie, he partly grew up here). They come over from the USA every year to visit her family and in the 15 years we’ve lived here we’ve never connected during their trip (two years ago we were super close but Covid intervened).

Flash to Monday morning - yep two days ago. We got a message that they’d be an hour away and could we join them for lunch?

Well, the hubby is retired but I teach a number of sessions on Monday so my first reaction was, “you go, have fun, I have to work”.

Those words were out of my mouth for a couple of seconds and then I thought, hang on, one of the reasons I work for myself is to have control over my schedule so why don’t I just cancel those couple of clients and go and see my friends?

It was such a revelation you’d have thought that the Heavens opened and a golden beam of light had come down and anointed me. I was amazed!!

Of course I lost a bit of dosh, but I took control over what I could change and other than trying to find a park in Noosa at lunchtime, you’ll be pleased to know it was the best lunch. Of course it was way too short but these are friends that we’ve shared a lot of life with so it was wonderful to see them even if it was brief.

In hindsight I can’t believe I even questioned being able to make it happen.

Balance it out Baby!!

photo by Luisa Denu

Honour Yourself

Here’s another balance story which has less to do with work/life and is more about being true to yourself. Again it’s one of the many things I harangue my clients about and that is Self-Care.

So, over the weekend, I hosted a retreat. My Move & Create Retreats are half day extravaganzas for small groups of (usually) women. We do a bit of Pilates, we have some yummy food, and we explore a creative practice with a guest instructor. 

It was so much fun and since it wasn’t the first I’d hosted was pretty organised on the front end. However, after everyone left I was so tired but was not sure why. During the event I had energy and I think everyone had a good time. The retreat is just over three and a half hours long so not super draggy.

Hmm, but then I remembered, I am an introvert and after all that expelling of energy and keeping the vibe high for the morning, I realised that I needed to Re-Balance!

Once it dawned on me that this was why I was so pooped, I just gave myself permission to be a bit of a couch potato for the rest of the day.

I had told myself that my immovable problem was that I couldn’t relax until everything was put back to rights.

I ‘should’ have cleaned the studio, and I ‘should’ have emailed the participants with a follow up thank you message, and I ‘should’ have cleaned up the dirty dishes from our morning tea. 

Instead, I relaxed and regrouped.

Change the Story

How often do we NOT listen to what we need and instead do what we think we need to accomplish? In this instance the end of the chain was some story I’d told myself about getting my work done or finishing the job at hand before I could relax.

Did the studio get cleaned, the email sent, and the dishes done?

Of course they did but not until the next day, and only after I’d regained a bit of my personal, interior balance.

my actual couch, my actual cat, and how I actually felt!

Balance… Chains… as usual I’ve gone on a bit of a ramble  

But I do have one overarching question:

1. Where in your body (or in your essence) do you need to focus on BALANCE?

Is it about standing on one leg?

Is it about distributing your energy?

Or, is it about making decisions about WHAT you to do support WHO you want to be?

Hmmm?

What I hope YOU WANT is as to be as healthy as possible in all the realms of your life.

xBec

The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this blog are not intended to amount to advice and Rebecca Forde disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this post

cover & social photo by Piret Ilver