Q: I’ve got so much going on in my life—how am I supposed to balance everything and everyone’s needs? Plus, I’m feeling drained and resentful trying to get everything done.
A: All of us awesome women have a balancing act to do with our energies. There is the action energy of ‘doing’, and there is the nourishing energy of just ‘being’.
From using a Kabbalistic perspective, we may be able to find our balance. On the right side of the body, we have the energy of Chesed, which is giving, and on the left side of the body, we have the energy of Gevurah, which is a drawing inward of energy; a withholding.
Throughout your busy day, you can intersperse the Gevurah energy of withholding with the Chesed energy of giving. If you give too much, you’ll feel drained. If you retreat too much, you may not accomplish what you’d like to or be as open and interactive as you desire to be.
Caretaking children, food shopping, working and house cleaning are all ways of giving. If you take small chunks of breaks in between these activities, you can prevent your energy from getting depleted and feeling resentful.
Is it possible for you to take even ten minutes at a time to close your door and lie down on your bed and do nothing? If your kids are home, can they play safely without Mommy for that ten minute chunk?
Can you take ten minutes to walk in nature, or even sit in nature, and just close your eyes, feel the breeze, breathe and listen to birdsong?
The key here is to not wait till the end of a busy day to take time for yourself, but to sprinkle in ‘being’ time after each ‘giving’ time.
You can also sprinkle in ‘creativity without a purpose’ time. Have a place that is only for you, to color, write, draw or collage. Again, a ten minute break in between activities can be used to do something that is not active ‘giving’ times.
Of course, many of us would like more than ten minutes, but if you can’t get more than that, at least do those ten minutes. A mistake many busy women make is to push themselves ‘to just get it done’—whatever ‘it’ is (on a to-do list a mile long), and this can lead to a resentment and drain of energy that requires a bigger recovery time. I discovered this the hard way, and my body let me know it.
On my path to healing and awareness, I replaced my ‘pushing to get it all done’ energy with the wisdom of replenishment. When my kids were younger, used to keep a glue stick, paper, scissors and magazines in the bathroom and lock the door (with a house full of kids, this may be the only private time that you can get in) and collage for ten minutes at a time. It filled me up with a sensation that I could not explain at the time, but revived my soul. Much magic has happened in my life since that time (my kids are older, and I have more private time and space), but the collages are still with me, some hung up, and others kept in scrapbook albums.
Weaving in times of Gevurah can help stem off the tide of resentment that happens when we overuse Chesed and give too much of ourselves. With Gevorah, we can say ‘no’ to others, but ‘yes’ to our just ‘being’, replenish ourselves with inward energy and find more balance.
