This month I’ve been thinking about the role balance plays in our wellbeing.
We tend to think of balance as finding more time for self care in our busy lives. We look to find a balance in our work and home time for our mental health and because we want carve out time for the important relationships in our lives. What I’ve become especially curious about lately is not only how we can bring more balance into our lives, but how we let ourselves to come to these places of unbalance in the first place. Why is it so common to have a hard time finding time, space or energy for self care activities, or for our important relationships?
One of the reasons I’ve landed on is the tendency for black and white thinking in our western culture. This is what we called the all-or-nothing thinking when we see things in absolutes. It’s either black or white, right or wrong, on or off. There is no in-between and no shades of gray.
Black and white thinking is something I see all the time in my work with people who are healing their relationship with their body. Diet culture relies on our susceptibility to black and white thinking to buy into the false idea that foods are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’…and by extension we are either being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on our food choices. Food choices become navigating landmines of fear and self doubt. Another diet culture trap that uses black and white thinking is how we tend to perceive our body as either being ‘thin’ or ‘fat’. We see those as the only two choices for how we experience our body. If you are not ‘thin’ and have access to all the privilege that comes with that body type, you are ‘fat’ with all the shame and stigma that is attached to fatness. This way of thinking sets us up to develop a deep unease with food and our body. We become easy prey for the diet industry.
Consider how black and white thinking may creep into other areas of our life, such as work. When our mind is limited by black and white thinking we might find ourselves believing we only have two choices in the kind of employee we can be. Either we are super hardworking, chasing a work ethic that robs us of time with loved ones and/or is hard on our health and wellbeing. Or choice number two, we are a ‘bad’ or ‘lazy” worker without commitment, drive or initiative. If these are the only two options, we are going to find it hard not to push ourselves out of a healthy work/life balance. What about parenting? How easy is it to fall into the trap of believing if we are not the perfect parent, we are a failure.
It’s not surprising this kind of distortion in our thinking can have a significant impact on our emotional wellbeing. Many of us live with a loud, harsh Inner Critic that chastises us for all the ways we miss the mark in all the things we decide are ‘good’ and keep us mired in the ‘bad’. In nurturing a compassionate mindset I often work with my clients to develop/tune into their inner ally to balance the voice of the harsh inner critic. Achieving emotional balance involves being able to identify emotions and expressing them in a healthy and balanced manner. The Inner Ally can help us do this helping us break the habit of black and white thinking.
If you are looking to find more balance in your life, check in to see where you might be stuck in black and white thinking. Where might you be able to notice and experience the spaces between good and bad? This worksheet might be a good place to start. Also, check this new episode of my Living Embodied podcast. My guest Kelly Woo and I talk more about the role balance plays in our wellbeing.
Thanks for reading!