Recently I realized that when I think of balance, I think an even split among all parts. So if there are two parts, it would be a 50/50 split. This seems reasonable – if I think of a scale, also known as a balance, it means there is equal weight on both sides. A teeter-totter can be balanced with equal weight. Even the concept of a center of gravity requires an even distribution of mass – 50% above, 50% below or 50% to the left and 50% to the right.
Without realizing the assumption I’ve made I’ve taken this idea of balance as 50/50 into my life. I’m not sure it’s working so well.
A common term lately is ‘work-life’ balance. Does that mean we’re supposed to be at work 50% of the time and at life the other 50%. That sort of makes sense even. Given there are 24 hours in a day, we roughly have an eight hour work day, roughly eight hours of sleep, leaving 8 hours for life. Not scientific by any means, but it has a point.
Balance in the sense of 50/50 also implies other combinations are possible, such as 60/40 or 30/70, which by the accounting might indicate something is out-of-balance when in fact it may be perfect. This out-of-balance also implies that one side has a gain while the other side has a loss. Not a very fruitful strategy in the long-run.
The word that has resonated lately as I’ve sat with this new realization of balance – is alignment. Alignment doesn’t imply any proportions and yet it seems far more suitable, and even relevant to so many more situations.
In terms of relationships, something I heard recently was about what each partner needs to bring to the relationship. It’s not that each partner brings 50% to create 100; it’s that each partner brings 100%. This is much more about aligning together than it is about balance. After all, balance is rarely going to occur anyway. One person is going to be physically stronger than the other, one person is probably better cook than the other. It probably wouldn’t be much fun if we were balanced. And certainly we don’t want a balance of masculine and feminine – there’s no polarity and no spark then.
Which brings me to a similar topic I’ve read recently. The idea of rebalancing the masculine and feminine again, that they are out of balance. I certainly agree that they are not in a good relationship now, but I don’t believe balance is what we want. We want alignment. We want the masculine to realign itself with its gold and light. We want the feminine to realign itself with its gold and light. And we want the masculine and feminine to realign themselves in relationship to each other.
David Whyte also writes about this in ‘The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship.’ He writes, ‘Each of the three marriages is nonnegotiable. They cannot be “balanced” again one another – a little taken from this and little given to that – except at their very peripheries. To “balance” work with relationship and with the self means we only work harder in each marriage, while actually weakening each of them by separating them from one another. Each of the marriages represents a core conversation with life that seems necessary for almost all human beings and none of the marriages can be weakened or given up without a severe sense of internal damage.”
Whyte adds a critical piece of alignment, which is that for two (or more) things to align means they depend on each other in some way, that ‘internal damage.’ He goes on to talk about “the conversation between the marriages – the marriage of the marriages.” Again reinforcing the idea of interdependence among the components.
When each element of a system or a whole (and considering that each element itself is whole and a system unto itself) can be in alignment with itself and in a mutually supportive and reinforcing pattern with all the other elements, then you have alignment. Whyte again: “where each of the marriages can protect, embolden, and enliven the others and help keep us mutually honest, relevant, authentic, and alive.”
Picture a yogic posture, where each arm, each leg, the head, and the torso have a certain position to be in. They must all work together, each participating in the pose in its particular way and yet still supporting every other part.
Alignment is a good word, much better than balance. Balance just gets us in our head thinking about 50/50.
Alignment – that gets us moving in a good direction.
