Around this time of year, it’s not hard to feel out of whack. That serene picture we cling to of ourselves—the one where we’re yogi gurus deep in meditation, fully at peace—isn’t really us. Maybe it was once, on a particularly relaxing vacation two years ago. We all have a time in our lives where we felt so peaceful we realized this is what life is about.
But for most of us, we have to return to our real lives at some point—lives filled with work, children, family, and, right now, too many Christmas parties. This full-time juggle doesn’t exactly lend itself to meditation for an hour a day or even journaling every morning. It’s tough. We all know that.
I’m here to tell you that it’s okay. Right about now, every year, we get told how important work-life balance is. How we need to take time to make self-care or family a priority. I don’t know if you feel the same, but all this self-help material ends up doing nothing but piling on the guilt.
Something, I’ve found through years of holiday stress-turned guilt, is to embrace the ebb and flow of life’s balance. When you finally let go of the image of yourself as a fully sane, peaceful little monk who doesn’t have the occasional breakdown, a new world opens up for you.
3 things that happen when you embrace imbalance
1. You become more present.
When you let go of where you should be or what you should be doing, you find that you can be fully present in whatever it is you are doing. When you hold onto the guilt of neglecting an area of your life, you are only hurting other areas by not giving them your full attention. Much like time-blocking, if you allow yourself to focus on whatever area of your life is demanding more of you at that moment you will be able to tackle it and fully move on, instead of half-addressing multiple areas of your life.
2. It’s the best form of self-care.
In recent years, self-care has been touted as spa treatments or yoga retreats. But the truth is, self-care can also mean allowing yourself the time and leniency to focus on pressing matters in your life.
If your work has one holiday deadline after another, buckling down to hit your deadlines could give you more peace of mind than a bubble bath. If your kid is starring in the school play and you can’t think about anything but their big debut, the best form of self-care would be honoring what is clearly most important to you and going to the play.
3. Open communication helps set boundaries.
By allowing yourself to dive head first into one area of your life that is demanding more of you from time to time, you actually can bypass people guilting you out of your time. Oftentimes, people feel guilt or shame for allowing one area of their life to rule their world for a while, but by setting boundaries you can mitigate this. Normally, when people talk about boundaries and work-life balance they are telling you to create boundaries that open your schedule up to fit every area of your life into a day, week, or month.
Instead, create firm boundaries around the schedule you need at that point in time. Openly communicating with friends and family about a heavy workload for the next few months set expectations for everyone involved. This gives you a strong boundary to fall back on when you come under pressure from other areas of life.
People are more open to accepting your limitations or boundaries when you’re open and honest about the reasoning behind it.
So, this holiday season, don’t add guilt to your wish list. Accept the imbalances in your day-to-day. Let yourself wax and wane with what life throws your way and allow yourself the time you need to focus on whatever it is that feels most pressing.
