Out of Balance? Are you a tightrope walker, elephant or swing?

by | Jan 31, 2018 | Blog | 6 comments

“Balance”. It’s been a buzzword for a while now, but especially comes into its own around January. The core of so many of our resolutions aim to bring life “back into balance” in some way. So, on this last day of January, how’s it gone for you? Are you feeling more balanced? Or are you still feeling wobbly, precarious, about to topple? For Third Culture Kids, and any others who have lived through multiple transitions, balancing all the varying expectations and demands of life can feel like a game with perilously high stakes.

I believe there are three elements of life that work together to keep us in, or out, of balance. These are Belonging, Identity and Place.

We experience identity as those attributed (nationality, race, ethnicity, age) and experienced (values, preferences, giftings, beliefs about self and others) characteristics that we become known by, to others and to ourselves. Our identities might find expression through national affiliation, career or calling, a sense of our own uniqueness. Those expressions that affirm our stories and continue to develop and nurture our distinct contribution to the world around us, that’s identity.

We experience belonging as that which connects us to others, both individuals and groups, community, feeling ‘at home’ in a social network or culture. Belonging can be found in family, friendships, romantic relationships, work environments, or more broadly in cultures and subcultures, music, literary and artistic communities. Those connections with others that affirm who we are, and where we are welcome… that’s belonging.

We experience place as the vital and necessary context of our stories. Place explains where we became ourselves, and provides the landscape in which we connect to others. We may be rooted in place, deeply connected to the immediate locality, or we may (as do many TCKs) exist slightly above the surface of our place(s), playing a perpetual game of “lava” with our lives, rather than the sofa cushions of our childhood.

When we feel ourselves to be “out of” balance, it can be a helpful exercise to ask ourselves which of our three elements is wobbling.

Is Place missing from our triad? Are we a tightrope walker floating above the earth, disconnected from our immediate environment? Or are we lacking context in some other way, with the places of our past so disconnected and distant that our own story feels out of focus?

Or is it our Identity that feels wobbly? Have we got competing selves that refuse to cooperate, jostling each other out of definition? Lacking expression, we seem to exist simply to become whatever those around us need or want us to be, become a vehicle for their stories and purposes rather than our own. Are we a swing, coming into existence only when others acknowledge or recognise us? We are grounded in Place, we are connected to others, but we are so obligingly adaptable to their purposes that our own identity and agenda feels ill-defined by comparison.

www.pngtree.com

Or is it Belonging that is toppling us? Like the elephant on the circus ball, your disconnectedness feels conspicuous, perhaps even mildly ridiculous. There is so much of you, of your story, how can you possibly connect effectively with others? It feels as though there is nothing to grasp at to steady yourself. You know who you are, and where you are, but your wobbles are rooted in your distinctiveness, your you-ness that seems to keep you apart, precarious and vulnerable.

Whichever you may feel yourself to be – tightrope walker, swing, or elephant on a ball – you are not alone! We all get out of balance at times; perhaps we’ve never felt in balance. But here is the method behind the madness of my metaphors: when we can identify the area that wobbles, we can take steps to strengthen it. Knowledge really is power, and spending some dedicated time to explore ways of shoring up our sense of Place, our identity or our belonging is time well spent.

Balance can be practised. Balance is within reach.

So let’s reach for it together – contact me here if you’d like some support on the journey.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Amanda

    Oh I am most definitely a swing!! And my life swings wildly from one extreme to the other in reflection of this… but I’m working on it, trying to find my centre 🙂

    Reply
    • Dr. Rachel Cason

      I can tend this way too…. very all or nothing but usually most influenced by the needs of others… Thanks for reading!

      Reply
  2. Sherry Clark

    Hey Rachel Thanks so much for the timely wisdom! Your post is perfectly timed, and resonates on many fronts! Challenging times from the belonging, identity and place perspectives – recently returned from Christmas ‘at home’ in Canada (I haven’t lived there for 25 years); made redundant the last week of December; facing the prospect of turning 60 soon – as well as feeling ‘mildly ridiculous’, ‘disconnected’ and grappling with ‘multiple competing selves’ all the time ! I’m going to find some time tomorrow morning to focus some attention on just what ‘balance’ looks like for me this 2018! Thanks again for providing such reassuring food-for-thought!

    Reply
    • Dr. Rachel Cason

      Thank you so much for sharing, Sherry! Wow, so many transitions… it’s wonderful to hear this post has affirmed your experience and encouraged you to take some time to work out re-balancing 😊 I’d love to hear how you get on!

      Reply
  3. Antje Geiss

    For me, the madness of your metaphors (also the pics) work very well 🙂 It’s so helpful to have multiple wheels to turn in order to get back into balance rather to panic because “life” seems to be stuck instead of rolling, off not on, sad not happy, black or white. “Place” surely for me is the most puzzling idea that keeps giving me more questions than answers on how to not feel passive but to connect to the places within me, yet far away they actually are.

    Reply
    • Dr. Rachel Cason

      I’m so glad the metaphors were helpful… yes, having multiple dials to adjust can encourage more hope than an attempt to find The Solution! Place can be a tricky one… something I often encourage clients to do is to walk through their favourite, most powerful memories of the meaningful places of their story and ask themselves what made those places special. Weather? Music? Colours? Food? People? Discoveries about self that were made there? Then we look at ways these elements can be brought into and nurtured in their lives in the here and the now. Can I get a plant that connects me to that place? Or if it won’t grow, a painting of it? 😉

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Dr. Rachel Cason Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More from my blog

Third Culture Kids and Character Development

Third Culture Kids and Character Development

The Third Culture Kids I work with often feel their characters to be as fragmented as their stories. Instead of a story arch that sees a character develop over time, our stories can feel broken up, with distinct versions of our main character showing up in their different chapters. We can feel stuck with a plethora of under-developed protagonists, a sense of amorphous character ‘shape’ and unclear about our story’s direction as a result.

read more
Control and Third Culture Kids

Control and Third Culture Kids

"I feel like a control-freak!" OR "It just sort of fell into my lap..." I've heard both from the Third Culture Kids I work with, and from myself too! I've noticed over the years that TCKs can have a complicated relationship with control. Some of us (or some of us some...

read more
Third Culture Kids & Stability

Third Culture Kids & Stability

Stability. What does that word invite in you? What do you see in your mind’s eye? It’s a word I’ve had a mixed relationship with all my life. I would crave it, try and find systems or plans that would get me it, and then as soon as I had it in hand, there would rise...

read more