Juggling

Do you know how to juggle? You know, with the balls and the throwing and catching? Maybe you can even do tricks like more than 3 balls, or behind your back or some craziness? I most certainly cannot do any of it. I have had many people try to teach me, and I just can’t coordinate my hands to make it happen. I also often want it to happen in 5-10 minutes to at least encourage me that I’m on the right track and it’s a feasible task for me. This also being true of my desire to learn to play guitar and a myriad of other things, all of which get about 20 minutes of my attention before being ditched again. I digress. I promise this is relevant to some point.

What I think we all know how to juggle is life, heavy air quotes on the “know how to”. We juggle all the “balls” we pick up and attempt to keep ourselves busy with. We don’t know how to, or don’t want to be still; always needing to be “doing”. So we juggle work, school, house chores, parenting, being a pet parent, being a spouse or partner, being a friend, coaching, church groups, hobby groups, physical needs, the list goes on and on. I’m sure you could add your own list of balls you juggle. And I don’t know about you, but for me, all of these balls require mental and emotional effort to keep them in the air. Sometimes, it feels like I don’t even know what all the balls are, but some of them are falling, and I’m burnt out. I once had a professor in grad school tell me (some paraphrasing may have occurred, it was many years ago) “You have 3 major parts of your lives right now, self, school, and family/friends. You have to juggle these three huge pillars and it’s going to be hard and you’re sometimes going to fail at keeping them all in the air and that’s ok, because you are human. Just don’t let the same ball drop twice in a row.” I have tried to keep this mantra in my mind, because I find myself dropping the same ball time and time again, typically my friends and family because I know they won’t walk out on me. I know it’s not fair to them, we shouldn’t use the people we love most in this way. But it’s easy to do because, I won’t be fired if I cancel, again, or forget to text back. They will forgive, and we can pick up again later when I’ve got all the other balls picked up and in the air again. But here’s the thing, they are the ones that give me life. They are the ones that help me pick up the pieces. They are the ones that re-inflate the “self” ball that I’m juggling as well. Oh yeah, where is that one? Where’d that go? Typically miles behind on the ground being run over by a car by now.

If you are alive in the world today you hear about “treating yourself” and “self-care” and the push back from the “other side” about the selfishness that mindset brings, and how if you need you time, you’re fragile and instead we need to think of others and pull our own weight. I think all of the above can be true, and are important, but it takes juggling, balance, thoughtful coordination. First of all, taking care of yourself if needed and necessary. It is not selfish, it is not self-centered, it’s needed. You need to rest your mind, rest your body, occasionally take a day off work to sit and do nothing, and do things that fill you with happiness and excitement. Being aware of your mental health is not weak or a “sign of the new generation”, it’s a conscious effort to do better. I do think that, yes, it can go too far. You can become all about “me” to a detriment to others, you can overspend and cause yourself other stressors; but, let’s just focus on the simple aspects of taking care of yourself and your body. You cannot give yourself fully, be fully present, be the best employee, partner, friend, parent, coach, etc. etc. if you are mentally burnt out, drained, and clinging to any ounce of sanity left rattling around in your mind. We all need to find the things that give us life back, which for me falls into two camps: doing, and being alone.

By “doing” I mean, activities that refresh my mind and soul. For me, this is spending time with my family, getting coffee with a friend, going for a walk, cleaning, getting on the floor and playing with my kid or my dog (seriously, there’s something about playing with a kid on the floor [without your phone nearby] that is so refreshing sometimes). And then sometimes, I just need to be alone. I need to address the anxious and swirling thoughts in there and say “enough is enough, I hear you, but I’m moving on now”. This looks like intentional relaxing or meditating - often right before bed, while I’m driving, or in the shower. I don’t know about you, but those are some of my best “thinking spots”. What that also looks like is intentional practices that I have come to like over the years, either recommended by my therapist, or that I have just found that work like: progressive muscle relaxation *don’t do this one while driving*, grounding (5 things you can see, 4 you can feel, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, 1 you can taste), and/or just meditating on your breathing (this one is especially my favorite in the shower). These things help me push out all thoughts from my brain and reset.

To wrap it all back around, these activities and meditations that I use to reset and refocus myself, require more than 10-20 minutes of dedication. It is not a hobby that can be mastered quickly; it is something that requires intentional parts of the day or week, and time set aside for them. It also requires habit. I fail at all of these things most of the time. As the year is coming to a close, of course the allure and appeal of resolutions come up. My resolutions always go sour quickly; whether I set the bar too high, I don’t take the necessary steps to make the thing a habit, or what have you, it’s all forgotten during the month of February at the latest. This year, as I reflect on this idea of juggling, I’ve decided to try and make a list of priorities before the year ends or shortly after the new begins, and to check in with those items every month. What I mean is, I’m going to make a list of things that I want to keep up with be it certain people I’ve lost track of in the last year or so, because I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people who are not in my immediate physical vicinity - if you have been affected by this phenomenon, I apologize and pledge to do better, I hope it’s not too late, or hobbies I want to bring back to light, etc. So my list is a working progress, but may look something like this:

Date night: 1x/month

Floor play time: 1x/week

Time to Self: 4x/week

Billy (made up person): check in 1-2x/month

Suzy (here for example)

Jean (you get the idea)

Writing

Drawing

Reading

And then I will tell myself each month that I need to prioritize these things, even if one month looks like only a text to one of my friends telling them I’m still thinking of them, and hope they are well, or “date night” looks like sitting with my spouse eating ice cream in the car for 20 minutes while the baby is at grandma’s because that’s all we could allot this month. If I intentionally do these things and check in with the people I care about, I think I will find some habits, and activities are present in my life, but they do not serve me. They do not bring me joy or fulfillment and maybe that ball needs to go to the wayside. I want to know the balls I throw, and I want them to feel easy to juggle because they are all good things. I want to be able to manage all of the things I do so that I don’t just have a gold star for the most number of things juggled, but that the things and people I have chosen to keep close, I care about and do well. Like how this lady makes juggling look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHnI86VlNmg

I pray you find the time to reevaluate what you are juggling and what you are carrying and do the things that bring you joy, and maybe put down the things that don’t. Most of all, I hope you find a way to balance taking care of those you love, and taking good care of yourself for your own physical and mental health.