We’re spending a lot of time this month focusing on balance and there’s a reason for it. For me it feels like one of those ‘buzz’ words – like kale or mindfulness – that deserves a closer examination. I come across so many people in my life constantly rushing around busy busy busy and saying all they wish for is that they could have more balance. And it tends to make me smile – I wonder if they would see balance if they had it? I wonder if they would have slowed down enough to notice it? And what is it? So, what is balance and what’s the big deal anyhow?

It’s a great question to ask yourself, for whatever you’re wanting to create in your life. If you don’t know what it would even look like how you suppose to know when you get it?

I don’t know if being a Libran has anything to do with it, but balance has always been important to me in life. And yet my version of it and my understanding of it is constantly shifting. I was the person ‘always taking on too much’ – through school, through uni, my first job. I’d have my mother’s voice ringing in my ears about doing too much (probably because she was the one that had to deal with the tears when things came crashing down, or she’d be the one helping me literally glue my school projects together the night before they were due because I’d been too distracted with all the other things I’d committed to).

For me I’ve been on my own journey of learning what my extremes are too. How far could I push the scales of balance before everything toppled. When I started moving from burn out to gut issues to stress and migraines I knew I had to start tipping the scales in the other way.

So – balance has lots of different meanings. In your life. In mine. In the dictionary – as a verb as a noun. In yoga, in health, in the gym….

How do we go about achieving this big B word if we haven’t questioned our self about it first?

As November rolls to a close and the month of merriment and end of year celebrations kicks in I challenge you to really pause to consider what balance means to you and why you want more of it. What would it give you? How will you recognise when you have it? Is 2017 balance going to be different to the expectations you set for 2016?