Hey y’all, it’s Erin here to share my hard earned advice on balance.
What does it mean to say balance is a controlled wobble?
We’re assuming that many of you might have clicked on this blog because the title seemed odd. You might be asking, what is a controlled wobble? And what does that have to do with balance?
If you follow us on social media or have heard us speak, you know that I speak about my yoga practice a lot. I try not to be one of those obnoxious yogis. I certainly never claim that it is the solution to everyone’s wellness woes. But it works for me, and so a lot of my references to wellness come through it.
What does yoga have to do with balance?
I would bet my entire savings that everyone reading this blog can close their eyes and picture someone in a balance pose. There are a lot of balance poses in yoga, it’s a big part of the practice. The one probably most commonly known is tree pose or vrksasana.
As you can see from the photo, the person looks to be quite still. Balanced. Reposed. Zen, even. But take a closer look at the mechanics of the pose, does it look easy? Does it look like you don’t wobble a bit (or a lot) while in it?
And that is what yoga has to do with our philosophy that “balance in a controlled wobble.” I was practicing tree pose in my online yoga class during the pandemic, when my teacher used that exact phrase to talk about working through the pose. She told us that balance requires movement, it requires strength, and it’s hard work. Falling out of poses is part of how we train our muscles to hold the pose.
But, this is not commonly how those in wellness circles talk about balance. We’re always taught (and sold) that we have to look like the awesome women in the photograph. But that’s the problem with consuming wellness advice in our digital age – we so rarely see the work that goes into the product. The before and after. All the time this woman fell out of tree pose and what she learned from it.
Our philosophy on balance
When we teach our “controlled wobble” approach to balance, we get a lot of positive feedback. Talking about balance as an active state, one that requires hard work, is actually countercultural. Balance is not an end state that we reach and are thereafter forever balanced.
Falling out of balance, whether literally or emotionally, is a part of life. We use this framework to understand that all the elements of our life that help keep us well (using our Wheel of Well-being) require work. We have to be willing to experiment, to tweak, to learn and grow through the process. Falling out of balance is also supposed to remind us that there is joy in play. Yoga, and any other practice we have, should be fun and we should be able to laugh as we practice.
Obviously, there will be times where we are totally out of whack. Unbalanced. Falling over in a lot of different ways. That doesn’t mean we are failing at balance, it means we’re working through it. Yoga works for me to remind me of this journey. But it doesn’t work for Kristen. Take the time to figure out what wellness practices might help you work towards balance. And remember, balance is a controlled wobble – it requires strength, and movement, and a good dose of humility.
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