The wheel of balance in life.
My counselor shared this concept with me at a recent session. The idea of the wheel is that in order to maintain balance in your life as an individual you should focus on four general areas: physical, spiritual, mental, and social. When you think about it, everything you do fits into one of these four areas, from work to relationships. These four areas act as the spokes on the wheel of life and if one spoke is too short (not being fulfilled in balance) then your wheel is “off kilter” and not truly keeping you ‘well-rounded’ and in balance. Interesting basic concept of personal development, I thought.
So what does focusing on areas that are shorter than others in my life have to do with working on a relationship with someone like Mr. M? Well throughout my blogging as a single mom, one thing I have tried to emphasize (though I didn’t always heed to it) is that before we can be ready for a serious relationship (or even dating) we need to become someone we would want to date by finding ourselves. Even though you will never get it perfect, if there are large gaps in these “spokes” of life, then you are not ready to make that plunge into another relationship. And if you are already in a relationship or married – you may still need to work on getting these areas in balance. So everyone will find this process of evaluating ourselves worthwhile as you take a long hard look beneath the surface and face our shortcomings, even though, admittedly it can be difficult.
During that session, my counselor and I discussed my “spokes” and what I was doing to fulfill each of them and then rated each from 1-10. Remember you are looking for gaps – not for perfection. What did we find that I needed to work on? In my case I am lacking in my personal social life. Being a girl scout leader didn’t even count, he said. He wanted to see me interacting more with adults outside of work and church. So he wants me to start having ‘girls nights’ with my friends. I told him that could be a problem since most of my friends are guys. (He said that will have to be a discussion for another day, ok Mr. M.?) But in the meantime I am to plan some outings.
Girls night at the movies is my choice. This will not only take care of my homework for my own personal development, but also I get to see the chick flicks I enjoy that Mr. M doesn’t want to see. I had planned the first one for a Saturday night with my best friend, TB, but the snow has messed up my plans because of other things that got postponed. But we are going to reschedule, right, TB?
What area do you think you could work on in balancing your life’s wheel?
Find yourself… keeping it real.
1 comment:
You're right, Katherine. Sometimes we single moms get so tied up with taking care of our children's needs and activities that we forget about connecting with our friends. I will take your advice and plan a girls' night very soon!
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