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This is one of a series of articles on evolving and
enjoying
families (Lesson 5). The series exists because the wide
range of current U.S. social problems suggests that
most families don't
fill the primary needs of (nurture) their members very well.
That suggests the epidemic effects of the lethal [wounds + unawareness]
proposed in this nonprofit site.
This
article focuses on an often-overlooked task for family adults -
intentionally balancing their many tasks and responsibilities and enjoying
their evolving family. Maintaining personal and family balance is specially
hard in average divorcing families and stepfamilies.
This article
assumes you're familiar with:..
What's the Problem?
Typical adults in our society...
-
have one or more jobs, and a career to develop; and...
-
a dwelling, vehicles, and appliances to
maintain; and they...
-
work hard to be responsible
parents, while...
-
occasionally socializing,
and perhaps doing some...
-
community or church volunteering, and...
-
spending time with relatives and friends, and...
-
buying and preparing food, eating, and cleaning
up, and...
And typical adults (like you?) also
periodically...
|
|
-
manage their assets
-
Watch TV
and movies
-
worship and meditate
-
enjoy entertainment
-
resolve problems
|
-
buy personal items
-
do
the laundry
-
exercise and bathe
-
sleep
6-8 hours
-
plan and go on trips
|
- And
occasionally, married
partners "find" (vs. make) time for sharing and intimacy.
Bottom
line: the ongoing demands of "normal life" and the complexity of
forming a stable, high-nurturance family require adults to (a) be clear
and aligned on their priorities and goals, and to (b) inten-tionally
strive for personal and family balances.
What is "Balance" in a Family Context?
Meditate on what you just read. Would you say
honestly that most recent days
you've felt consis-tently centered, calm, serene, energized, and balanced? Has your partner
(if any) felt those? What do your answers mean to you and your dependents, short
and long-term?
Why Don't Typical Adults
Stay Balanced?
Because of the pace and complexity of their inner and outer lives,
the ~1,000 adult clients I've met appear to often have frequent trouble
staying
centered (balanced). Therefore, key personal and family decisions are often impulsive,
unrealistic, and thoughtless.
The primary reason is that most adults appear
to be significantly
and have rarely
experi-enced prolonged inner and social balance and the
peace that it brings.
We
(GWCs) find it hard to imagine
balance, or believe we could get and
keep it, without some massive pain and sacrifices.
Our frenetic
often cause ceaseless mental chatter. This blocks vital personal
- the foundation of all four levels of balance. Typical Americans
aren't aware of their unaware-ness and its high costs...
Secondly, our
wounded, unaware society and media relentlessly focus us on speed, gratification, excitement, acquisition, and
doing;
not awareness,
and
inner peace. One cost of our privileged
American lifestyle is that most middle and upper-class people have too many
choices available on how to spend their money and time. Less fortunate
people must hustle just to survive.
A related cost is the accelerating pace
of environmental change that the current
population and tech-nology explosions force on us. Relatively few of us
intentionally choose a simple, well-paced life with few belongings and
selected mindful activities. Can you name anyone who does this among the
people you know?
A
third reason widespread unbalance is that typical
(and many busy females)
are program-med to value action and achievement over inner awareness, reflection, and
serenity. To survive and support their kids, many blue-collar
parents and divorced women are forced by their situations to be
frantically busy every day. Do you know such people any who want to take the time to
find their daily balance?
How
many people do you know who had parents who values and modeled
self-aware personal and marital balance? Did yours?
Your grandparents? Do your kids' schools offer classes in personal meditation and "living
mindfully" (i.e. with present-moment
How Can Co-parents
Maintain Their Balance?
By patiently helping each other work at the
following steps as partners, not adversaries...
Prepare
|
Study the
vital skill of
Are
you developing and using it often? Are your caregiving partners? It's essential for
discerning and keeping your daily and situational priorities and balances. As part of awareness, notice the
difference between false-self
and
balances.
|
Take stock -
each co-parent honestly evaluate whether
they've thoroughly
themselves for false-self wounds. If they (you) did and concluded that you're
probably or surely wounded, then honestly confront what you've done
about that. If you and others who know you well agree that you're in meaningful true personal
then go ahead with this
balancing project.
If not,
stop.
Without
your
(capital "S") to
harmonize and lead your
(personality), my experience is that
finding and keeping personal + marital + home + family balances is unlikely. This
applies to each of your
co-parents.
Each co-parent study Lessons
Build a clear wide-angle,
long-range vision of the many family-building goals and subtasks you all are trying to achieve together
over many years. Ideally, you'll have begun refining that in a thoughtful
multi-home
together
Balancing requires
noticing and keeping discomforts (needs) within tolerable levels. Communication
aims to fill
here invites your co-parents to learn,
model, and teach your kids communication basics and seven powerful
over time.
Doing this together is probably the second most powerful tool you can
acquire to keep your balances.
Reducing false-self wounds is the first, and learning and teaching
others your family
and what it
is third.
Each of
you adults sharpen your awareness of what's possible here by reading about and discussing
four levels of balance:
personal + re/marital + household + family.
Get undistracted, and meditate
on your childhood years. Think of typical mornings, dinnertimes, and weekends.
Form a non-blaming opinion of the frequency and steadiness of personal,
marital, and household balances
that your caregivers modeled and promoted for you. Assess how that affected you and any siblings, long-term.
Can
you think of friends' caregivers who seemed more balanced, or less
so? Have you ever been
in a group who's leaders were often
centered
and grounded? If not,
you may not know what a balanced leader in a balanced group
feels like!
Get quiet, and
form as vivid a picture as you can of your (step)kids when they're middle aged, as a group.
They'll probably have kids of their own. Imagine asking the group what would have been
most valuable to them across their earlier years - you co-parents being
busy and productive,
or being often tranquil, calm, clear, and centered.
Try
not to focus on why that is or was difficult. If your real kids are old enough, ask their
honest opinions now. Have they ever experienced you co-parents as staying
balanced
on all four levels? If not, they can't really answer your question yet.
Review your recent
personal and re/marital
as judged by your actions, not
your words. How important - really - is "keeping my
personal and other balances each day? If this doesn't rank in - say -
your top five priorities, the rest of these Lesson-12 articles may be of
little use to you. Discounting or paying only lip-service to daily
personal balance is usually one symptom of significant false-self
wounds.
Review your
and co-parental
Is staying balanced on the four levels a part of those
guides? If so, are you partners acting on that? If not, are you
truly
motivated to add balance to these family-building tools?
Evaluate:
Periodically, each of you co-parents assess your recent
personal,
marital,
and family bal-ance levels.
This is not about blame or perfectionism. It's about refreshing your awareness, clarity,
and de-dication. Discuss your results with each other as
and
see if you want to
(a) do something dif-ferent, and/or (b) affirm something you're already doing!
Consider including feedback from kids and others who know you...
Maintain
Put these
where you all can
see them, and help each other
use them to promote your balances, and nurture your
growth and lives as
you go.
Stay
aware of your option to use qualified
to help
you get and stay more balanced on any of the four levels.
Contribute
If you belong to a family support group, consider
periodically devoting
a meeting to this key project.
Periodically
review together what you're teaching your minor and grown kids about the four
balances. What will give you the most satisfaction
when you're old?
Enjoy!
The second half of this
overarching family Project is to consciously help each other appreciate small
and major satisfactions from evolving a harmonious,
family
despite many challenges. Working patiently together to gain the
real benefits being a balanced
family is one of the most (potentially) satisfying and
rewarding activities you can choose.
The closeness, companionship,
sharing, stimulation, warmth, and support you all can patiently co-create
are truly priceless. Balanced co-parents and mates will want to make (vs. find) time to do this often enough, and
to encourage their children and kin to do the same.
Co-parents who enjoy being who they are as unique gifted, persons with
limitations are probably most apt to enjoy their family experience. Do
you usually enjoy being you, most days? Does your partner
enjoy who s/he is?
If so, your
are
probably guiding your
and you're serenely
trusting in and connected to your
Option:
periodically use this strengths inventory together to help you all appreciate the
good things you're co-creating together...
Easy Does It: Help each other to stay aware of the wisdom in this
motto: "Progress, not
Perfection!" If your three or more co-parents are personally
and collectively balanced, you'll not need any conscious
attention to as you patiently progress on your version of these
Before we finish this overview, try a...
Reality Check
Take a few undistracted minutes to sense where you stand with staying
balanced, and enjoying your family-building challenges. T = True;
F = False, and ? = "I'm torn or unsure now," or "It depends
on..."
My
true Self is
my personality
now (T F ?)
I generally agree
that each of our co-parents valuing our
four levels of balance
is good for us and
our kids short and long-term. (T F ?)
I feel personally
balanced more than 70% of the time these days (T F ?)
I feel
that recently, my partner and
I (if any) are well-balanced relative to our
more than 70% of
the time (T F ?)
I feel comfortable
and motivated to discuss the four levels of balance with
each of our
co-parents now.
(T F ?)
Staying balanced is
among my top five life daily priorities now. (T F ?)
I like what we
co-parents are teaching the kids in our lives about the four levels of
balance; or if not, I'm steadily motivated to improve that now.
(T F ?)
I
enjoy the challenge
and process of building our complex multi-home family often enough
now; or if not, I'm motivated to improve that now. (T F
?)
Each of our other
co-parents would answer these items as "True" now. (T F ?)
Something I just learned
from this reality check is... (what?)
+ + +
Option:
print and
use this summary at anniversaries or troubled times to help you
all (a) keep your wide-angle, long-range perspective, and/or (b) identify things that are unbalancing one or more of you.
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article. Did you get
what you needed? If so, what do you need now? If not - what
you need? Is there anyone you want to
discuss these ideas with?
Who's answering these
questions - your wise resident
or
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