Balance is the key to serenity.

At an AA meeting this morning the topic of balance was suggested.  I have always felt that my life was pretty well balanced.  I exercise.  I eat well.  I have many friends, a great relationship with my husband, and my work life is very satisfying.  However, I am also exploring the idea of working less.  How would that feel?  Must I always be busy?  In past years I’d say yes.  I needed to be answering the “call” to write and saying yes to all of the invitations I received to facilitate workshops or speak at luncheons or dinners.  The idea of cutting back has been uncomfortable.  Who would I be if I weren’t writing or “carrying the message” through workshops or seminars?

I have been stymied by these questions, actually.  My “purpose” has been to do what I have been doing since my first book was published in 1982.  I have often said I’d probably never retire, at least from writing.  And that felt sensible.  It still does, kind of.  But since I completed my last book in November of last year, The Good Stuff, a book detailing the plusses of growing up in a dysfunctional family, I have not begun another one.  That’s 10 months without a book in the works. And for me, that’s a big deal!  The Good Stuff  hasn’t been published yet, but it will be in print in early October and available (already listed on amazon.com), from amazon, bookstores and the publisher: Conari. But I have never sat on the sidelines before.  Never.  And it feels rather nice.  I’m surprised by that.

Surprised and hopeful.  I don’t want to “have to work” to feel okay.  How many times have I talked about this very topic in my books and workshops?  Many, I can assure you and here I am, struggling with it myself.  Or I thought I was struggling.  Until this morning.  And suddenly I feel pretty good about taking this hiatus from my writing life.  I have even begun to flirt with the idea of writing nothing more.  I am “trying that on” to see how it feels.  What I feel is freedom.  A good kind of freedom.  I don’t have to be driven.  I am still the same caring woman whether I’m writing or not.  Or giving workshops or not.  My purpose is to be: to be kind; to be an expression of love wherever I am; to be forgiving of any “imagined” transgression.  My purpose is to appreciate that who I meet has needed to be met by me.  Who I listen to has needed to share her/his ideas with me.  My so-called job is just to show up in this world as One of God’s loving expressions.  That job is as important as any words I have ever written or spoken.  How good I feel sharing this with you.  How good indeed!