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Where’s Your Center of Balance?
Once upon a time, I was a marathon runner. So I was intrigued when a friend mentioned a radio story she’d heard about a new technique to help people run more easily and with fewer injuries. As my friend described it, the technique has to do with shifting your center of balance so that you have to run or you’ll fall over.
My running days are behind me, so I haven’t tried this out. (My friend says it’s “interesting.” I think she’s not quite convinced.) But it got me thinking about the ways in which just shifting your balance a little bit can either help or hinder momentum.
I talk often with my clients about resistance. Resistance can be obvious (the kicking and screaming sort) or more subtle (the mild distraction sort — “I think I’ll get a cup of tea”). Everyone experiences both at one point or another.
In resistance, your center of balance is behind you. Internally, you’re leaning back, away from what you’re resisting. You may recognize your resistance, and part of you may want what you’re resisting, but with your center of balance so far behind you, you can’t move forwards. It’s like trying to get up from a chair while simultaneously leaning into the backrest; it doesn’t work.
Resistance feels like being stuck. It arises out of fear — generally fear of the unknown. The voice of resistance often sounds very reasonable: “You don’t need to do this. It probably won’t work anyway. You don’t know what will happen — why not just stick with what you do know. You have lots of better, more important, more productive, more useful (etc., etc.) things to do...”
Resistance is your mind leaning back in the chair of what it knows and denying the larger desire to get up, to take that step into the unknown.
How can you get your mind to sit up, lean forward, shift that center of balance, and take a chance? Here are a few pointers.
Be a Mad Scientist
Your mind loves to think and problem-solve; that’s what minds do, and yours does it well. So give it a problem to solve. Not the problem of how to overcome resistance; that just plays deeper into it. Instead, consider what you’re resisting as a challenge, something to be curious about, something to try out, play with, have fun with.
For instance, if it’s meditation (a common target of resistance for many of my clients), you might experiment with different times of day or different locations. If you love walking on the beach, meditate as you walk — or find a convenient bench or rock, and just sit for a while watching the waves and the wind.
It’s Probably Not Permanent
Remind yourself that almost every choice you make can be re-chosen differently. If you don’t like what happens when you get out of the chair, you can always sit back down.
My clients often view decisions as irrevocable — but they’re not. If something doesn’t work out as you’d like, you can always try some other option.
There’s Never Just One Way
Sometimes the resistance is more about the approach than the thing itself. As I indicated above about meditation, there are always more ways to approach something than you can imagine. You may have boxed yourself in by believing in one single, monolithic Right Way.
How many different ways can you see to try something new? Get a little wacky and silly with it, and then pick one and go for it. The fun you’ll have in coming up with as many wacky ideas as you can will shift your center of balance and have you leaning forward with interest and even excitement.
Just Feel It
Close your eyes and feel where your center of balance is, deep inside. Are you leaning back, your heels dug in, denying the pull of what you’re resisting?
Gently imagine yourself letting go of the tug-of-war, letting the resistance go slack, putting down the burden of your struggle. Imagine yourself leaning forward, just a little bit, with curiosity and willingness.
How does it feel? What happens inside you as you make this shift?
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, German-born, Swiss and U.S. citizen, theoretical physicist and winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics.
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