“The only way we can know balance is by knowing imbalance.”
I heard that quote in a yoga class this weekend, and it got
me thinking (luckily after the class was over – mostly). When I was a child, I
was complaining about winter, and a friend of mine reminded me that winter
makes spring all the more beautiful. Thus, from a fairly young age, I have
known that we can really ever know something fully by embracing its opposite.
This concept works energetically too, of course. Fear and excitement are really
the same energy; it is our mind that places a different meaning on them, or it,
really.
Finally, law is certainly no different. The best lawyers
know their opponents’ arguments better than their opponents know them. It is
the only way to be sure to be able to counter them. I did not listen to the
entire Supreme Court argument on the Affordable Care Act, but I think I heard
that either Justice Kennedy or Justice Scalia said to Paul Clement, “this is
not a surprise question, I hope.” Of course, I could be totally wrong, but the
sentiment is there. Paul Clement, the highest-ranking legal advocate in the
country, is expected to be prepared when he faces those nine justices. And part
of being prepared is knowing how other people are going to attack your
argument.
I say this to point out that these thoughts and
understandings about knowing opposites have permeated my life, my yoga journey,
and the legal practice. Yet I had never put any thought into imbalance and its
keys to understanding balance. What an opportunity for lawyers and any modern
people. I would be willing to bet we are, as a society, at our least balanced
in history, and I was not even thinking of the political realm when I wrote
that. I was thinking about all of the various aspects of our lives pulling us
in so many directions at once. We talk about work-life balance as if learning
to balance between the two is going
to make it all better, forgetting that we have to learn to balance within each of them as well.
But as of April 1, 2012, April Fool’s Day, imbalance took on
a new meaning for me, an opportunity really. Prior to this, my favorite quote about balance came from
another yoga class, one with Frank Jude Boccio, who teaches Mindfulness Yoga.
He said to the class as we stood in Tree Pose, “There is no such thing as
balance, only balancing.” What a beautiful ability to let go of the struggle to
find perfect balance. I embraced it and ran.
But it still focuses on balance from balance’s point of
view. To truly know and understand what we mean by balance, whether we seek
perfect balance (perhaps unattainable) or a sense of balancing, we can only
fully understand and acknowledge it by understanding imbalance.
A new month is upon us. A new week is upon us. I do not know
about you, but my week is going to be very, very busy through Wednesday, and
then I am going out of town for the holiday. Instead of dreading the first
three days of the week and their unbalancing effects, I am going to embrace
them. To truly understand balance, we must understand imbalance.
I have been noticing the Earth understanding this concept
all weekend. It has, once again, been incredibly windy here in Tucson. Of
course, the Spring Equinox was only last week. For the briefest of moments, the
Earth was in perfect balance, and this happens twice a year. Not surprisingly,
these are the two times per year when the wind is at its most extreme – Autumn
(Fall for us Americans) and Spring.
What if we learned to do the same? What if we learned how to
find balance internally by witnessing and feeling the imbalance all around us?
Are you ready to embrace the imbalance?
Namaste!
©
Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.
