Imagine life as a river. Sometimes it flows smoothly and peacefully, and it’s calm and blue. Sometimes it can be rough and rocky, filled with deep, black, cold water, unexpected turbulence and boiling rapids. Other boats or obstacles can cross our paths, getting in our way, making us unstable, vulnerable and scared. We need to remain balanced in order to stay afloat.
In our daily lives, does the way we operate work for us? Depending on other people too much, or using unhelpful ways to cope, keeps our problem going, or even makes things worse. If we were floundering in our own canoe, and, we kept grabbing on to someone else’s canoe, we would both become unbalanced and capsize. If those people or ways of coping drift away from us, how would we manage?
We need to paddle our own canoe down the river of life and be prepared to face the turbulent times that threaten to throw us off balance.
Developing our resilience, being skillful and independent, will enable us to float alone when we need to, using effective and healthy ways of coping. We can take responsibility for making decisions about ourselves, whilst also having the wisdom to ask for help when we need it.
Recognising when we are out of balance means we can start to put things right. We can do this by using our personal matrix to monitor ourselves. We can counter-balance by making the changes required to bring us back to equilibrium.