Balance is essential to our existence. It is integral in becoming integrated humans, as we seek out both the light and dark parts of our beings. Grief, depression, despair and anxiety are natural parts of the human experience. When we avoid these parts of ourselves, we fall more victim to our addiction and our mental health spirals downward. We may become angry, repressed, or even hurtful to others. For me, listening to slow music such as the chanting of Deva Premal or Shantala, or classical music, I can learn to sit with these more difficult feelings. I may do this as I sit and meditate or when I take a bath. These are times for me to feel sensations in my body and being, without words necessarily. I can find hope in the darker places as I learn to navigate my way out of such emotions. Even though I am well medicated for the serious diagnosis of Schizoaffective disorder- bipolar type, I find that I am still a human being with deep emotions, longings and actual psychological pain. Recently I lowered one medication, and completely went off of another because of increased mental stability. This has been such a blessing in my life as I have watched some of my sensitivities and awarenesses return. I am more in touch with my body, and my perceptions are heightened. Still, there has been a slight downfall; I have been increasingly sensitive to things like caffeine or exercise, and I have had to learn to manage anxiety that was not there before when I was heavily medicated. Still, I am grateful to be on less medication.

Anxiety is fear. They say that depression or despair can be repressed anger. Grief is a natural thing that we experience that takes the form of deep sadness. Other difficult emotions one may experience are feelings of defeat, futility or worry. This is okay. It is okay to live and experience darker moments in our lives. We can even find meaning, motivation and hope when we visit and entertain these darker forces. We can also employ exercises such as recovery meetings, painting, journaling, chanting or meditating, in order to get in touch with these places within ourselves. Constantly seeking joy, happiness or pleasure, we begin to chase these emotions around the sun and this may even fuel our addictions or cause more extreme symptoms such as mania. The important thing we must remember when experiencing anxiety, depression or grief, is that we want to become an observer, then accept, then detach, release or let go of the emotion. We do not want to feed it, or crucify ourselves. This is what self-harm looks like. I have been fortunate enough in this life to never practice physical self-harm, and I have never been suicidal. I find this amazing and even hard to believe considering my significant struggle with mental illness. Slowly, as we nurture our darker places, and don’t get too excited about our lighter places, we cull a sense of emotional balance in our lives.

Those of us with addictive families, or those of us that struggle with addiction, are all too familiar with the feeling of things being out of balance. It becomes a give and take in our lives to manage our self care. Sometimes we may find it important to motivate and encourage ourselves towards certain activities, and sometimes we may need to listen to a softer voice that is asking us to sit still and rest and nurture our emotional beings. Depending on if we gravitate towards overdoing it, or under doing it, we may need to push ourselves a little in the contradictory direction in order to nurture a sense of balance. This has been a life long lesson for me. Coming from a family that has the family system of addiction and alcoholism, as well as being raised by post traumatic and narcissistic tendencies, I have found self-worth can sometimes only exist when I am accomplishing something. I have an elusive sense of dread, thinking I have done something wrong when I haven’t. I have deep shame about my psychotic tendencies. I have needed to learn to love and take care of myself in order to develop my own personal principles and values and not live my life as a people pleaser. I have discussed this at great length with my therapist. I achieved perfection for many years, and education at the collegiate level landed me in the psych ward three different times. All three times I was hospitalized it was because I was enrolled in college. Avoiding school in my adult years, I have been able to avoid the hospital, and this coming Spring it will be eighteen years since my last hospitalization. More recently in life, I have suffered from some episodes where I avoided the hospital, but I can say that I experienced these episodes because I was not taking great care to become aware of balance in my life.

Practicing balance is a life long journey. Sometimes we push ourselves too far in any one direction because we think it is right, we are trying to achieve something, we are seeking perfection, or because our family systems or society is telling us to. It is okay to free ourselves from these false expectations. It is okay to do the work to find ourselves buried underneath all of our dark emotions. But it takes work, awareness, self-care and love.