Flux

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

There are so many things I’ve learned that would have been helpful earlier in my life. Conscious breathing comes to mind, but the one thing I’ve learned most recently, is about regulation.

I used to think that when a thing was ‘fixed’ it should stay fixed, forever. I’m not sure where this thinking came from. I, who sat at my Grandfathers side while he fixed lawn mower engines and mini bikes, pumps and boat motors, repeatedly. Somehow, I’m not sure why, I thought things should stay fixed.

Did you know that airplanes are off course much of the time? They need to constantly be redirected to stay on course. Some expensive car engines need to be finely tuned often. Musical instruments are constantly needing tuning. Nature is always adjusting.

I spent way too much of my life looking to be fixed, trying this, reading that, looking for a single solution that would make everything fall into place and make sense. And stay that way. Each time I fell back or became dysregulated, I would consider it a fail and start searching once again.

When I finally started to understand that it’s normal to fall in and out of balance. It’s fine to do so quite regularly, everything alive does (and so do things that aren’t). When I took this in, something like a light bulb went on for me. I was able see myself differently. I could see the world differently.

I’m a process person. I am generally involved in some project almost all of the time. There’s a goal of completion, for sure, but most of my time working is spent not in completion, which I love. It’s funny I never looked at it like this. I really believed that being in and out of balance or out of a regulated state was a problem. I had to get it solved and then it was supposed to stay solved.

Yes. It’s perfectly normal to be dysregulated. The goal was never to be regulated one hundred percent of the time. I wish I’d known that when I was younger.

I love knowing that ‘out’ is just as normal, if not more common, than ‘in’ when we’re talking about balance. It’s natural to seek it but it’s all a perfect process of everything going in and out, This is happening ALL of the time. Dysregulation isn’t bad, it’s just what happens. I can always be moving toward what feels better. Me and everything else in nature. If I’d known this when I was younger, I might have been easier on myself.

Today, I have better questions to ask myself when I’m feeling out of balance. I know that a dysregulated moment or day won’t last forever, and I know some things to do to change course so that I’m heading where I’d like to be heading. (Like an airplane). This is comforting information that may have been nice at a young age.

I guess maybe I’m making up for it with books about breathing and regulating. My latest book about Beatrix Butterfly is a metaphor on how every life stage is important. One stage can not be without the others. Not knowing this led me in so many interesting directions. Looking back, I guess not knowing was part of it.