Write with TLC

Balance... There's that word... We all say it all the time. We strive to create balance in our lives. We seek work-life balance. If only we could balance...  Balance... It's easy to see balance as some kind of Holy Grail that will magically make life perfect... But if you're anything like me, the word balance has become one that has you either grinding your teeth or rolling your eyes or both... Recently, I did a meditation on Insight Timer called Balance Meditation.  As the guide instructed me to breathe in to a count of four 1-2-3-4 and out counting backwards from four 4-3-2-1, I felt a slight resistance I couldn't quite explain. Yet, I often do this kind of breath work in my yoga practice without feeling a resistance. Finally, I settled into the breath pattern... and felt my body sway slightly before centering back into my starting position. After I finished the meditation, I wrote in my meditation journal as I do every day. As I wrote about balance and about

Friendship... Yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever... or not...  I recently read I Know How You Feel: The Joy and Heartbreak of Friendship in Women's Lives by F. Diane Barth. It struck a few nerves, well, more than a few. As I r ead about other women's experiences with friendship I couldn't help but remember friendships throughout my life - friendships with similar circumstances to those discussed in the book and ones that didn't come close to matching those circumstances.   I started thinking about  friendships that last and those that are fleeting as I discussed in a previous blog post,   Friendship: Forever or For Today? .  When I weighed the joy my friendships brought me against the heartbreak my friendships have brought me, there was more heartbreak than I expected. I've lost far more friends than I've kept over the years, which I suppose also means I've had more friendships than I initially realized. Some of those friends and I drifted apart as cir