Harmony vs. Balance

Let’s talk about harmony versus balance.

When you think about the word balance, what comes up for you? What do you feel? What do you experience in your body when you hear the word balance? What does that represent to you? Is it something you feel capable of? Do you find that you have some resistance to balance?

Now think about the word harmony. What comes up for you? How does harmony feel to you? Does it feel different than balance or the same? Do you notice any kind of shift or a different kind of awareness when comparing the two?

Up until about 10-15 years ago, I always struggled to be balanced. I was struggling to have balance in my home life. I was struggling to balance my children. I was challenged by creating balance in their day-to-day lives, and having balance between my personal life and my business. It always felt like a challenge, and I would naturally feel resistance toward the word balance. It felt like if I did something a little bit this way, I had to hurry and fix it or readjust to make it equal that way. So my goal was always trying to be exactly even–kind of like a balance beam. And so, if I’m on a balance beam and my arm goes a little bit up, then I very likely will fall unless I hurry and counterbalance the other way.

Trying to create balance in my life was a lot of work. It took a lot of energy and constant redirection of mindfulness, awareness, and energy. I always felt defeated before I ever started. I struggled with not feeling good enough like I couldn’t achieve or attain my goals because I found the concept of balance to be incredibly challenging. And I pushed against that and had a lot of resistance towards it.

Then one day my Spirit said to me, “It’s not balance you’re after, it’s harmony.”

It’s not balance?

You see the people outside of me–the teachers, peers, books I was reading, the energy I was observing–always said “balance.” So when my Spirit said, “it’s not balance you’re after, it’s harmony,” I had to really think about it. Well, “What is harmony? What does harmony mean to me? And how does harmony feel?” The moment I heard the word harmony, it immediately felt good. Harmony. Yes!

Balance felt restrictive. Balance felt controlled. Balance felt like a constant effort.

Harmony. Harmony feels like flow. Harmony feels like flexibility. Harmony feels like gentleness.

Spirit gave me the vision of a band–a guitarist, a singer, a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboardist. When the drums and guitar are being played at the same time, they could be in harmony. Then if you add the singer, that could still be in harmony. Maybe the singer drops off and the keyboards and bass come in and they could still be in harmony. And when all of the instruments are being played simultaneously, it is all in harmony. And when they drop out or pause, you can also have harmony.

That was the first image of harmony I got. And I was like, “I get that. It doesn’t always have to be on. It does not always have to be right here, centered, where every little movement has to be counterbalanced. There can be ebbs and flows. There can be breaks, there can be starts and stops.”

As I started to become more curious about harmony and bring more awareness to it, it began showing up in different ways. For instance, if we are planning to take a little vacation from work or a long weekend we may work 10 hours a day instead of eight so that we can take an extra day off. It’s an ebb and flow of energy where even though you put a lot in on the front end, the ending result is harmony. It’s not an “As soon as I take this step, I have to take that step to not be out-of-balance.”

So I thought this concept might be helpful to share. When you think about allowing harmony into your life, think about music and how harmony exists with a variety of different instruments playing or not playing–or harmonizing. Maybe you’re working one day and then you’re not, or you’re spending a lot of time interacting with people and then you’re not, or you’re working on six hours of sleep one day and maybe 10 hours the next.

Sometimes we have a tendency to be so structured and feel as if we have to do every single thing equally that there isn’t much room for “play,” for Spirit to come in and create flow. Balance is synonymous with control and limitation–having to control just about our every move, every minute. Harmony is synonymous with flow, trusting the process, allowing Spirit to come in and guide, inspire, direct, create, and synchronize.

Remember: when we get into harmony, we allow Spirit to guide us. We allow space for our intuition. We allow opportunities for connection. We allow the universe to line up for us and synchronicities to happen. It doesn’t mean we’re not busy or making plans but that we’re structured with availability, openness, and possibility.