4 Easy Ways to Find Balance in Life

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Is Balance Getting Everything Done?

When I first became a mother, I thought I’d found balance in life and my new role by not worrying about certain things anymore. I realized it wasn’t worth my time to iron napkins or overly stress on keeping the house spotless anymore. It wasn’t until my second was born, though, that I realized the “balance” I thought I’d achieved by letting certain things go wasn’t balance at all. Yes, I’d figured out which things to let go of to make time for my responsibilities as a mother, how to manage the household, how to be there for my oldest, how to be active in her school, how to be a wife, and how to do all the other things that needed to be done. But, I’d forgotten about a very major aspect of finding balance in life as a mother. I’d forgotten about myself.

Almost Dying Makes You Reevaluate

I thought I was taking time for myself when I’d veg out on the couch and watch TV. This wasn’t really feeding my soul or recharging myself, though. After a few years, it’s like I was just walking through life, not really participating. After my second was born, I ended up in the ICU due to an infection I’d picked up during labor. When I arrived in the ER, I was running a 104-degree temperature and was beet red. Shortly after arriving, I became unconscious.

Later, the admitting doctor told me that when he first saw me, he didn’t think I was going to make it. He said that when he was a resident, he saw a lady arrive in a similar state, and she didn’t. When I came around roughly four hours later, I was being moved to the ICU. I was put on three different IV antibiotics as they didn’t know what I had or exactly what else to do for me. It wasn’t until days later that they figured out what the infection was and that part of the reason my body had to fight so hard was due to it having a high antibiotic resistance and mortality rate. I was lucky.

Starting My Journey to a Balanced Life

By the time I was released from the hospital with my newborn, I had retained an excess of fluid from the IVs. So much that the clothes in my hospital bag did not fit. I was bigger than I had been when I was pregnant. My husband had to bring me my largest pair of sweatpants for me to be able to leave. Although I only spent two days in the ICU and another two in the postpartum room, my recovery was slow. I could barely move, and my body felt foreign. And I still had to take oral antibiotics. I was forced to take things slow and care for myself first. This felt very foreign to me (especially since I also had a newborn to care for). Thankfully my mom was there to help.

Through this experience, I realized the lack of balance in my life when it came to caring for myself. It was this recovery that started me on my self-care journey to find balance. I call it a journey because that is what it is. It’s a work in progress that I am still working on and learning about. I have come a long way, though, and now place my self-care much higher on the priority list.

4 Things for a Balanced Life

Here are the four things I did to find balance in life as a mother after leaving the ICU.

1. Be flexible

Even though I placed my self-care higher on the priority list, I realized that my list needed to constantly change—not necessarily the items on it but the position they held. I’ve learned that to maintain balance in life, I need to be flexible. I need to be able to change my focus and the time that is given to each depending on what is going on in my life. Sometimes something is going on that requires more attention than other things. This attention might be on me, like when I was recovering from giving birth to my second and being in the ICU. Sometimes it’s on a work project, my family, a friend that’s going through something, a goal I’m focusing on, or something else. Regardless of what’s taking more of my attention, I need to be able to adjust.

2. Choose it

To have balance in your life, you need to choose it. It’s always a choice. It may not always be easy, but we choose where to spend our time. To make sure we balance our time the way we want to, we need to know what is important to us. This ties back in with our priority list and being flexible. Without knowing what is important to us, though, it’s hard to choose the right things. We need to know what our values are and what we’re not willing to waiver on. For me, it’s my family, and I’ve chosen to adjust my life accordingly. There are no wrong answers to what is important to you or the values you hold. You just need to know what they are so you can choose them.

3. Self-care

The most important thing I did for myself was taking the time to heal. My slowly recovering body was proof positive that I needed to care for myself if I wanted to be able to care for my family again. To do that, I needed to find things that made me feel recharged and not just stare at the TV thinking that was helping. (In fact, it was doing the opposite as it kept me from getting the sleep my body really needed.)

So, I carved out time to read for fun again. I got back into crafting. My writing became a focus, and I worked on getting my foot in the door of the publishing world. I focused on sleep, drinking more water, eating healthy foods (and eating treats in moderation), and getting back to regular exercise. After my body recovered, I made sure to continue doing things I truly enjoyed that recharged myself. And I didn’t feel guilty about it.

4. Ask for help

Sometimes you need help to create a balanced life. After I got out of the hospital, I talked with my husband, I mean really talked with him, about the things I needed help with. Life with two kids is much different than life with one, especially in the beginning. Even though he was working on a huge project, he was there for me and gave me the support I needed. As I mentioned earlier, my mom was there as well. I knew I was going to need help adjusting to two kids, but I had no idea that I was also going to be recovering from a near-death experience. Thankfully we had made plans while I was pregnant for her to come for a visit around the time I was due. Her help was instrumental during my first few weeks of recovery.

I also talked with friends to see what they were doing for self-care and read books they recommended. I saw doctors and healers they thought could help. And most importantly, I just enjoyed connecting with them. That connection alone was a huge help.

Finding Balance in Your Own Life

So remember, be flexible, choose what’s important to you, practice self-care, and ask for help when you need it to find balance in your own life. Just the simple fact that you’re reading this tells me you will as you’re already on the path. Keep going! And if you want to read more about getting balance in your life, take a look at the Live Heart-Fully conversation I had with Wholeheartedly Sarah. For those of you who need help with the school year, take a look at my six tips to survive the school year.