The World Doesn’t Have to Be Steady for you to Find Your Balance

There is something interesting about the way we humans approach uncertainty.

We seem to have convinced ourselves that in order to feel peaceful, everything around us must first settle down.

The finances need to be secure. The relationships need to be harmonious. The family needs to be happy. Our health needs to be good. And, if it's not too much to ask, could the rest of the world please stop losing its mind for five minutes?

Then, and only then, we tell ourselves, we can relax.

Well, how's that working out for everybody?

Because from where I'm sitting, life doesn't appear particularly interested in standing still long enough for us to get comfortable.

And maybe that's the point.

The Illusion of Solid Ground

During a recent meditation, I found myself traveling upward through what looked like an enormous strand of DNA.

When I reached the top, I discovered a stack of smooth stones, balanced one upon another, much like the stones you might see beside a meditation fountain.

Naturally, I climbed up and stood on top of them.

I remember looking down and thinking how precarious the whole arrangement appeared.

One wrong movement, one shift in weight, and surely the whole thing would come tumbling down.

Except it didn't.

I stood there, perfectly steady.

The stones hadn't suddenly transformed into a solid foundation. They were still stacked in a way that looked completely unreliable.

But I was balanced.

And that distinction has stayed with me.

Perhaps stability isn't always about what is holding us up. Perhaps sometimes it's about what we've discovered within ourselves.

When the Ground Begins to Shift

Think about the things that have unsettled you over the years.

A relationship ending. A job changing. An unexpected diagnosis. A financial challenge. A family situation that simply refuses to resolve itself.

Or perhaps nothing dramatic has happened at all. Maybe you're simply standing at a crossroads, knowing something in your life needs to change but having absolutely no idea what comes next.

Our first instinct is often to grab hold of something familiar.

We want assurances. We want answers. We want someone, somewhere, to promise us that everything will turn out exactly as we hope.

And when those assurances don't arrive, we begin imagining all the things that could go wrong.

We're remarkably talented at that, aren't we?

We can turn one unanswered question into seventeen imaginary disasters before we've even finished our morning coffee.

But here's something worth considering.

Uncertainty is not the same thing as danger.

Something changing does not automatically mean something is falling apart.

And not knowing what happens next does not mean we are incapable of handling whatever comes.

What If It's Being Rearranged?

There was another part of that meditation that fascinated me.

After standing on those stones, I was shown the Earth surrounded by an enormous gridlike structure. I could see beings of light working on different sections of it.

And my immediate thought?

"Well, that can't be good!"

I have to laugh at myself a little.

Here I was, watching what appeared to be light-filled activity, and my human mind immediately decided there must be a problem.

Not because I knew anything was wrong.

Simply because something was being worked on.

How often do we do exactly that in our everyday lives?

Something shifts, and we assume it's a setback.

A door closes, and we decide we've failed.

A familiar situation changes, and we immediately begin mourning the security we thought it provided.

But what if some of the changes we resist are actually creating room for something different?

What if what looks like disruption is sometimes reorganization?

What if the pieces aren't necessarily falling apart?

What if they're finding a new way to fit together?

That doesn't mean every difficult change is wonderful or that we should pretend painful experiences don't hurt.

Some changes are genuinely hard. Some losses deserve to be grieved. Some circumstances require real action, support, and difficult decisions.

But we don't have to assign every unfamiliar moment the meaning of disaster before we've even discovered what it holds.

The Difference Between Stillness and Stability

I think we've confused being grounded with having everything around us remain unchanged.

But those are two very different things.

Stillness belongs to the environment.

Stability belongs to us.

You can sit in a perfectly quiet room and have a mind racing in a hundred directions.

You can also find yourself in the middle of a chaotic day, with plans changing and people pulling at your attention, and still know exactly where your center is.

Being grounded doesn't mean nothing can shake you.

It means you've learned how to find your footing again when something does.

It means recognizing when fear is writing a story that hasn't actually happened.

It means allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable without immediately believing something is wrong.

And sometimes it means taking the next step even when you cannot see the entire staircase.

Or, as another one of my recent meditations reminded me, crawling across the bridge when everyone else seems perfectly comfortable jogging.

There is no requirement that we navigate uncertainty the same way someone else does.

Our balance doesn't have to look like anybody else's.

Finding Your Center in the Middle of Change

So how do we begin developing this kind of inner stability?

I believe it starts with a willingness to stop demanding that life become predictable before we allow ourselves to feel peaceful.

When something unexpected happens, instead of immediately following every frightening possibility into the future, bring yourself back to the moment you're actually living.

Ask yourself:

What do I know to be true right now?

Not what am I afraid might happen tomorrow.

Not what happened five years ago.

Not what someone else thinks I should be doing.

What is true in this moment?

Perhaps you're uncertain about the future, but today you're safe.

Perhaps you don't have every answer, but you know the next small step.

Perhaps you're frightened, but you've navigated difficult circumstances before.

And perhaps, just perhaps, you're stronger and steadier than you've been giving yourself credit for.

You don't have to solve your entire life in one afternoon.

You don't have to hold every piece together.

And you certainly don't have to control the entire world in order to feel grounded within your own.

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is plant our feet, soften our shoulders, take a breath, and remind ourselves:

I can be steady even when life is not.

A Final Thought from My Heart to Yours

I keep returning to those stones.

They looked as though they shouldn't have been able to support me.

Yet there I stood.

Not gripping desperately for something to hold onto. Not trying to rearrange the stones into something more reassuring.

Simply standing.

Balanced.

And perhaps that's the invitation for all of us.

To stop measuring our ability to find peace by how cooperative life happens to be on any given day.

To recognize that change is not always our enemy.

To remember that even when the world appears to be rearranging itself, we are not required to fall apart along with it.

Maybe the lesson isn't learning how to keep everything around us from shifting.

Maybe it's discovering that we can remain grounded even while life rearranges itself.

And perhaps the next time the ground beneath our feet feels uncertain, instead of immediately asking, "What is going wrong?" we might ask:

"What is finding its way into place?"

Because the world doesn't have to stop moving for us to find our balance.

And neither do we.

With love, light, and a little laughter along the journey,

Theri Edwards

Visionary Light Journey

***Trust your footing. Honor your pace. Your center travels with you.