The moment of equinox, when day and night are perfectly balanced, is nothing more than a named moment in the continuous transition between seasons. The other named moments, summer solstice and winter solstice, are equally transient.

Just because they’re named doesn’t make them destinations!

Our LIVES are lived through how we BE during transition. Within the ebb and flow. Moving with – or against – the natural rhythms that make our existence.

That tender, precarious moment as the energy swings through infinity, the “pause between” the one and the other, is inherently unstable in a dynamic reality. As the earth balances between equal measures day and night, the very next moment, the longer of the two reverses. Day-longer-than-night shifts seamlessly through that moment to night-longer-than-day.

The same on a 24 hour cycle: Mid-day moves to mid-night through dusk and back through dawn. But who would WANT to live in a never-ending “balance” realm of twilight?

Struggling to hoard more of the one – or more of the other – is hopeless. Futile. Disconnecting and stressful. The ancient Inca may have thought they could tether the sun to the Intihuatana, but when we try to stretch out our days…

We’re not seeking balance.
We’re seeking control.
And that shit is exhausting!

Yet so often my business clients want to define, and hold on to, some static notion of “work life balance” where we never feel the pull of the tides. How much energy can we free when we stop imagining and striving for a make-believe static perfection in a dynamic reality??

Honoring the larger rhythm, we know the reversal will come. It will all balance out over time. When we tap into the underlying rhythm and cycle, and find our natural, joyful bed time AND waking time, our entire health and wellbeing improves. And when we allow ourselves to recognize and relax into underlying rhythms and cycles, and find our natural, joyful connecting and creating and  calm and clarity cycles, our entire wellbeing experience improves in all areas of our One Life – work AND family AND community AND self AND…

Burning your candle at both ends only has one possible outcome: Burnout. Not burning out your business. Not burning out your family. It burns out YOUR light, your life force. Which leaves your entire sphere of influence in the dark.

Rather than attempting to splinter your calendar by equal or static parts “personal” and “professional” time, or block out some ideal day structure, organize the tasks you want to do and the events you want to attend by the rhythm and flow of your energies of aliveness. (Then you can consider adding the “shoulds.”)

The little kids “have to” get up and catch the bus? What's your “want to” behind that? Would you really rather homeschool? Or wait 30 minutes but drive them yourself? Or, if you're really honest, do you WANT them ON that darn bus??

You “have to” be on your mastermind call over lunch? Where's your choice behind that? You could listen to the recording, or skip it, or leave the group. But chances are you WANT to be live on that call. So you prioritize that.

And when the inevitable spill-over comes and something to do with work spills over into time the kids are expecting you? You get to model for them how to own your choosing and work with the rhythms. This is what it sometimes looks like to be an entrepreneur rather than an employee (although that spills over more often than not these days, too).

If that “sometimes” becomes all the time, or even most of the time, it's time for you to take a radically honest look at the way your business is set up and how some automation and delegation can put you back in the flow of your own, full LIFE!