Finding Balance through Resilience

One of the "fun" perks of pregnancy is that you are always growing in one direction: forward.  I keep running into things, because my stomach is growing more than I realize or because I’m a bit off balance. I’ve never had the best sense of balance…I’m not the best bike rider…but I am very good at resilience--falling down and getting back up again.  Ironically(divinely/thankfully), I returned to my yoga practice a few weeks before we got pregnant, and I have kept it up since then with a few necessary modifications. I do a lot more “table-tops” and “child’s pose” and I avoid “forward folds” and “downward dogs”.  At first I avoided the balance poses, because I was afraid I might fall.  Then one of my teachers said, “Those will be the most important for you now. Your weight is shifting every day, so the more balance poses you do, the more you can adjust to the changes happening in your body.” 

I had never thought of deep squats or “Sunflowers”(my yoga instructor really calls them that!) as balance exercises, but as I get bigger, it almost makes me giggle when I feel like falling forward.  Like the Sunflower balancing her head of seeds, my belly is growing with size and weight! Every time I show up for yoga, I get to rediscover what’s happening to my body, and it helps me find balance later in the day. Even simple arm and leg extensions, like “bird dogs”, seem confusing to my body some mornings. Once I wrap my brain around what my body can and can’t do, I am able to make safe choices and feel more agile throughout the day.

The balance exercises do more to strengthen my muscles than to secure me to the ground.  I find that it’s more about having the muscle tone for resilience than the “rock-solid” sense of balance. This has been a major turning point for me with yoga, but also when it comes to life. I had always thought that balance came from this unwavering sense of solidness, and yet, in reality, my balance comes from my strength and practice of resilience.

Last week I preached about Philippians 4, and I keep getting drawn back into these encouraging words from Paul.  “Rejoice in all things…I have discovered the secret to finding contentment in plenty and in want…I can do all things through Christ, the one who gives me strength.”  Growing up, I was always trying to reach this pinnacle of spirituality with unwavering faith.  I worked hard to lean on God and prayed fervently for this secret to finding a balance of the heart once I became “strong enough” through Christ.  The trouble was that every time I started to feel a bit stronger, life would rip the rug right out from underneath me again.  I refuse to see my hand injury or the loss of our first baby as “trails from God to make us stronger.”  The God I worship brings life out of death, not the other way around.  

Nevertheless, when I look back on these challenges, contentment didn’t rise out of a sense of unwavering faith. My faith wavered so much I felt more like one of those flailing air inflatables outside a car dealership. Like those people of fabric, I kept falling on my face, but the breath of God helped me find the strength to get back up again.  Little did I know that during these embarrassing moments when I lost my balance of faith, I was gaining the strength to believe again.  This strength of resilience pushes me to find beauty and hope through each circumstance. This is what I think Paul was getting at when he encouraged his friends to “rejoice in all things.”  When we show up to rejoice, to search for beauty, to commit to hope, to offer thanks, we build the muscles to keep returning to faith.  Even on the days when we can’t see the beauty or our voice is frozen and can’t rejoice, when we at least show up and give it a try, we can acknowledge the big things that are happening in our lives and making this search for balance so hard.  When we ignore these changes, we might find it easier to say, “Rejoice,” but we will fail at finding contentment and true joy.  Acknowledging these changes allows us to breathe deeper, bend further, and find a balance strengthened by the muscles we built by getting up after we fall.

May you also find the strength to continue on your journey of hope by exercising your muscles for resilience. And may the balance you find connect you with the peace of God which surpasses all understanding and guards our hearts and minds as we reach out for the next big thing!

Read more of Philippians 4 by clicking here.

PS. My favorite app for all kinds of yoga and especially prenatal yoga is Yoga Studio. Here's a link for GooglePlay and iPhone.  And honestly...you don't have to be pregnant to do prenatal yoga...anyone looking to "give birth" to a new season of their life will find that it can open up your hips and open up your heart;)