The center is not always the point of balance. When you find that place where BALANCE is achieved, peace will result in all situations. There is no conflict, for everything rests without strain. – Daniel Levin

I have a secret I want to share with you. When I was an overworked entrepreneur, deeply entrenched in workaholic habits and tendencies, finding my focus was easy.

When I woke up in the morning, I knew exactly where I needed to direct my attention. When I felt my stomach growl mid-morning or mid-afternoon, I viewed it as a distraction, a quick matter that required me to divert my attention, but only briefly.

At night, as I lay in bed, I barely had to think and within a breath, items that required my focus came floating clearly and vividly into my thought process.

I spent a lot of time figuring out how to best manage my focus zone. I read books, I created an easy and effective homegrown system to track all that needed to be done. I blended together various time management techniques and systems to create something homegrown, something that worked very well for little ol’ unique me.

Yet when I went to Israel in August of 2008… a journey whose path was first begun at home in Norwood while squeezing in a quick shower one busy morning, a shower which in and of itself contains a journal entry I will have to share someday soon… yet when I was in Israel and visited the Western Wall, the first thing I prayed about was finding that ever elusive balance.

I knew, in my heart, that my focus was completely off kilter.  I could sense the effect my lack of balance was having not only on my family, but on my business, and most importantly, on me.

I realized, after writing a letter from my heart, with my feet upon the Jerusalem stone and my hand upon the Western Wall, that my focus was in hyperdrive, stuck on one setting, creating complete and total tunnel vision.

And some months later, shortly after we moved in June of this year, I realized that setting my sights on one solitary goal, usually a long range goal, has been a pretty consistent pattern with me, throughout my life.

A cursory review of the lifeline leading me up to the present day, the timeline of events coupled with my focus zone that clearly dominated each phase, reveals that this has been, literally, my default setting for many, many years.

Shortly after I began dating my husband in January of 2000, I knew I was in love and ready to be engaged. Focus: Getting Engaged

Once we were engaged in February of 2002, a new and pretty obvious focus popped up onto my radar screen, blinking and beeping until our wedding day arrived. Focus: Making a Wedding Happen

After we married, life took an unexpected turn and Michael and I somewhat suddenly had to prepare to move.  We were leaving Massachusetts and we were Baltimore-bound. Focus: Get Packing

I could continue elaborating my lifeline for you, but I’m quite certain you, my sophisticated reader, get my point.  What was most alarming to me, however, as I mentally reviewed each phase of my life over the course of the past decade, was how many of those phases involved being a go getter.

It was pretty darn obvious that my go getter mentality had gone into overdrive within my business as well.  Heck, it had been permeating my entire existence!  Get Pregnant and then Get this Baby Out, please! And later, Get Clients Now! and Make Things Happen!

When Michael was laid off in July of 2007, my go getter self grabbed ahold of my focusing abilities and never took another break from that point on.  Workaholism became my default mode, my most familiar state of being.

I must say, thank goodness for discovering spiritual practice in the form of Remembrance. Had it not been for the time I created in my work life for my spiritual life, I might still be stuck in that spot, the spot where nothing matters but getting money-making things done.

I also must thank my youngest daughter who blessed me with a nursing relationship so dear to my heart that it kept me bound to her throughout the first 18 months of her life.  I’m very proud of my accomplishment when it comes to nursing her.  In so many ways that relationship healed me on levels I never anticipated it would.  And I’m so thankful my workaholic tendencies did not steal that away from me!

But if you ask anyone who observed me throughout late 2007 and all of 2008, I’m quite certain they’ll report back, “Jessica was FOCUSED on her business, absolutely driven and had her eye on ONE goal throughout that entire time.”

After hitting rock bottom in early 2009, I converted my business back into sole proprietorship and super-simplified all aspects of doing business.  Then, once we moved in June and my entire life had been recalibrated, I was faced with a totally unexpected challenge.

It was no longer obvious what my ONE BIG FOCUS should be.

In reality, this was a huge gift.  I now had spaciousness in my life.  I could pay attention to more than one arena of my life without the whole world crashing down around me.

I had been guided down a path that answered my very prayers, which had been scrawled upon a piece of journal paper, folded up with every ounce of my life’s discomforts squished into that letter I’d placed within the Wall, my prayers upon my lips and my hopes upon my tongue.

And now, I had no idea what to do.

I felt adrift upon a strange sea, holding on to my life raft with all of my might.

I was disoriented.  I recognized my family, but I wasn’t sure how to be, what to do, how to act.

I had lost my focus.

Or rather, I now had to find my focus.  It was no longer an obvious one, forced upon me by life’s circumstances.

This was, indeed, a very new experience for me.  For the first time in a decade I felt like my life was finally coming into balance.

I just hadn’t expected this sense of losing sight.

As I began to grapple with this new reality, I experienced extreme highs and deep lows. There was a time or two when I felt as though I might be losing myself upon this new horizon of my life.

But I hunkered down and in.  I turned my focus to my spiritual practice of Remembrance and, gradually, I started to see very clearly how everything was aligning both in me and in my life.

A clear, brilliant, and multi-faceted focus appeared upon my screen of inner vision and I, once again, felt a sense of peace, purpose, and comfort within.

My focus returned and I felt a sense of coming home, albeit to a new and different home, but a home that felt even more cozy, comfy, and appropriate for who I am and who I dream I will become.

And Daniel Levin reminds me, with this quote, of what I’ve learned most recently about the ever elusive balance we all seek.

The center is not always the point of balance. When you find that place where BALANCE is achieved, peace will result in all situations. There is no conflict, for everything rests without strain.

I am so blessed today.  My body, mind, and spirit are at peace.  My life is in balance and I ride the tides, the ebb and flow, of my focus zone, remembering to always return to the center within and it’s making all the difference in the world for me.