What’s Your Secret Recipe for Vital Balance?

Don't we sometimes take on the weight of the world without having to do so? We say, "If I just had more time," when all the while we've had all the time there is, 24 hours a day just like everybody else, no more, no less. God didn't invent an eight-day work week, friends. Haven't we sometimes thought we ought to get up early in the day to help the sun rise when what we ought to have done was to get up to see the sun rise. This is one of the themes Amy and I will be discussing in our keynote address at the upcoming conference, “Investing in Family Support,” October 4 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

How many times have we wished for an extra day or just a few more minutes in the day? It's a natural instinct. Learning the nature of the Vital Balance (a term coined by the legendary Dr. Karl Menninger) is what counts, measuring our commitment to our work by our commitment to our own personal growth and enrichment of our spirit.

You agree? Disagree? Maybe you have a secret recipe for achieving Vital Balance in life and work. Share it with us. Perhaps it could inspire someone else.

Can't Give What We Don't Have

That’s as true for parents, clergy, therapists and educators as it is for the Salvation Army when it has run out of money. Parents can't teach their children to be good citizens with those parents speeding 70 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone. Doctors who hold an MRI film up to the light and see a trip to Paris will never have a patient thank him/her for caring. In working with children with special needs, the heart of our new book, the worker/parent/therapist/clergy person/educator is reminded that a child recognizes instantly sham, pretense, and false caring.

Have you experienced this when interacting with a child, either in an educational or conversational setting?

What about the little boy in the restaurant whose parents ordered broiled fish and broccoli for themselves, and when the waitress asked him what he wanted, he replied, “I’d like a hamburger.” His dad jumped in “Oh no, he doesn’t. He’ll have broiled fish.” The waitress replied to the young boy, “And what will you have on your hamburger?” The boy turned to his parents and said, “See….she thinks I’m a real person.” What parent hasn’t reacted in a way that unintentionally denies his child’s status as a “real person?”

Getting in touch with who we are as “real persons”, or as A. Lincoln said, “the better angels of our nature,” makes us all more authentic - whatever we are and who we would like the children to think we are. Daughter Amy and I will be speaking on topics related to recognizing children as real persons, burnout and the “vital balance” when we present the keynote address at the Investing In Family Support conference in Scottsdale next month. You can find more information at: http://www.infanthearing.org/events/ifsc_agenda.html.