Can I keep the Three Hollys happy?

Restoring your equilibrium without losing out

Hi, I’m Holly - coach, mindfulness facilitator and author of Zestful Zen. I write about self-care, change, personal growth, mindfulness, and purpose. If you like life to be full of zest and energy, complemented by a zen, calm mind, Zestful Zen is the community for you! 💖✨

Walking the tightrope between Being and Doing

Last week I wrote about my quest to find balance in my increasingly busy life: thriving, not striving. I’ve been trying not to get fully subsumed by Doing mode.

It’s a tightrope walk at times and it’s almost inevitable that my human nature and drive to achieve means I sometimes lose sight of the joy of just Being.

I’m sure many of you can relate to this tug-of-war between the different parts of your soul - the pieces aching to flourish in creativity and achieving big ambitions, fighting against those that just want to relish the present moment: resting, recharging and rejuvenating.

How to keep all these pieces happy?

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Competing desires

I had an interesting conversation with my mindfulness mentor recently.

I’d shared my dilemma about not spending enough time in in the “green zone” lately (the Soothing System¹). I’ve got lots I need to deliver in my day job, and I’ve been filling my evenings with writing and building my new business.

I set out my intention to shake things up and restore my early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine so I’d have plenty of time for morning meditation. No more laptop after 8pm!

But my mentor challenged me: “You don’t sound very convinced. Is it realistic to think you’ll make these changes?”

Hmmmm. She was right. I was torn between my competing desires and secretly feared that I’d just carry on as I had been.

While I wanted my zen back, I didn’t want to give up my side hustle dreams. But in my mind, it was a zero-sum game: one of these sides would have to concede.

What if every side could win? Photo by Meritt Thomas on Unsplash

Taking a new perspective

Then my mentor shifted my perspective in an unexpected way.

As a mindfulness mentor, I’d assumed she’d be fully behind cutting my Drive time to up the space for my Soothing System to kick in. But she looked at it more imaginatively.

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It seems to me, she said, that it’s almost like there are three Hollys here. One who wants to excel in the office. One who’s excited to create a new business. And one who wants calm and mindfulness. You don’t want to sacrifice any of these parts of yourself. How can you help each Holly achieve her goal so that you can all live happily together?

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Well, that’s certainly a different way of looking at the situation. Three Hollys?! No wonder my life feels so crowded these days. 😂

But taking this step back and considering these facets of my life as different people helped me spot a missed solution.

Rather than cutting back the activities that matter to me (and those that just have to be done), the best solution for me might be shifting the time that I do things.

• Swapping my writing and business activities to daytime weekends means no evening tech keeping my brain wired.

• Instead I can spend some evenings on the cooking and housework, using the repetitive movements with their meditative quality to help me wind down.

• And my friends with families would rather socialise in the evenings anyway, not on Saturday afternoons!

• Evening gym classes help me burn off stress and leave the office behind. But now that I often have Zoom teacher training, I can take a bedtime walk afterwards or do some mindful movement instead.

• Or read a book snuggled with my kitties, rather than staying on my tech to stream or scroll.

Lap cats force you to slow down! Photo by author, Holly Bailie

A simple swap

In time, I know that shifting the digital to daytime and doing soothing activities in the evening will reset my body clock, so I move back to the routine I had in my MBSR days.

Waking earlier, my morning meditation will mean I arrive at the office energised, allowing me to be more efficient and leave work on time.

Giving me – yes, you guessed it – more time in the evening for winding down.

It’s a virtuous circle really, and such a simple swap. So why didn’t I spot this win-win solution before?

Sometimes you need that external nudge to put a different hat on.

Going back to the title of this post: can I keep the Three Hollys happy? With this new perspective, yes, I think I can.

Questions for self-reflection or journalling

• Which parts of your life are in competition?

• What’s holding you back from making the changes you want to?

• Can you take a different perspective to spot an unrealised solution?

• Are there some simple swaps you can make to find a win-win solution?

I’d love to hear your views on finding balance.

Let’s have a conversation in the comments, or feel free to drop me a DM. 💬

Have a sublime Saturday, friends! 🌞

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1. In last week’s post I wrote about Paul Gilbert’s Three Systems of Emotional Regulation: the Threat System, Drive System and Soothing System. Read more here.