My House is Lopsided

"There are like 9 parts of your life. Job, family, spiritual...and a lot of people have one part take over and they drop the other 8. So if you're in a relationship and that falls apart and you have nothing else - you fall apart. If you have the other 8 parts of your life - you're okay," says my friend as we go for a late night walk.

"Oh, it's like that quote with the house and all it's rooms and everyday you're supposed to visit one of the rooms. Hmmm, my house is lopsided," I reply.

So what do you do when your house is lopsided? Physical, emotional, spiritual, mental and I'm sure you can break it down more, right?

Do I tear down the room to rebuild it? Do I patch it? Do I just take down just enough to rebuild it but leave the foundation that's there? Or do I just visit every day and hope to find a window so the rooms are aired out a bit and start filling the rooms so that they're lived in and the house is balanced?

Can I do it all at once? Or just a room at a time?

I don't know. I know what I want to try but I don't know if it's going to work. So then what?

In an acting class the question, "How do you make a mistake a gift?" came up. I began thinking of how it's a handy thing to know in life too. The challenge of trying to see things in a certain light so it becomes an opportunity instead of something that pulls you down. It's a shift isn't it? How do I shift? Is my house lopsided? Or is it just a chance to see the world at an angle?

A friend brought me to a yoga class. I don't do yoga. Injuries. But it's been awhile so I thought I'd try. Iyengar Yoga wasn't so bad.

At one point the instructor put a brick under my back and said this is going to be uncomfortable. It was. Very. And then she said, "The brick is hard and now you need to soften. Soften around it. It's like life isn't it?

If you don't soften when you come across something hard you'll butt up against it and it'll drive you nuts. So when we come across something hard and uncomfortable we need to soften and it won't be so bad. In fact it can be beneficial."

So then I'm thinking - what does it mean to soften? Not physically, not in situations when you're butting heads with someone, but in situations where you're not balanced. How do you soften?

Maybe I'll find the answer after I enjoy my tilted view of the world in behind one of the dusty doors of my lopsided home. Or maybe I'll just gnaw on a piece of chocolate.