Alexa Babin

Rhythm versus balance. This feels like an age-old question, and it’s one I honestly think about a lot. Rhythm makes me think of music. Balance makes me think of athletics. But don’t we need both practices for both endeavors?

When I used to swim competitively in high school, I made good use of rhythm and balance in equal parts. The rhythm of strokes – kicking and pulling to a silent beat—while sustaining the balance of movement through my core muscles. I needed both.  

When I played guitar often (more often than I do now, at least), I had to follow the rhythm of a song to play it right, but I also had to balance what one hand was doing while the other was doing something totally different. Again, rhythm and balance working simultaneously.

There are seasons of my life when I rely more heavily on one or the other. Usually, those are the seasons when something feels more out of control than usual. And yet, it’s either rhythm or balance that I must lean into to keep moving forward, navigating the days with whatever mechanism is available to me at the time.

A little over a month ago, I was at a local conference with one of my best friends. The main day of the conference also happened to be the day that the lead pastor of my church was having brain surgery. His diagnosis happened in a matter of days, and with very short notice, he was having a mass the size of a man’s fist removed from the left side of his brain. Meanwhile, Alison and I were networking, attending panels, and trying to savor the experience of learning from others. It felt impossible to focus. At every break in programming, I was checking my phone for an update on Pastor Lorenzo. Did the surgery start? How’s his family? Any news? Is he out? Were they able to remove it all? When will he be awake?

Two present realities pulled at me that Saturday. My body was in one place; my soul was in another. My mind fighting to be in both places at once, creating near-total exhaustion by lunchtime. Balance was the goal – make the most of the conference while continually praying for Lorenzo – but there certainly was no rhythm to the day. I felt like a seesaw sinking heavily on one end before attempting to level out, only to find I was overcorrecting and plummeting on the other end just as easily.

My dear friend Darron and I were recently discussing the differences in our creative process and approaches to writing. He spoke of “unbalanced balance,” which at first sounded silly to me, but soon made total sense. This is how he operates. He’s prone to fling himself over the edge and fully submerge into whatever he’s working on, focusing only on that one thing for a period. But, when the period of work is over, he’s back to regularly scheduled programming for a while… until the next thing he launches himself into. I, on the other hand, work better with smaller, natural ebbs and flows instead of full and total surrender to the thing I’m working on. He’s either fully in or fully out at any given time – very unbalanced to any onlooker – and I’m always partially in while also maintaining other priorities. We function differently. We laughed as we entertained the idea that I could benefit from more of his method and he could benefit from more of mine. Unbalanced balance.

Those moments when the seesaw sinks to one side for a time have a way of making any other things going on feel small. Lorenzo’s surgery, for example—it felt silly to be at a conference at all during that time. Certain things happen that make all other things feel like they matter less. It’s a poignant perspective shift. There’s often a loss of urgency. The balance, while hard to strike, will eventually be restored, but until it is… you just kind of float through time in a different way.

On the other end of the conversation, there’s rhythm. For a month from mid-October to mid-November, I had four jobs. It was insane. I knew it would be insane, but I agreed anyways. No chance of balance in that, right? Instead of balance, I leaned on rhythm to get me through. It took a little while to find it, but once I did, it worked well enough to sustain me through the end of the production gig that was job number four. (Thankfully, I am now back down to three!)

It certainly was not easy, but about a week and a half into the chaos, I found my rhythm. Hit my stride. Nailed my pace. Each day had its own beat, and one day flowed into the next. Time moved in such a manner that made me blink on Monday and wake up to Friday. It was all warped, but I was getting through it, somehow. I felt quite unbalanced – hardly any social engagements, time to cook, margin to exercise, or opportunity to do as I pleased. It was nearly all work of one kind or another. But I did find a flow that made the chaos possible.

There’s a quote I love that goes something like this – “If you stumble, make it part of the dance.” This embodies the need for both rhythm and balance, to me. A stumble implies you’re off balance; making it part of the dance assumes you’re moving to some sort of rhythm. You can only incorporate missteps into the continuous flow of graceful movement if you’re exercising both rhythm and balance. So, to sum it up… I think they’re both important. Useful in different seasons for different reasons.

The real question… which one are you better at?