When I was going to school in Duncan, Oklahoma, I used to love to play on the seesaw. The school I went to had a row of huge seesaws. I kid you not; they had to be 20ft long and made of heavy wood.

I could seesaw for hours. The thing about seesaws is that you need someone else or it just doesn’t work. So the boys invented a little game. One boy would stand in the middle of the seesaw and see if he could balance the heavy seesaw by himself. It was kinda macho…for an 7 year old.

In life we usually base how we feel and act on others. This is very much like two people seesawing. It makes us dependent on others. Leaving our moods to fluctuate up and down like a wild rollercoaster. BUT…there is a better way to BE, and that is like the little balancing game we used to play. By playing the balancing game our centeredness, sense of wellbeing and mood is based on ourselves.

This is not to say we are to be islands isolated from one another. This is to say, if rely on ourselves for our own sense of balance than the relationships we have will be more positive.

Jon May 2009