When You Feel Like You Might Fly Off the World: Seeking Spiritual Balance

After concluding that our son’s issues stretched beyond what was age appropriate, we spent a large portion of the last year figuring out how we could best help him. During his occupational therapy evaluation, the therapists mentioned that he struggled with his vestibular and proprioceptive system.

In layman’s terms, he is unbalanced.

What I found most interesting about the whole process was learning about how the vestibular and proprioceptive system work. It’s not just as as simple as balance or even spatial awareness. It has to do with a sense of where your body is in space and how much pressure is put on your body by outside forces, such as gravity.

The whole world feels too loose and out of control to my son. He wants you to hug him until it nearly hurts. He spins, sways and moves all the time as though gravity barely applies to him.  He is often unaware of where his body is in relation to others or what he should do with is extremities. This leads to some interesting interpersonal conflicts at our house.

Yet as I reflect back on that process, I’m struck by how much that description can apply to us spiritually. It is easy to let the proprioceptive system of our souls get out of wack. We find ourselves uncertain of where we fit in the world. We can’t seem to find our place and we worry that we won’t discover it.

We find ourselves spiritually unbalanced.

Sometimes everything feels like too much and the weight of the world makes our spirits ache. So we retreat to a small confined space where we feel safer. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, provided that place is our strong tower of Jesus Christ. If it isn’t, we may find ourselves just as lost and wandering.

Other times we feel numb with grief or disillusionment so we seek experience after experience looking to feel something. We seek more extreme stimulus for our minds and hearts in the hopes that we will feel grounded again. But until we slow down to listen and watch for the small, nuanced ways that God speaks and works, we will continue to feel like we’ll fly off the world.

One of the things my son had to do as part of his therapy, was to challenge his weak systems. He had to do the things that were hard, so that the weak areas of the brain and muscular systems could get stronger.

When we face difficulty in our lives, it can be just the spiritual growth tool that we need. It just rarely feels like it when we are going through it.It’s hard to see the small ways we are growing stronger when we’re wading, waist deep through the sloughs of despond. All we feel is the heavy pull of  our troubles. But there is light ahead. It won’t always be like this.

If you feel unbalanced this time of year, weighted down or spinning out of control, reach out. Let the people around you, those you love and most importantly the King of the Universe, the one who helps balance all scales and all accounts in eternity, ground you and bring your spirit into a healthy  alignment.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high
And order all things, far and nigh
To us the path of knowledge show
And cause us in her ways to go

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel