Where Has Venus Been?

My friends and fans…

I’m sorry.  I kinda fell off the radar somewhere around June.  Haven’t blogged but 2 or 3 times for the second half of the year.

What the heck happened?
In a nutshell:  I had to get back to my “Regularly Scheduled Life.”

You know those people who spend all their energy helping other people’s kids, but their own kids are in and out of juvie? 
Or the beloved talk show hosts who help their viewers learn to lose weight, while they, themselves, pack on the pounds?

I didn’t want to be that person…  But that is so much easier said than done.

What makes it so hard?  In a word:  BALANCE.  Or rather, IMBALANCE.

There are 3 major parts of my life:  My Family, My Physical Health, and My Business.  Each of them requires time and attention.

However, it’s been hard for me to focus on more than 1 or 2 at a time.

My Sleeping Dragon
Until 2007, I devoted my attention to my family and my physical health.  I’d diligently homeschooled my kids all their lives.  I’d been a 100% Raw Food Vegan, off-and-on for about 8 years.

Then I decided to start my own business.  And that reawakened the sleeping dragon in me that I’d put to sleep in 1994, when my daughter was born:  Ambition.

The more I fed that monster, the more I starved everything else in my life.

My Kids
In 2007, I started building my business.  I continued to homeschool my kids…but I was nowhere near as engaged as I was before.  My mind was always on the business.  My days were constantly interrupted with client calls.  I wasn’t fully present.

This summer, I looked up and realized that my kids were languishing.  They were irritable, moody, and insecure.

Why wouldn’t they be?  Even though they were taking classes and interacting with other people, their PRIMARY, FOUNDATIONAL relationship with me had withered down to nothing.

Read here to learn how I reconnected with the kids.

My Health
The other thing that took a hit while I focused on business-building, was my health.

I spent the last 6 months of 2008 in an all-out push to finish my book.  We’re talking 13-hour days of non-stop writing.

Everything else in my life was put on hold.

I felt I had no time (or desire) to make healthy salads or snacks…so instead I started nuking potatoes and eating chips.

I gained 15 lbs, suffered repeated illnesses…lost the health and beauty I had maintained for so many years, in just 6 months!

Read here to learn how I got it back.

My New Path
So far, I have spent the past 7 months zooming in on my top priorities:  My Family and My Health.  Now I have discovered healthy ways to re-introduce My Business into the mix without letting the Ambition Dragon take over and wreak havoc.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be sharing my journey back to BALANCE.

Join the conversation.

Where do you fall out of balance?  How do you give attention to the many parts of your life?  What parts get neglected the most?  What tricks have you found for maintaining balance AND fulfilling your ambitions?

Next Up: Listening to Your Body…or How Venus Got Her Groove Back.  (That would be the groove separating her abs…or, with any luck, the groove defining her thigh muscles.)

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