Just like pretty much every other woman I know, I went to go see the movie Eat Pray Love this weekend. I was personally very moved by the film, for a list of textured reasons that are too long to name here. 

But, there was one particular line from the movie that stuck with me: “To lose one’s balance for love is part of living a balanced life.” 

Is that true? In order to find balance, we have to lose it? Is it just for love that we need to welcome imbalance…or do we need to welcome it in every area of our lives? And what does that even mean anyway- this concept of losing balance? Does it mean that we’ve got to let go of the expectations that we have about what love and life will look like for us? Does it mean we’ve got to do things that spur us completely out of our comfort zones, even if there’s no sound logic behind our reasons for doing so? 

I lingered over that phrase even after the movie ended, looking for an answer to my question about the validity of that statement. And, as I left the movie theater, I got my answer. Within about two minutes of my walk home, it began to rain. And I began to smile. 

In that moment, what came to mind was this beautiful Bob Dylan quote I heard a while back: “Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.” 

Being balanced in love is kind of like holding an umbrella over you in the rain. Sure, it keeps you dry. But you miss out on that unambiguously beautiful feeling of raindrops kissing you on your face, sliding gently down your arms and into the palms of your hands, into which they fit perfectly. 

In a way, umbrellas symbolize that need for comfort, control and balance. We use them to shield us- as a way to protect the things we assign importance to…our hair, our clothes, our belongings. But, I think that somewhere under that shelter, we forget what we’re really missing. We forget to just savor and enjoy the life that’s happening right before our very eyes. 

So, I’m a believer- that losing one’s balance for love is part of living a balanced life. And I believe it because I’m confident that love is at the very center of the most beautiful moments in our lives. And, whether it is graduating from school, building a dream career, falling in love, exploring somewhere new, or just playing in the rain…balance somehow finds us the instant we let go of our questions and expectations and just allow ourselves to savor this wild and precious life.

When we leap courageously into the unexpected, we are rewarded with a sense of true balance and peace. Whether it comes in the form of love or a hard-earned lesson, our most beautiful and valuable moments come in tandem with our willingness to just feel and embrace life, and our dreams, and the people around us. 

Maybe the point isn’t to try and figure out how to be perfectly balanced in our lives; maybe the point is not to worry about balance at all. We think of imbalance as though it is synonymous with failure. But imbalance is simply the world’s way of telling us that we are daring to live a full and courageous life. 

What I’m learning is that we rarely find true love or true balance under an umbrella. We find it when we’re dancing the rain.