Balance

In voice therapy, we try to educate patients about how efficient voice production works.  It's basically a combination of three systems - the breath and lungs/respiratory system, the larynx and vocal folds, and the resonators and articulators of the mouth and nose.  When these three systems are working correctly, with power coming from the air and not from the muscles of the larynx, voice can be easily produced.  For this to happen, all three systems have to be balanced, without one working harder or overcompensating for another.  It's a difficult balance to achieve if something goes wrong, or if the balance is interrupted somehow, by a variety of causes.  The purpose of voice therapy is to recalibrate and rebalance these systems to get them working as efficiently as possible.

As hard as it can be to achieve balance in voice production, it is definitely harder to achieve balance in life in general.  Sometimes I feel like I only have a finite amount of time, willpower, concentration, and memory to spread out in all the areas of my life that need this kind of attention.

For example, I feel like I can work out and eat right, but not get enough sleep or do schoolwork.  Or I can work really hard in clinic and do well, and then get the worst grade on a test I've gotten in years in class.  Or I can focus on saving money but then I end up eating terribly.  Or I can study hard but then feel like I am the worst clinician ever and I'll never be a good SLP.  Or I can do any of the above and not get enough sleep, or my friendships and relationships suffer, or I can't do my stretches and exercises for my neck, or I can't practice for my voice lessons.  It's like I don't have all that much to go around, and it all gets used up and there's not enough left for everything else I need to do.

It's frustrating, and sometimes I feel very off balance and spread thin.  It's not going to cause muscle tension dysphonia, but it's uncomfortable and I don't like it.  I don't know what to do to recalibrate myself and balance everything appropriately.  I feel like I already try so hard to take care of everything I need to and try to get my priorities in order, but then everything gets out of balance anyway and I just can't win.  It's not like there's an exercise like we use in voice therapy that can restore the balance and retrain my brain to maintain the balance.  I suppose the solution could be either magically having more time in the day (which isn't going to happen) or just being okay with letting some things go, and being okay with being unbalanced.

Balance was easier on teeter-totters on the playground in elementary school.