On Finding Balance
Hello Wildflower Woman 🌻
Last week in Texas was our kids’ Spring Break — a time when many of us step out of our routines in favor of family time. Whether you stayed close to home or traveled somewhere new, these moments with our children often remind us what this season of life is really about: being present, making memories, and soaking up the years everyone tells us will pass far too quickly.
And yet, if we’re honest, parenting young children also carries its own weight — the endless logistics, the emotional labor, the constant responsibility of caring for small humans who depend on us for everything.
It’s in this phase of life that I’ve come to understand the true meaning of duality: that two seemingly opposing things can be true at once. Joy and overwhelm. Gratitude and exhaustion. Privilege and responsibility.
This delicate balance shows up everywhere in life — and nowhere is it more visible than in nature.
Our family spent the week in northern California, along a stretch of impossibly beautiful coastline wedged between mountains and sea. The air smelled like honeysuckle, the sun hovered around a perfect seventy-three degrees, and everywhere I looked spring was announcing itself in full abundance.
Yet according to my uncle who we were visiting, they had just come off a month of intermittent rain and gray skies — a stretch of winter that preceded this burst of resplendent early spring.
Balance.
As a society, we talk about balance often, and that conversation seems specifically aimed at women. Our feeds tell us we should be in constant pursuit of having it all, or perhaps more accurately, being it all: the woman who wakes up early to work out, eat her supplements, and check work emails before the kids wake up. The mom who is there for car pick up and after school activities while replying to work emails from carline. The partner who upholds the logistical scaffolding of home life, managing the housework in the same breath as she manages her career. The friend who still finds time for a dinner date after she’s put her toddler to bed and paid the sitter. It is as though the definition of balance is to keep every plate spinning in perfect unison while walking a tightrope.
Is it?
That version of balance, at least the way it’s sold to us, rarely feels like balance at all. It feels like tension — we’re hovering somewhere between barely holding it together and chronic overwhelm. Our bodies were not designed to exist in such a state of always on, fight-or-flight mode. It simply isn’t sustainable.
In fact, as women we are quite literally created from cycles and waves. Our bodies and our hormones follow rhythms tied to the moon. Like the ocean, we move through crests and troughs — energy and rest, focused activation and quiet exploration, expansion and contraction.
Balance isn’t something static we achieve and hold forever.
It is something we practice.
Even the most memorable family trip doesn’t escape that reality. Despite my best intentions for a screen-free week in nature filled with harmony and connection, our days still included the occasional familiar soundtrack of sibling disputes, toddler potty jokes, and “but she started it” negotiations.
And that’s okay. It allowed me to put my own understanding of the nervous system — learning how to move from that constant fight-or-flight into a more consciously regulated state — into practice. And it is through this practice that I understand: balanceis the space between trigger and reaction.
It’s the breath I take before words leave my mouth. It’s the moment I pause before my tone sharpens. It’s the choice to root into my body before deciding how I rise to what life places in front of me.
This is the space where our power lives. And cultivating that space is exactly what we practice at Wildflower. We believe that emotionally regulated adults create the conditions for emotionally regulated children to thrive. And that emotionally regulated families become the foundation for compassionate, resilient communities.
Our work centers on three simple daily practices: movement, makership, and mindfulness. These are the practices that bring us back to ourselves through our breath, our bodies, and our inner voice.
MARCH WORKSHOP: ROOT & RISE
This Friday morning, March 20th, Wildflower invites you to our March workshop Root & Rise, to pursue your own exploration of what balance looks like — and more importantly what it feels like — for you.
Together we will welcome the Spring Equinox, the exact moment when day and night exist in perfect balance. We will move the body through a grounding yoga flow taught by Boston-based teacher Meredith Wadsworth, RYT 750hr (and my amazing sister!), before playing with clay in a guided hand-building practice led by local artist and sculptor Dani Becknell. A curated breakfast spread, seasonally crafted mocktails, and the invitation to pause for reflection and connection with others sets the backdrop for this gorgeous event, hosted at a beautiful private residence in Alamo Heights. The exact address will be communicated to everyone who purchases a ticket!
Come as you are. Leave feeling more rooted in yourself and lighter in your body and mind than ever. Each guest will create and keep a clay piece made by them, for them, as well as receive a gift bag full of goodies designed to keep your nervous system regulated long after you leave the workshop.
A few spaces remain, and we would love to see you there. If you can’t make it this time, but know someone who would love to join us - please forward this newsletter along!
This workshop, like all Wildflower workshops, is BYOMW (mat+water). All other materials + light bites and refreshments will be provided.
BEYOND THE MAT:Finding Balance at Home
Over the break, with my big kids sleeping out of their routines and sharing a room, bedtime became an obvious and immediate test of how well I could balance internal frustration with outward expression. The first night they were being particularly silly despite being put to bed twenty minutes earlier, and instead of barging into the room and yelling for them to calm down and go to bed, I took a breath (or five), and chose differently.
I walked into the room, calmly turned out the lights, climbed up and sat cross legged on the bed, and told both of them to lay on their tummies so I could rub their backs and give them a meditation. Not wanting to lose out on a cozy backrub, they immediately complied. And for 10 extra minutes, I put on my most soothing yoga voice, and guided my children through a breath and visualization meditation that had them reflecting on their day and all they had to be grateful for, while returning their bodies to a resting state. They were both asleep by the time I finished - a small miracle.
And the lesson is this: I traded in 30+ minutes of aggravating, nerve-fraying back and forth, for 10 extra minutes of quality wind-down time with my kids, and everyone benefited. In fact after that first night, my daughter asked for a meditation at bedtime every night after. And I willingly complied, knowing that I was sending her to bed with lovely thoughts and a calm nervous system, rather than anxiously yelling for her to be quiet and go to sleep. Win-win!
If bedtime is a particularly tough time at home for your littles also, I encourage you to give guided meditation a try. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or follow a specific script. Just hearing the sound of your voice as you recap their day and how much you loved spending time with them, as you ask them to gently inhale and exhale through their memories, will send them to bed feeling cozy and safe. And it might just give you the nervous system reset you need, too :)
PARTING THOUGHTS
Balance is not a static act of holding it all together. It is found in the daily practice of accepting what is, before choosing how you respond to shape what will be.
Wildflower exists to support this way of living — in step with the seasons, in tune with ourselves, and in community with one another. If you know someone who you think would appreciate this newsletter, please pay it forward. 💛
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With love and gratitude,
Katie & the Wildflower team