Sometimes You Just Need a Puzzle
If you’re a current Balance client, you know there’s almost always a community puzzle out somewhere in the studio. Some clients and teachers are much more invested in these puzzles than others. IYKYK!
Last Wednesday, a client dropped off a new one for us. I opened that Friday morning after teaching the 8am Pilates class, thinking I’d just get it started. Through various conversations that morning and with people coming and going, I managed to put the border together.
And then the studio emptied out. I was alone, with a to-do list full of things I absolutely could (and probably should) have been doing. Instead, I sat down at the puzzle. And stayed there! By the time I finally forced myself to go home much later than planned, I had finished probably 60–70% of it. After my Saturday morning classes, I sat down again and finished the rest.
Was completing a puzzle anywhere on my list of priorities for the week? Definitely not.Was it exactly what I needed? Apparently, yes!
We spend so much of our time thinking about what’s next. What needs to get done? Who needs something from us? Where do we need to be? What did we forget? What are we making for dinner? What’s happening tomorrow? Even the things we do to take care of ourselves can start to feel like another item on the list. But for those couple of hours at the studio, my world got very small.
Find the corner of that blue piece. Figure out where the pattern changes. Look for the piece with just a tiny bit of yellow on it. One piece, then another. I wasn’t thinking about the week I’d just had or everything still waiting for me. My brain had one simple job. And it turns out that was exactly the calming activity I needed after a hectic week!
It got me thinking about what we hope Balance can be for the people who walk through our doors. Yes, you come here for yoga or Pilates. You come for a massage. You come to move your body, build strength, improve your flexibility and balance, or work through an ache that’s been bothering you. But I hope Balance is also about how you feel when you are here and how you feel when you leave. I hope it’s a place where, for an hour, your world can get a little smaller. You focus on your breath in yoga. You concentrate on the movement in Pilates. You let yourself be still during a massage. You chat with someone before class or sit down and add a few pieces to the puzzle before heading back out into your day. None of those things will make the responsibilities waiting for us magically disappear. But they can change how we feel when we return to them.
We all need different things at different times. Sometimes you need to move and breathe. Sometimes you need someone else to help you release the tension you’ve been carrying. And apparently, sometimes you need to ignore your to-do list and finish a puzzle. ;)
That’s what we hope Balance can be for our Glen Ellyn community: a place to reset, reconnect with yourself, and leave feeling a little more ready to face whatever is ahead. Whether that happens through yoga, Pilates, massage (or by finding that one puzzle piece everyone else has been looking for!) we are here to make life feel just a little bit easier to tackle.