In the fall 2019 issue of Magnolia Journal, Joanna Gaines gets honest about her search for balance. Here’s what she learned about trying to chase after a perfectly balanced life.

Joanna Gaines says balance doesn’t exist for her

In her Magnolia Journal column, Gaines says she often gets questions about her work, family, and marriage. The one question she says he gets a lot is how she manages to balance it all. Gaines says she doesn’t believe that balance really exists for her:

I haven’t always been so sure of this. For years, I tried to navigate what balance should look like for my life, first, when I became a wife and then a mom, and I again when I was both as well as a new business owner. I had, for some reason, accepted this unproven theory that balance would somehow equate to stability and peace of mind; that it could steady the roller coaster of my daily life. I carried on in this way for several years, having made up my mind to stake my entire well-being on this pursuit of finding balance.

Trying to achieve balance proved difficult for the former ‘Fixer Upper’ star

At first, Gaines says she tried her best to compartmentalizedifferent pieces of her life. When she was at work, she tried to forget aboutanything going on at home. However once work was over, Gaines says she would“grab her mom hat” and head to her home. That method of maintaining a balancedlife didn’t work for long. Gaines said as soon as something urgent came up athome or at work, it would bleed into the other parts of her life she tried sohard to separate from everything else. “I lived in suspended breath, alwaysfeeling like the porcelain plate of my life was one misstep from falling andshattering into a million pieces,” writes Gaines in her column.

For Joanna Gaines, perfect balance isn’t realistic

Although many TV shows and articles push the importance of having a balanced life, Gaines says that for her, that goal isn’t realistic. Instead, she aims for wholeness in her personal life and at work. “The hidden truth about balance is it requires that everything in our lives be equally distributed at all times. It insists that the needs of our marriage and our kids, our work and our relationships be completely proportional at every given moment. But that’s just not the way my life unfolds every day,” writes Gaines.

Joanna Gaines says this is the key to finding meaning and fulfillment  

Gaines says the power to find a meaningful and fulfilledlife is already within us. However, she tells her readers it’s important tomake sure you “show up” for those moments with your entire self:

I deeply love being a wife and a mother, and I feel a profound sense of purpose with my work. Whatever it might be that fills the scope of your life—marriage, kids, work, relationships, a project you’re devoted to, or all of the above—I truly believe that when we show up for the things we care for deeply with our whole selves, that’s where we’ll find the kind of meaning and fulfillment that can withstand any sort of shifting sand—no balance required. 

Read more: JoannaGaines Reveals One of Her Favorite Items In Her Farmhouse

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