By Emanuel Maxim

When I started thinking about becoming a counsellor, I carried with me the memory of my own therapist’s words: health isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being balanced. She didn’t mean balance as in making every part of our life equal all the time. Instead, she talked about something deeper: a kind of inner balance, a gentle “grey” space between black-and-white thinking.

That advice changed me. It helped me understand that real wellbeing doesn’t come from flawless performance or ticking every box perfectly. Rather, it comes from learning to live fully, with all the ups and downs, in a way where each part of life supports the others.

What Research Says: Balance + Integration = Wellbeing

Psychologists and mental-health researchers often describe balance, across thoughts, feelings, body, relationships, daily routines, as a foundation of wellbeing.

For example:

• A healthy lifestyle that links physical health (sleep, nutrition, movement) with mental health supports a person’s overall wellness.
• Emotional balance, meaning the ability to notice and accept both positive and negative emotions, helps in managing stress, coping with challenges, and sustaining healthy relationships.

Meanwhile, striving for “perfection” can be harmful. When perfectionism becomes rigid – setting unrealistic standards, fearing mistakes or failure, constantly criticising oneself – it often leads to anxiety, depression, burnout, and poor self-esteem.

On the other hand, adopting self-compassion – treating yourself kindly when things go wrong, accepting that mistakes are part of being human – is linked to better emotional resilience and wellbeing.

So, the research supports what I learned from my counsellor: a balanced, integrated life, not a “perfect” one, offers a more sustainable path to health, growth, and meaning.

What “Equilibrium Life” Looks Like

Living in “equilibrium” means giving yourself permission to be human. It’s not about doing everything equally every day, but about paying attention over time to different areas that together shape a healthy life:

• Your body: sleep enough, eat nourishing food, move your body, rest.
• Your mind and emotions: allow yourself to feel joy, sadness, fear, and to express or sit with those feelings.
• Your relationships: connecting with people, allowing empathy, support, caring, honesty.
• Your purpose or work: doing what matters to you, but not letting that become the only thing that defines you.
• Your inner sense of self: being kind to yourself, accepting your strengths and limitations, letting go of impossible standards.

Some days, one area might need more attention, maybe you rest more one week, spend more time with loved ones another week, or focus on work when needed. That’s okay. Equilibrium is flexible. It’s about tuning in to what life needs now, not about being perfect all the time.

Why “Grey” and not “Black and White” feels right?

If you aim for perfection, you end up living between extremes: either “all good” or “all bad,” success or failure. That kind of thinking is exhausting. It leaves no space for mistakes, no room for recovery, no allowance for what it means to be human.

In contrast, living in the “grey” means accepting imperfection. It means knowing that life comes with ups and downs, and that ebb and flow are natural. It means trusting that if you’re paying attention, learning, and caring, your life can feel integrated, meaningful, and alive.

When you approach life this way, you give yourself permission to grow gently, to heal mistakes without shame, to find strength in vulnerability, and to build resilience.

What It Means for My Work as a Counsellor and Coach

As someone now working as a counsellor and coach, I believe deeply in supporting people toward this kind of equilibrium. I don’t aim to help clients become “perfect”, I strive to help them become whole.

That means:

• Helping people see all parts of their life – emotional, physical, relational – and how they influence each other.
• Supporting the development of self-compassion and self-acceptance, so they don’t burn out chasing impossible standards.
• Encouraging flexibility and kindness toward themselves in times of challenge, knowing that sometimes progress is slow, sometimes life feels messy, and that’s okay.
• Guiding toward balance over time, not a rigid, one-size-fits-all schedule.

Because true health, what I call “equilibrium”, it’s not a journey or a destination, but rather a becoming along the way, maybe even a way of living that honours our full humanity.

A Personal Invitation

If you’ve ever felt tired from trying to do everything “right,” from chasing perfection, from feeling like you’re failing if things aren’t neat and predictable, I want you to know – you’re not alone.

You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of care, growth, love or healing. You deserve a life where you feel balanced, alive, authentic.

If you ever feel ready to explore what “equilibrium” might look like for you, to find more gentleness, more balance, more integration, you’re welcome.

Together, we can work toward a life that’s real, whole, and kind.

I’ve always been someone who moves.
Not necessarily fast, but often.
I like having purpose woven through my day- tasks to complete, people to check in on, places to be. I don’t do well with long stretches of unclaimed time, and if you ever catch me “relaxing on the sofa,” it’s only a matter of minutes before I’m fast asleep.

So my default, the place I retreat to without thinking, is action.
Clear the cupboard.
Wrap the gift.
Send the birthday card.
Organise that sock drawer with military style precision.

This version of busyness has always felt productive to me. Useful, even grounding.
But lately, I’ve had to admit something a little uncomfortable:
Sometimes my busyness isn’t productivity…it’s avoidance dressed up in sensible shoes.

I used to believe procrastination only looked one way.
Doom-scrolling.
Watching videos of people rescuing stray dogs or influencers sharing their step by step skin care routines.
Sitting frozen at the dining table while an untouched task loomed like a shadowy doorway.
That wasn’t me. I was doing things. Plenty of things. My days were full.

But avoiding a task by doing other tasks?
That’s still avoidance.
It just looks deceptively responsible.

And I’ve learned that it’s not the difficulty of a task that decides whether I avoid it.
It’s the emotional weight.

Give me a dry, bureaucratic phone call to the bank? Fine. No fear there.
But ask me to write a vulnerable email to a senior colleague- one that means advocating for myself, risking misinterpretation, loosening the grip of perfection just enough to be human?
Suddenly laundry becomes urgent.
Suddenly the skirting board needs polishing.
Suddenly I’m “too busy” for the very thing that’s quietly swallowing my peace.

What’s worse is that the longer I leave it, the heavier it grows.
Three days of a small email sitting unsent can feel like carrying a backpack made of fog- light to the touch, but somehow suffocating. It follows me around the house, whispering reminders at the least convenient moments.

You know that feeling?
When the background hum of unease becomes louder in the quiet spaces?
When the thing you’re avoiding shows up not as loud panic, but as a gentle, persistent tug at the edges of your attention?
That’s when I know I’m stuck.

So what do we do when we notice this pattern?
When we realise the fear, not the task, is what’s stopping us?

For me, the answer came back to something simple:
Action breeds motivation.
Not the other way around.

We wait for motivation like it’s a visitor we need to impress.
But it’s action- small, imperfect, sometimes shaky action- that wakes motivation up.
Every single time.

So I wrote the email.
Not all at once.
Drafted it. Walked away. Came back. Edited. Sent.
Eighteen minutes of actual work.
Eighteen minutes that held three full days of dread.

It made me wonder:
How many hours of my life have been given away to things that would take minutes?
How much emotional weight have I carried unnecessarily, simply because I didn’t want to feel uncertain?

And here’s what I noticed:
Once I took the first step- even a tiny one…the fog lifted.
Not completely, but enough to move.
Enough to breathe again.

Practical Ways to Take the Next Step (Even When It Feels Too Big)

1. Let go of perfect.
The first draft doesn’t need to be good.
It just needs to exist.
Mark-making matters more than the masterpiece.

2. Chunk it down.
Big tasks shrink when you break them into smaller ones.

• Make a list.
• Do one thing.
• Then another.

Ticking things off can give your brain a little dopamine spark and sometimes that’s all you need to keep going.

3. Talk it through.
Sometimes saying the thing out loud unravels the knot.
A friend, a partner, a colleague- someone who can listen while you sort through the noise.

4. Accept your feelings without giving them the wheel.
Fear is valid.
Overwhelm is valid.
Uncertainty is human.
But if we let those feelings decide the direction, we’ll stay right where we are- stuck at the starting line.

5. Do the smallest possible thing.
Open the document.
Write the subject line.
Type one sentence.
Set a five-minute timer.
Small steps are still steps and they’re enough to crack the ice beneath your feet.

Life will always offer us moments that feel too big.
Tasks that feel heavier than they should.
Emotions that rise before logic has a chance to speak.

But forward motion doesn’t come from staring at the whole mountain.
It comes from noticing the next foothold.
Taking the next breath.
Choosing the next, tiny, doable action.

Because sometimes the best way to keep from being swept up in the overwhelm…
is simply to keep moving- one small step at a time, exactly the way I’ve always done when I’m clearing out a cupboard or straightening a sock drawer.

It turns out the thing that helps me in the smallest corners of my life is the very same thing that helps in the biggest ones.

By Emanuel Maxim

There was a time when my daughter came home from school carrying emotions far heavier than her backpack.

She was only 10, but already had a strong sense of who she was. She cared deeply about fairness, about what felt right and true. She held clear boundaries, and she wasn’t willing to bend them just to fit in. That strength, the kind I admire most, sometimes put her at odds with a group of girls who played by different rules. Where fitting in mattered more, she stood firm. And that often left her feeling lonely, misunderstood, and overwhelmed.

Some afternoons, she would come through the door in tears. Other days, she would be quiet, her energy turned inward, and some days she would crawl under the covers to silence her tears. I could see the weight settling into her body – tense shoulders, shallow breathing, that distant look in her eyes that said everything felt like too much.

I wanted to fix it for her. But of course, that’s not how it works.

What we could do was walk beside her and offer small, steady tools to help her find her way back to balance.

We started with something simple: breathing.

Not as a cure for anything, but as a way to come home to herself when emotions swelled too big to manage.

We practiced box breathing together – breathing in for four seconds, holding for four, breathing out for four, holding again for four. We would sit at the kitchen table or lie on the floor, hands on our bellies, doing it slowly. Sometimes we would just take ten deep breaths before talking about things. Nothing fancy. Just air moving in and out, reminding the nervous system that it was safe to slow down.

Over time, I watched her begin to use it on her own. She would pause mid-story and say, “I need a breath first.” Or she’d excuse herself to her room to take a few quiet minutes when the emotions became too tangled. “Dad, I need to go self-regulate” – yes, a 10-year-old says that.

Breathing became her anchor.

But it wasn’t the only piece.

We spoke often about emotions, mostly during our long drives or sitting in Starbucks while her brother trained, naming them, sharing them, letting them exist instead of pushing them down. We taught her that strength isn’t pretending to be fine. Strength is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. It’s saying, “I’m hurt,” or “I’m angry,” or “I feel alone,” and trusting that those feelings don’t make you weak but rather they make you human.

We encouraged her to talk to people she trusted. To say things out loud instead of stuffing them down. To cry if she needed to. To laugh when joy came back. Nothing had to be hidden.

And we reminded her to listen to her body.

We talked about how emotions don’t live only in our heads; they settle in the body too. Tight chests. Quivering hands. Heavy stomachs. When she told us, “I don’t feel good,” we helped her ask: Where do I feel this? What does my body need right now?

Sometimes the answer was simple: a walk down the street, some time alone with headphones in, just moving her body and letting the thoughts drift. Sometimes it was curling up with our Penny, the cockapoo. Sometimes it was writing in her notebook or drawing what she didn’t yet have words for. She loves to be creative – she learned that it’s her safest way to regulate.

We taught her to stay curious about her emotions rather than fighting them. To notice them without needing to judge or change them right away. And always, always to stay true to who she is – to her beliefs, her values, her natural kindness and justice-loving heart – even when that path feels harder.

What I learned through coming alongside her, again and again, is that equilibrium doesn’t come from one perfect routine, or a checklist of practices done flawlessly each day. It grows from gentle integration.

Breathing for the body.
Sharing for the emotions.
Curiosity for the mind.
Movement for release.
Rest for restoration.

Small things, done consistently, weaving together quietly over time, like tending a garden a little each day rather than trying to make it bloom all at once.

Some days, balance looked like rest – early bedtime, hot chocolate, slow evenings.
Other days, it was connection – calling a friend, talking things through, hugging tightly.
Some days, it was creativity – drawing, playing her piano, singing or dancing in her room.
And some days, it was simply breath – ten slow breaths when everything felt overwhelming.

There was no single formula, only listening to what the moment was asking for.

Watching my daughter learn these tools reminded me that self-care isn’t selfish. It’s necessary. It’s how we teach ourselves and our children that their wellbeing matters, not just when life is calm, but especially when it feels messy and uncertain.

Equilibrium isn’t about being unaffected by life.

It’s about having small, kind ways to meet it.

And in our home, it still often starts with something as simple as a pause…and one gentle, steady breath.

By Emanuel Maxim

Perfectionism often wears a clever disguise. It shows up as dedication. High standards. Wanting to “do your best.” At first glance, these qualities seem positive, even admirable. But underneath, perfectionism can quietly turn into something far more painful: constant self-criticism, fear of failure, all-or-nothing thinking, and the exhausting belief that “we are only worthy when we perform perfectly”.

Many people who struggle with perfectionism don’t realise they are carrying it. They just feel stuck, anxious before tasks, disappointed in themselves no matter how hard they try, or unable to rest without guilt. Mental health professionals see this pattern often: clients who push themselves relentlessly while feeling deeply inadequate at the same time. The emotional toll can be heavy: burnout, low self-esteem, anxiety, and a sense that nothing is ever “enough.”

Some time ago, I witnessed this up close in a powerful moment with my son.

When “Being Your Best” Stops Being Helpful

When he was 14, my son decided to take up kickboxing. What began as a healthy curiosity quickly turned into commitment. He trained hard, improved fast, and before long he was invited to join his club’s fight team. Couple of competitions followed, some wins, some losses. He handled them well at first, learning along the way.

Then came his third tournament.

As the day went on and he watched teammates step into the ring, something shifted. His nerves crept in, and his confidence slipped away. I heard the familiar voice of perfectionism start to speak:

“If I’m not at my best, I’m going to fail.”

“If I lose, I’m a crap fighter.”

“I don’t deserve to be here unless I do everything right.”

“If I don’t fight perfectly, I’ll let everyone down.”

This is what perfectionism looks like in real time: the belief that anything less than perfect equals failure and that failure means we are the failure.

When it became clear that he was overwhelmed, I took him outside the arena for a walk to get some space.

Finding Ground in the Middle of the Storm

With just over an hour to go before his fight, we stopped in a small grassy patch. I asked him to take off his shoes and stand barefoot on the grass, a simple grounding practice to help bring him back into his body. He focused on slow, deep breathing, feeling the earth beneath his feet.

He told me he felt nauseous, so anxious he thought he might throw up. I could see how tightly fear and pressure had wrapped around him. The fear wasn’t just about losing a fight, it was about being seen as weak, not good enough compared to his teammates, not measuring up.

So, I said the simplest thing I could think of: “If you need to throw up, then throw up.”

And he did.

Afterward, once his body settled a little, I asked him to lie down on the grass and breathe deeply. We slowed things right down. When his breathing levelled out, we shifted to something different, stating “I am” affirmations out loud to gently move his focus away from fear and back toward strength:

“I am resilient.”

“I am brave.”

“I am showing up.”

At first, we said them together quietly. Then he began repeating them more confidently:

“I am brave.”

“I don’t give up.”

“I am relentless.”

Slowly, his posture changed. His voice grew stronger. The shaking steadied. Then a small smile appeared, followed by something surprising and wonderfully human.

He suddenly started yelling:

“I am David motherf***in’ Goggins!”

Repeatedly, between laughter and fierce determination:

“I’m scared, but I won’t give up. I am David motherf***in’ Goggins!”

“I might not be the best, but I’ve put in the work, I won’t run away.”

As we walked back toward the arena, he continued his animated self-talk to the amusement of people passing by. His body had changed. His energy had shifted. And most importantly, his mindset had softened from needing to be perfect to simply needing to “show up”.

From Perfection to Presence

What struck me most was that his victory didn’t begin in the ring – it began the moment he released the grip of perfectionism. He stopped trying to be flawless and instead allowed himself to be human: scared and capable at the same time.

He walked into the ring grounded, not perfect. He won the first fight. Then the second to claim the gold medal for his category that day.

But what truly mattered wasn’t the medal, it was the lesson:

Confidence didn’t come from being perfect. It came from accepting “good enough” and showing up anyway.

This is the same shift that so many of us need to make in our own lives.

Moving Toward Equilibrium

In counselling and coaching, we often talk about equilibrium – emotional balance. Finding the middle ground between striving and softness, ambition and acceptance. Perfectionism pulls us to one extreme: constant pressure with no compassion.

Learning to move forward differently begins with a few gentle practices:

Notice the inner critic. When you hear “I should do this perfectly” or “If I fail, I’m nothing” – pause. Ask yourself whether you would speak this way to someone you care about.

Challenge all-or-nothing thinking. Life is not pass or fail, it’s growth. Most things exist in the grey spaces between success and failure.

Use grounding when emotions surge. Feel your feet on the floor. Slow your breath. Bring your nervous system back to calm before tackling the mental spiral.

Practice compassionate self-talk.Try statements like:

“I am doing the best I can.”

“I don’t have to be perfect to be worthy.”

 “Showing up is enough today.”

Reach out. Talking with a therapist, coach, or trusted friend can help untangle perfectionism’s deep roots and replace harsh self-judgment with understanding.

Embracing “Good Enough”

Perfectionism tells us we must earn our value. Equilibrium reminds us we already have it.

Being human means being imperfect, making mistakes, resting when we need to, feeling scared sometimes, and still moving forward.

“Good enough” isn’t failure. It is freedom. It gives us the space to breathe, grow, and show up authentically rather than in fear.

Sometimes strength isn’t about being flawless.

Sometimes strength is standing on the grass barefoot, breathing through the nerves, finding in fear the courage to step forward anyway, and maybe even shout “I am David