By Dara James
Balance. I think that creating balance is the greatest challenge to face as a graduate student. While we hopefully embark on our academic endeavors with passion, curiosity and a quest-ful taste for rigor and the unknown, we are also tasked with finding balance in other parts of our lives which too have significance and meaning. The singular and oftentimes isolating focus of academia necessitates that we grab firmly that which is important to the completeness and entirety of our lives. The challenge of finding balance is presented on a daily basis as we journey along the winding road of academics in determination and committed pursuit of our degree.
As students we try to balance school, work, family, time, sleep, self-care, relationships, goals, dreams and personal interests. The nature of graduate school demands an imbalance of commitment beyond which is ordinary and additionally commands an unspoken submission of sorts. As a single mom and full-time PhD student, balance has been, and continues to be, the absolute greatest challenge of my academic career. While lacking perfect solutions to the dilemma of creating balance, I can relate greatly to the shared and common experience.
Finding balance within the academic realm requires an almost paradoxical fluctuation of stability between planning and presence. Planning creates intention and the carved out reality and spaciousness for achieving balance, while presence allows us to be mindfully aware of our ever-changing world and what is needed in the moment to create equilibrium.
Successfully finding balance in the setting of graduate school requires an individual willingness to best determine what is important to each of us as students and people. We must remember, learn and discover that which we value most and need to sustain the completeness of our lives—and at the same time we must explore and understand what we are willing to compromise for the sake of our own balance; this is an evolving process. Within the contextual background of academic intensity, perhaps balance is best achieved by knowing what is significant to each of us and further, being creatively yet pragmatically willing to position all of these elements into our lives as we work towards the procurement of greater equipoise.
Dara James is a pursuing her PhD in Physical Activity, Nutrition, & Wellness at Arizona State University under the mentorship of Dr. Meg Bruening. Her Master’s degree is in Exercise & Wellness, and her undergraduate degree is in Kinesiology and Physical Education. Dara’s past research includes an exploration of self-compassion, stress and eating behaviors in college freshmen, plate waste and fruit and vegetable intake as related to school salad bars, the relationship between mindful eating and taste perceptions, the associations among stress, physical activity and body composition in women and exploratory work in the field of child-caregiver feeding interactions. She is currently working on adapting a mindful eating program for a youth population and further investigating the associations among self-compassion, stress, shame and disordered eating behaviors. She is passionate about helping people improve their relationship with food and experience of eating. Dara believes in the daily practice of self-compassion and enjoys hiking and yoga in her spare time. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her children.
Balance. I think that creating balance is the greatest challenge to face as a graduate student. While we hopefully embark on our academic endeavors with passion, curiosity and a quest-ful taste for rigor and the unknown, we are also tasked with finding balance in other parts of our lives which too have significance and meaning. The singular and oftentimes isolating focus of academia necessitates that we grab firmly that which is important to the completeness and entirety of our lives. The challenge of finding balance is presented on a daily basis as we journey along the winding road of academics in determination and committed pursuit of our degree.
As students we try to balance school, work, family, time, sleep, self-care, relationships, goals, dreams and personal interests. The nature of graduate school demands an imbalance of commitment beyond which is ordinary and additionally commands an unspoken submission of sorts. As a single mom and full-time PhD student, balance has been, and continues to be, the absolute greatest challenge of my academic career. While lacking perfect solutions to the dilemma of creating balance, I can relate greatly to the shared and common experience.
Finding balance within the academic realm requires an almost paradoxical fluctuation of stability between planning and presence. Planning creates intention and the carved out reality and spaciousness for achieving balance, while presence allows us to be mindfully aware of our ever-changing world and what is needed in the moment to create equilibrium.
Successfully finding balance in the setting of graduate school requires an individual willingness to best determine what is important to each of us as students and people. We must remember, learn and discover that which we value most and need to sustain the completeness of our lives—and at the same time we must explore and understand what we are willing to compromise for the sake of our own balance; this is an evolving process. Within the contextual background of academic intensity, perhaps balance is best achieved by knowing what is significant to each of us and further, being creatively yet pragmatically willing to position all of these elements into our lives as we work towards the procurement of greater equipoise.
Dara James is a pursuing her PhD in Physical Activity, Nutrition, & Wellness at Arizona State University under the mentorship of Dr. Meg Bruening. Her Master’s degree is in Exercise & Wellness, and her undergraduate degree is in Kinesiology and Physical Education. Dara’s past research includes an exploration of self-compassion, stress and eating behaviors in college freshmen, plate waste and fruit and vegetable intake as related to school salad bars, the relationship between mindful eating and taste perceptions, the associations among stress, physical activity and body composition in women and exploratory work in the field of child-caregiver feeding interactions. She is currently working on adapting a mindful eating program for a youth population and further investigating the associations among self-compassion, stress, shame and disordered eating behaviors. She is passionate about helping people improve their relationship with food and experience of eating. Dara believes in the daily practice of self-compassion and enjoys hiking and yoga in her spare time. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her children.