mid-week Connect: 5/3/23 ~ Cross Cultural Balancing
Greetings and Happy Midweek!
To start off the month of May, I thought we would explore a helpful skill, as those of us in the northern hemisphere look toward all the adventures the coming summer months will hold for us.
There will be choices to be made about travel, vacations and maybe stay-cations as well. Let’s explore how the skill of balancing will come in handy. This fits nicely into the Applications component of our Global SKILLs PROACTive Framework, since applying the multi-faceted skill of balancing in different cultures and contexts can be very effective.*
To keep our lives comfortably on track, within and across cultures, the skill of balancing is something we each do on a daily basis - by balancing time, commitments, and (maybe more so, as we advance in age!) even our physical gait so we don’t trip.
Applying different aspects of balancing, for example as we consider the dynamics a new season will bring, helps us move forward in sustainably balanced ways. This can include careful consideration of commitments, weighing pros and cons when making choices, deciding how much of our own culture and how much of a new or multiple new cultures we will engage with.
Balancing the exciting adventures cross cultural life and work offer can be totally energizing. But also, sometimes when we are balancing too much of the new or exotic or challenging, we can get weary. Thinking and planning as we balance all this will both stabilize and empower us…and can be really FUN, too!
How about you ~ what is one way you will be ‘balancing across cultures’ in coming months?
Share about that with a friend or note it here.
And check out the Global SKILLs LINKs below for more on balancing…
Thanks for being part of this Connect community.
Until next week,
Betsy
Global SKILLs LINKs
~ Balancing for wellness: https://thedavisgroup.org/finding-balance-between-cultural-tradition-and-your-own-interests/
~ One version of balancing cultural identities: https://theaggie.org/2018/02/15/achieving-balance-two-separate-identities/
~ Extreme balancing around the world:
French slackliner crosses the Seine from the Eiffel Tower in breathtaking stunt
The man crossing the world on a highline
Notes
Related Connects 3/10/21 - choosing change; 3/31/21 - teachable moments, a balancing act of pros and cons (scroll here down to the date)
* Through my business Global SKILLs and several partner subsidiaries I offer unique cross-cultural consulting and training including:
3 Dimensional Dynamics Model:
1st dimension = HOME ; 2nd dimension = HOST ; 3rd dimension = HARBOR)
PROACTive Framework:
PRO = PROfile, PROcess, PROgram
ACT = Applications (which we explored this week), Collaborations and Transformations
~ contact me for more information on this model and these strategies and how you might use them in your current programming: betsy.barbour@gmail.com
2023 ~ Celebrating 40+ years of working in
intercultural communications and global community building
“It takes a community to build a community”
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Please do not reproduce or share without my permission (betsy.barbour@gmail.com)