Yesterday marked the 1st of December. My girls and I climbed up into the roof to drag out the Christmas decorations — the tree, the boxes, the tangled lights, all of it. It was one of those humid Queensland evenings where everything sticks to your skin, and we ended up doing an accidental squealing choreography around huge spiders, mosquitoes, and whatever unseen creatures were claiming the attic as their kingdom.

By the time we got everything downstairs, we were already laughing. And then came the tree. It took three attempts to get it standing. The stand kept leaning like it was questioning all of its life choices, and at one point I held the entire tree upright while the girls narrated the spectacle like a reality TV show. Eventually — slightly crooked but completely perfect — it stood.

We decorated, untangled lights, filmed little moments, and then, in true Haigh-family fashion, ended up dancing around the tree to Christmas carols. A messy, joyful kind of dance that reminded me why I love this time of year so much — and why balance has been calling itself into my awareness so strongly.

Balance Is Not What We Think It Is

As I sat later that night, lights twinkling, girls full of excitement, I felt a very clear awareness rise:

Balance has been moving through our community field for weeks. In Boom Rooms. In systemic and ancestral constellations. In conversations. In sessions. In the way people are feeling stretched yet awakening at the same time. And it struck me how misunderstood balance really is.

We imagine balance as perfection — everything evenly distributed, calm, tidy, spacious. But real balance looks nothing like that. It isn’t a perfectly still pond. It’s the river — moving, adjusting, overflowing, pulling back, finding its way. Polarity is the existence of opposites. Balance is our relationship to them. Polarity is the light and the dark. Balance is the muscle that allows us to hold both without losing ourselves. Polarity is activation and rest. Balance is the fluidity we build to move between them. Polarity is the sympathetic and parasympathetic. Balance is the nervous system’s intelligence in navigating both.

This is why balance is never static. It’s a dance — often imperfect, sometimes clumsy, and occasionally hilarious. Like when one of the girls proudly hung an ornament only for the entire branch to fall off and she said, deadpan, “Well, that’s one way to let go of the past.”. Balance isn’t the absence of chaos. It’s the ability to stay connected to yourself in the midst of it.

Your Nervous System Was Built for Movement, Not Perfection

Inside Heart Brain Harmony, one of the first things we explore is the brilliance of the autonomic nervous system — the lifelong conversation between the sympathetic (activation) and the parasympathetic (rest). We weren’t designed to live in just one. We were designed to move between both with ease. But we can only move fluidly when our internal capacity is strong. This is why balance collapses when we’re overloaded. It’s not because we’re “bad at balance.” It’s because our baseline is carrying more than it’s built for.

December tends to expose this quickly. The emotional load increases. The environment becomes louder. The collective nervous system tightens. And yes — there’s nothing quite like hearing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” for the 47th time in a shopping centre to test your window of tolerance. Which brings us into the concept that underpins everything: your window of tolerance.

Your Window of Tolerance: The Space Where You Can Actually Live

Your window of tolerance is your internal bandwidth — the range within which you can feel, process, think, and relate without becoming overwhelmed. Inside it, you can meet life. Outside it, you either shoot up into urgency and overwhelm, or drop down into shutdown.

December narrows this window for most people — not because they’re weak, but because the season itself carries:

• sensory overload
• emotional expectations
• busier schedules
• family patterns resurfacing
• end-of-year fatigue
• financial pressure
• collective stress

In other words, it’s a lot. And yet, this is the moment where the opportunity for balance is the greatest. Because real balance isn’t built during quiet seasons — it’s revealed during full ones.

Heart-Brain Coherence: The Practice That Expands Your Capacity

Consistent heart-brain coherence trains your nervous system to return to centre more quickly and with less effort. Over time, your baseline shifts. You become less reactive. You think more clearly. You recover faster. You hold more without collapsing. You respond instead of spiralling. And eventually, coherence becomes your home base rather than something you visit occasionally.

This is not conceptual. HeartMath research shows that coherence increases HRV — the gold-standard marker of emotional resilience. When you practice coherence consistently, you are literally building the structure required for balance. You’re creating more space inside your window of tolerance. You’re strengthening your vagal tone. You’re expanding your emotional and energetic capacity.

This is why, even in busy seasons, people who practise coherence say things like:

“I don’t get overwhelmed the way I used to.”

“I’m staying present even when life feels big.”

“I’m responding differently. Something in me has changed.”

Because it has. The nervous system has recalibrated itself.

Balance in Community: Why We Don’t Regulate Alone

This is where the Boom Room becomes so powerful. You can regulate alone. But you regulate faster and deeper when you are held in a coherent field. Inside the Boom Room, dozens of us breathe into coherence together. We settle together. We energetically attune to one another. We borrow each other’s balance until it becomes our own.

There’s something extraordinary about watching the field soften in real time. Someone arrives dysregulated… and minutes later, their breath slows, their shoulders drop, their eyes change. The Boom Room is a beacon for dogs, cats and children - they wander into the room and immediately settle — the truest sign that coherence is happening.

In a world that feels like it’s speeding up, in a season that stretches even the strongest of us, accountability and connection matter more than ever. Your regulated state becomes the anchor for everyone around you. Your coherence becomes their landing place. Your presence becomes the calm in your family’s storm.

This is balance as leadership. Balance as contribution. Balance as love.

So What Is Balance Really Asking of You This Season?

Not perfection. Not control. Not doing everything “right.”. But the willingness to build the capacity to meet life with your heart open. The willingness to return to centre again and again. The willingness to practise. The willingness to breathe. The willingness to choose coherence even when things feel loud.

Balance is not a destination — it’s a frequency. A skill. A practice. A remembering.

When you embody it, you don’t just change your own experience. You change the emotional climate of your home. You shift the field around you. You give everyone around you permission to soften too. And in a season like this one… that is a gift beyond measure.

A Soft Invitation

If your heart is craving steadiness, support, accountability, and a daily anchor back into yourself — I’d love to welcome you into the Boom Room. It’s where we practise the very thing this season invites us into: balance, coherence, community, and remembering who we are beneath the noise.

✨ Join us inside The Boom Room here

Come breathe into coherence with us. You don’t have to do this alone.