“The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.” -Susan Sontag

The word hormone comes from the Greek word ( ὁρμή ) which means “impetus”. The chemistry that we often walk around taking for granted is actually the impetus for most, if not all, of our daily functioning. Let me elaborate- our hormones control our growth and development, our metabolism, which controls our hunger and how we process our food, our mood and mood swings, our ability to feel sexual and reproduce, the internal balance of all the body systems called homeostasis, the activation or lack of immune response, the stress response and did I mention mood swings. So like I said, we are a walking bag of skin that hold our hormones in and if you are lucky, they balance.Which is to say you function.

All organisms are run by hormones, so basically they control the entire living world. The dance of the hormones is life mystery itself. Not only is it profoundly subtle, but like the human variance in response to scent, our hormonal balance is almost as unique as our fingerprint. They send messages to each other within the finest chemical links and each messenger cell has to have specific receptors. Really if you never got the miracle of life, all you have to do it try to understand your hormonal response.

The truly remarkable thing is how many people walk around with their hormones in perfect balance and never even give a nod to the amazing endocrine system. Able to perform amazing athletic feats, producing incredible offspring, making love late in the night, preparing exquisite foods… all these gifts and more come from the magic of hormonal balance.

Hormones are powerful. It takes only a tiny amount to cause big changes in cells or even your whole body. That is why too much or too little of a certain hormone can be serious. It only takes a tiny push to knock the whole thing off tilt- that’s why menopause ranks so high- its like puberty but backwards, and this after years of working to maintain that fragile balance.

I guess I have made my point; that I am living these days of positivity quest in the truth of unbalance. Finding my way back to whatever balance is left to me is now part of the quest, because hormones are life. A good reminder to appreciate balance in whatever form it takes and to be gentle with the unbalanced moments, too- because there is truth in both places.