"The Fire Within" - Book Study reflections

Wow, what a powerful gift this book is; I was originally going to 'Flipgrid' or tweet my responses, but I have way too much to say! I am really appreciative that so many people have bravely contributed their personal journeys of adversity and opened up a discussion on the impact their trauma or difficult experiences have had on their professional lives.

I'm actually posting this on my personal blog rather than my teaching blog because it feels like it gives me room to be more authentic with my responses without 'oversharing' with people who aren't in that same space.

As a trauma survivor, many things resonated with me from the first few chapters. I love the silver lining analogy; our stories and life experiences shape who we are, and if we can find our way through the hardships then there is so much we can give to others.

Mandy, thank you for your incredible courage in sharing your story and the powerful ways you have transformed your pain into something beautiful. I absolutely love the quote chosen to open Chapter Two, "It's okay if you fall down and lose your spark. Just make sure that when you get up, you rise as the whole damn fire," - Colette Werden. You certainly have risen!

Short version of my story (may trigger): My parents were separated when I was quite young, which was probably my "saving grace." We spent most weekends with my father and he was violent, controlling and cruel. Some of my earliest memories are of sexual abuse and I was raped repeatedly between the ages of 8-12. I went to many different schools, but it was always a place of refuge and safety for me. We had a little more space to "just be kids" at my mother's house, but we lived in poverty and she was inconsistent and unstable. At best she was "absorbed in her own world" and at worst she was lashing out or in the midst of another breakdown. She was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder when I was in my early 20's, which helped me to understand a lot. My first boyfriend was a younger version of my childhood abusers, and after I ended the relationship he arranged for his friends to help him gang rape me. I was 17.

So that's kind of my WHY. It's how I came to be who I am today and why I am driven to working with children and families living with adverse circumstances. As teachers, relationships are at the heart of what we do and we are in a really unique position of being able to inspire and empower our students. Who better to connect and respond, to love and to teach our at-risk kids than those who have lived through that experience and truly "get it"?

Like Mandy, I was also compliant at school and went under the radar by doing whatever my teachers required of me and achieving above expectations. I'm very lucky to work in a school that is trauma-informed, but I always feel compelled to point out that our at-risk students are not always so obvious. 

This artwork was drawn by a student living with trauma.
I think this is the lived experience of many children (and adults!).

Many children living with trauma compartmentalize their experiences as part of their survival, and I believe that is part of how I functioned and managed to get where I am today. It also has the impact of not being completely "seen" or appearing to be more competent or capable than one actually feels. That's something that has followed me into adulthood and I could really relate to Mandy's reflection that "nearly every time someone finds out about my past, they ask how I turned out so normal. I always laugh... normal is relative. I play normal very well, especially on the surface." I think that one of the powerful things about this book is that you're opening up the doors for connection and authenticity: We can still be professional while reflecting and sharing the human side.

Inner-world play: A link between resilience, trauma and giftedness?

"The seductions of seeing ensure there is that which remains unseen. Evading visibility is its own fortune. If to behold is to possess, to be looked upon is to be fixed in another’s sight, static and immutable." - Jenny Xie, Eye Level: Poems. 

This beautiful quote reached me right at a time when I needed it the most, a time where I am seeking to understand my own mind and the depth of which I experience life.  One of the reasons I started this blog was because I have the growing realisation that my internal world is amplified; and perhaps there is some dissonance between what I feel or experience and what I express outwardly. At times the stark difference between my internal and external world feels so separate or paradoxical that I feel that I am not completely "real" with others or that I am fooling them by pretending to be something I am not. I am beginning to understand (with a lot of therapy!) that not being completely transparent doesn't mean that I'm being fake or that I'm not being myself, but that I still have a bit of work to do in integrating these compartmentalised views of self.

My therapist shared with me some research she did years ago on play in young girls who had been exposed to varying levels of trauma.  She observed in a subset of girls that there was a correlation between high levels of exposure to trauma and advanced cognitive skills shown in the pretend quality of their play. So if natural ability is there, traumatic experiences or exposure may provide an intense impetus to get that internal world and creativity developed very quickly. She explained it as a happy irony; that part of that resilience comes from retreating within and preserving one's sense of internal world, and that this fantasy life becomes a creative and healing protective factor. I find great comfort in this.

Growing up, my imaginary scenarios were as real and as vivid to me as anything going on in my real life. I knew that I was pretending, but I experienced all of the sensory and visual imagery with just as much vivid detail as things that really happened. That extensive inner world was a place to escape from all of the trauma and I do believe that in some ways it helped me to get through some of those experiences.

My earliest memories of play are from when I was around 4 years old at my mother's house. I collected twigs and pebbles and whatever else I could find, and I created elaborate mini villages with huts and canoes and stick people. Sometimes the weather would destroy the world overnight and I'd come back to rebuild and start the game all over again. Other times my brothers would come along and join in, but it would never quite be the same and I'd send them away for "not following the rules!"

We weren't really allowed to play at my father's house, so I think at around the same age I started playing out imaginary scenarios and games entirely within my mind. I think those "games" started out similarly to how you would play with actual dolls or props, but by the time I was 8 I was creating an entire world.  I called this place Miiran, no idea why but I later learned two things: 1. that the name Miran was derived from the Slavic element miru meaning 'peace' or 'world' and 2. translated to English the Yoruba word 'miiran' means 'other'. I loved that completely coincidentally I had given my imaginary place a name that literally meant an other world of peace.  I continued to elaborate on this "game" until I was about 12. It was where I went to feel at home, and perhaps the only place where I was truly safe.  

I wanted to share this part of my mind so I have been working on a painting to visually represent a scene from this place. I had never really considered that this imagined world had any connection to trauma or resilience, it was just how I passed time or boredom! I don't know how much of this other world was inspired by books, but it never actually occurred to me that this wasn't something that everyone did. I was an avid reader, and whenever I stumbled upon something that had elements of an imaginary world (The Secret Garden, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Bridge to Terabithia) it just confirmed to me that this was a normal thing. It's taken me a few weeks on and off to add layers to my painting, but I finally feel like I've been able to replicate what I see in my mind. So here is my favourite part of that imagined world:

When I first "discovered" this calm space I was about 8 years old. The 'game' started as imagining that I went to sleep and somehow woke up outside of this abandoned log cabin in a completely secluded place. Initially there was never anyone else there and each time I 'went back' I would make changes or build upon this space. Over time the imagined physical space of this place grew larger, there were small islands and then entire countries with characters or people who were made up/indigenous to this land. Sometimes I focused more on the setting and other times it was all about the story lines and interactions between the people and I had an entire made up language that I created/"learned" from the indigenous people over time.

At some point I changed the way I could ‘get in’ to the game, and I created an imagined portal that could be accessed through my next door neighbour’s swing. If I was not physically able to be in that space, I would have this visualization exercise that I would use to remove myself from my physical body and kind of transport myself/’fly’ along the physical pathway (the roads/map in real life that I would have had to follow if travelling in a car) to get back to the swing. Even after our house burnt down at 9 and we moved to another town, I would still have to “travel” back to that swing to get into my world. I often used a similar visualization when I was being raped to transport myself back to the bed at my Mum’s house, but I never tried to take myself into that imagined world during those moments. Perhaps that was my way of keeping it as a completely separate and safe space.

Obviously there are a lot of elements of escaping or putting myself in control, but I never really made the connection that the years that I played this particular ‘mind game’ coincided with when the abuse was much worse.  There are things that I have blocked out or that I don't recall with full clarity, but there are also many things I have always remembered happening; details I was also aware of in very real time. Whenever my dad was driving me to the horse stables I knew the fate that awaited me. Whenever I heard him coming towards my room at night I knew what was going to happen. So I am just now making the connection that perhaps my imagined world was a way for me to disassociate from some of the things happening.

I am not sure why I couldn't see the significance of this imagined world earlier, but I think that reflecting on it now and discussing some of these concepts in therapy is helping me to begin to gain a sense of appreciation for that part of myself. I like the idea that somehow this imagined world of mine still has real meaning and significance.

Future Scenarios

Maasai warriors greet each other with the phrase, "Kasserian ingera." Translated it means, "And how are the children?" I work in a school where, like the revered Maasai warriors, we ask this question of ourselves every day. Caring for our children and their well-being is at the heart of everything we do, and it can be no other way.

Many of my students come from adverse backgrounds; trauma and stress, intergenerational cycles of poverty, family and community violence, neglect, lack of resources, parents with drug and alcohol addictions, and mental health issues. Late last year, 84% of our students in Years 3-6 said in an anonymous survey that they had witnessed or been directly exposed to physical or sexual violence in their lifetime and 68% said that they worry that nobody at home or school cares about them. As a staff, we were collectively shocked and saddened by these staggering statistics. Behind this data are the faces of the real children that we come in to bat for every day. Since then we've worked hard to take strategic action to continue to improve the well-being of our children.

My main role at school is to teach STEM, which basically means I get to do all the fun stuff... and what that really means is that I get to guide our kids through student-led, hands-on inquiries about the real-world things that matter to them. Our school formed a partnership with some outside businesses and connected our students with STEM professionals, and from there we somehow found ourselves with outside recognition and media attention. It has been so inspiring and rewarding to witness the personal transformation that each student has had with this program. They come from a climate of poverty that engenders an environment of powerlessness, disinvestment and deprivation... and suddenly they have an authentic audience and a powerful message that their voices do matter and there are people who believe in their ideas. There was a real inequality of opportunity and that's what we're trying to shift with this program.

I am so proud of these kids, but even more important than that is that they are proud of themselves. They believe in themselves and they have confidence and they have hope. Working with future scenarios and solving problems that will help to improve their futures and their world has been empowering for them. Young people often have very little control over what happens in their lives and the idea of a future can be quite an abstract concept, particularly when you need to put a lot of energy into simply surviving. Anything that disempowers you in the present will detract from your ability to see into your future.

Solving current issues has helped to pave a pathway that allows them to picture the future they want and it's spurred on by a vehement belief of how things ought to be. They're on a mission!  The future scenarios are a stimulus for action and this work empowers students by inviting them to take more control of their future. Having a shared vision with their peers has also helped to build a sense of belonging in the school community; they're building relationships and friendships and there's a real feeling of them being "in this together" with this shared goal of changing their futures for the better.

I am so appreciative of the zest and empowerment that this project has created. One of my students reflected that she had never really known how to answer the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" because she didn't really feel like she would grow up. It didn't seem real. She said she still isn't sure what she wants to do with her life, but she feels like there is going to be a life. Her future matters and RIGHT NOW matters too. That was a really powerful moment for me, and it's feedback that lets me know that we're on the right track.

Something I have found difficult to articulate about my own experiences is that sense of a not having a future. Like many of my students, the concept wasn’t real to me as a child. It’s a time in your life where you really do have limited control over the things that happen to you. Without a sense of future you are perpetually stuck in a feeling of hopelessness, like you have no control or agency over anything. That sense of a foreshortened future hasn't made me live my life any differently (though perhaps I took more risks than I otherwise would have!), but it has certainly been a pervasive part of my landscape.

When my husband proposed to me I struggled with wondering how I could marry someone and plan for a future when I didn't even really believe I had a future.  I don't know that there is a specific or tangible fear, it's more a feeling of perpetually waiting for "the other shoe to drop" or a belief that you can't really count on something that might not happen. I had to tackle it from a very hypothetical perspective, "how do I feel right now, and if there was such a thing as a future what would I want it to look like?" 

I guess that's what I'm working on with my students: "If you had the power to change something, what would would it be? What would your future look like? What kind of action would you need to take to get there?" I hope that it is one of those opportunities they will look back on when they are 30 or 40 and say "remember when..." (By the time they get there, technology will have advanced so much that will probably have a great laugh about what they thought was ground breaking and novel!)

So if you asked me today how the children were, I feel like I could say, "All the children are well." I can't wait to see where the future takes us.

Art by Galuh Edelweiss Sayyidina, 8-yr-old artist from Indonesia.

Mother's Day...

I love my quirky kids... My daughter's teacher asked her to draw her mummy for Mother's Day. Instead she drew an Egyptian mummy in a tomb. 😂😂

Today my beautiful children have wrapped me in all the love their little hearts can muster. In spite of my failings as a human being; the times I’ve been so mind numbingly bored at home with a newborn or exasperated with a toddler who has experimented with play-dough up his nose. The times that they're bouncing off the walls, the times that my house seems completely trashed, the times that I'm so exhausted that I just want to cry...in spite of the not so perfect moments, they just see love. They see the story-time snuggles, the outdoor adventures, the dinner conversations, the laughing, the wiping of tears, the cheerleader, the confidant... the person, however flawed she may be, who loves them more than life itself. That’s what they see. 

How lucky I am that they see that. That these little people love me as unconditionally as children can. Let today be a celebration of all those who choose to love and nurture someone outside of themselves, mothers or not.

On Being Headstrong...

I ask my daughter what she'd like on her toast. Strawberry jam. So I give her the toast and she looks at it. Then she looks at me. “Is that strawberry jam?” Instantly I realise my mistake but I respond, “It’s jam, try it.” She raises her eyebrows and picks up the toast. Then she smells it.  In my head I’m like seriously?  
Daughter: "This is not strawberry jam. It’s clearly raspberry. Are you trying to trick me?"
Me: "Well... they look the same, how about you just try it?"
Daughter: "Well... if you wanted me to try it, why did you ask me what I wanted?"
I don't know! I'm asking myself that same question!  Then she starts listing all the differences between strawberries and raspberries, and questioning why I didn't just tell her that I'd put the wrong spread on her toast? Did I think she'd have no idea? She makes an excellent point. In that situation I'm feeling mix of frustration and amusement. She's strong-willed and determined, always thoughtfully questioning, pushing the boundaries and inventing 'compromises'... and it's one of many things I love about her. 

Headstrong or strong-willed is a quality that I would also use to describe myself. I think I have always been that way. From before I can remember there are stories of burying new shoes I didn't want to wear in the garden, or rolling my eyes at my mother and telling her she was absolutely wrong. I still don't easily bend. It goes a little bit beyond just being stubborn; I have my own moral compass for what I feel is right or wrong and I can be quite inflexible if something crosses that line. 

Lately, I have had some issues from my childhood come to the surface. Specifically, I am feeling all sorts of internal chaos when I reflect on the interactions I had with my abusive father throughout my childhood. I don’t plan on discussing actual assault details here, but the rest of this post may potentially be triggering for abuse survivors. I will be talking about some of the psychological aspects and feelings that I’m trying to sort out.

So I guess I would describe my father as sadistic and narcissistic. Much of his abuse felt systematic and methodical and deliberate. He often had a very calm, matter-of-fact demeanor, even when he was making me do some really awful things. Inside my own mind I was constantly analysing the chaos and confusion; I felt like I had an observing awareness and I put a lot of energy into what I considered to be a "mind game". I believed that I had an impenetrable inner world and that no matter what he did on the outside he wouldn’t be able to touch my mind.

And here’s why I’m posting this: In all the years of connecting with other survivors of abuse, I haven’t really heard anyone describe a similar interaction or reaction to their abusers. I want to better understand the dynamic I feel I experienced or played a role in as a headstrong child in that situation. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but I haven't been able to find a great deal of information on sadistic-narcissistic parents who are highly intelligent (perhaps even gifted). I understand from a logical perspective that there was nothing in that situation that was really my fault. It truly did not make an ounce of difference to the outcome regardless of what I did or didn't do in those moments. The end result was always abuse. I know that no child “deserves” to be treated that way.

My therapist is encouraging me to try to peel away the story that me being headstrong has caused things to be worse. I do see the value in trying to challenge this idea, but I feel a bit stuck with the reality of the past. In some ways, on some occasions digging my heels in did result in being hurt more than I possibly would have been otherwise. Perhaps it is not really measurable, but I am certain that there are times I did add fuel to fire or push buttons intentionally.  There were definitely times that I "made him angry" and in those moments, when I was able to elicit a response, I felt like I was the one in control. I think one of the magical thinking "mind games" I would play was doing whatever I could to not show a reaction back. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction, so I would pretend it didn't hurt. I didn't cry. He never showed any remorse. He used my behaviour as a way to justify and rationalise his, I made him do it.

Even though he often seemed to be calculated and calm, he was also sometimes unpredictable.  I always knew that the ultimate 'consequence' was going to be sexual abuse, but I suppose I couldn't always predict or anticipate the swift and severe anger he would occasionally explode with. Looking back now, as an adult, I know that these unpredictable swings didn't necessarily follow non-compliance or defiance from me. Sometimes it was when I was trying to follow his rules or do what he said. So I recognise that this particular "mind game" is not working for me now, and that it was not really based entirely on what was happening at the time. I didn't have the power that I thought I had.

This is a mixed-media painting I've been working on this week to try and capture some of these feelings: 

Letter to my younger self

A few months ago my therapist set me an assignment of sorts, to write a note to a younger version of myself from the wiser, older me: "If you were to think about this from the perspective of trying to help a friend struggling with a sense of shame, what you would tell them?  And I don’t meet the simple version of “it wasn’t your fault”, but  if your friend was in front of you, looking for your help, and in that moment you needed to dig down and find a gesture, a tone of voice, an expression, a metaphor, that would communicate your concern for this friend and your wish that they were out from under this painful burden, what would it be?  Can you imagine that instead of a friend, this is a younger version of yourself; this is the teenage you? What you want to tell her?"

I'm not going to post my letter in its entirety, but I am going to share parts because I found this exercise particularly helpful (and challenging!). I am still working through some old layers of shame and it feels like this is an important piece in what will hopefully be a 'turning point' for a new level of healing for me. It's been a long time since I've needed to revisit the past in such detail, but the last few months have been a time that I've found myself doing so. So, here is my letter to a younger version of myself:

If you were my friend I would come and sit with you in the corridor of that police station. We’d just sit, and I’d let you have your moment. The metaphor that I would bring would be gravity or relativity.  Trauma is as real and as powerful a force as gravity. You can’t see it, but there is no denying gravity.  And it could keep you grounded, but I would actually take it away.  I would remove the force or the weight that was keeping you there in that part of time and space.

And I would say it is okay that you don’t have all the answers. No one else in this time and place seems to have them either.  And maybe you haven’t gone about things the right way or made the right decisions… but maybe there is no right way.  You’re trying to make these connections and you’re questioning yourself and your choices, but you’re not really questioning the actions of everyone else. Who has helped to keep you safe so far? You should never have been in this position.

You are so outnumbered, so alone.  The things that have happened to you feel unspeakable. You’re afraid.  Your sense of self is so fragile and you believe there is something profoundly disappointing about you. There’s not a single person you haven’t let down. And I don’t know how you will forgive yourself for the possible consequences that your choices may have on others, but what I can tell you is that you have not taken more than you give.

This will be the making of you.  Very soon you’re going to go looking for resources for survivors of gang rape and there won’t really be any. So in just a few years you are going to be dedicated to providing support and resources to survivors of rape and sexual abuse.  Over the years you will connect, literally, with thousands of other survivors. You will make sure that no one that reaches out to you ever feels the way you have been made to feel right now.

You don’t know it yet, but you are already trying to make sense, trying to find your footing after your world has been made very unsteady. Parts of an essay that you wrote in your exams right after your rape are still imprinted in my memory.  You wrote that the character Oriel derived most of her important insights from a position of subservience. That the author had constructed the tent as a symbol of her desire to escape.  The haunted sound of middle C was one of the reasons Oriel moved into the tent and this note was the basis for all harmonic chords, so it represented dissonance as well as her separateness. You wrote about the transcendent elements; how there is no real division between life and death, or the past and present: “I travel back to these moments to wonder at what you’re feeling and come away with nothing but the knowledge of how it will be in the end.”

And I don’t know that it really meant much to you then, but what I wish is that I could go back and give you the knowledge of how it will be in the end.

Am I Gifted?

Until last year, I had absolutely no idea that I was gifted. I was noticing personality traits, behaviours and natural abilities in my daughter that made it clear that she was potentially gifted, but I had a massive blind spot when it came to my own giftedness. Fortunately for me, the psychologist I have been supported by on and off for many years for past trauma issues also happens to have a wealth of knowledge on giftedness.  When we first started discussing this topic of 'giftedness' my therapist asked if my daughter reminded me of anyone in my family. Despite the constant comments I've received her entire life about how she's exactly like me, my mind instantly went to one of my brothers: "Oh yeah, my brother's highly intelligent, challenging, etc!"

As I was peeling away the denial, this is part of what I sent my therapist: 

What you said about compliance and flexibility as an adaptive trait has helped a lot. I looked up gifted adults who reject the idea that they are gifted and I found an analogy (by Stephanie S. Tolan) that also feels helpful about dots and spaces: how we tend to see our own deficits (spaces) but others’ gifts (dots) because we take our own dots for granted. The explanation is that the combination of focusing on one’s spaces, while taking one’s dots for granted… and valuing other people’s dots more highly can lead to feeling inadequate or inferior.  There’s something about that perspective that has helped it to feel a little clearer for me; it’s not that I can’t see that there are dots, it’s just that I can see all the spaces and the feeling was that maybe they make the dots not as valid or real.

I think that may have been the real turning point in accepting that I am gifted. Of course I've always taken my own abilities for granted, that's all I've ever known! I felt really self-conscious talking about my abilities or achievements (I still do!), but all the 'negatives' that come with being gifted were fairly easy to claim. I've always known that I'm a perfectionist, which can work both for and against me... I used to explain that away as an adaptive trait I'd developed due to my traumatic upbringing, but now I see it's possibly a mix of both 'nature' and 'nurture' (or lack thereof!).  I have very high expectations of myself and I don't take failure very well. I'm a high-achiever, which can be explained away by the perfectionism and also a desire to people-please. I suppose that breezing through school as a straight A student without ever needing to really try should have told me something, but I honestly never considered my experience was any different to other straight A students. I also went to school in a fairly rough area, and I figured the bar was set pretty low. I was in extension programs but I often felt like I didn't really belong there.

Like my daughter, I was also a self-taught fluent reader before any formal schooling. I only had one day of kindergarten before they moved me to first grade. I remember being sorely disappointed that I didn't get to play all day anymore! I was very compliant at school, it was always my safe place. I do remember being told that I talked too much and that I should let my friends learn. I went to quite a few primary (elementary) schools. By the time I was 9 I had lived in as many houses. I think there was only ever one teacher that I really questioned. She wanted us to make posters about the Kosovo war, but they weren't even going to be on display anywhere. I remember being completely disheartened. What was the point of knowing about these awful things going on in the world if we weren't even going to try to do something about it? I told her she was wasting my time. Yeah, that did not end well!

I kept some of my high school reports so that when I was having 'all or nothing' moments where I felt negatively about myself I could look back on them for opposing 'evidence'.  Out of curiosity, I took them out and looked through with a different lens.  Some of the questions I had: How intelligent can someone really be if they don’t even realise they are!? If I had been a moderately gifted student wouldn’t I know? Why did no one tell me? Or is that what they were sort of saying in the reports, but I just wasn’t able to hear it? 

In high school I always felt like I was a bit of a fraud, pretending to be someone I wasn't. I had close to no self-esteem, but I acted like I was confident and self-assured. I had an opinion about everything and I wasn't afraid to share it. I was in drama and music productions, my art was displayed in exhibitions, I represented the school in sporting and debating teams. All those things were effortless, but they never really filled the hole. I was never enough. I felt like I was different to others, like I didn't belong. I believed that if anyone ever really knew me they would realise that I was fake; that I was fooling them into believing I was better than I really was. I remember at one end of year award ceremony I received 8 awards. Instead of a feeling of pride or any sense of achievement I remember thinking, "Why are you doing this to me?" I hadn't EARNED any of those awards! Afterwards, one of my closest friends commented that he had no idea I was smart. It turned into a bit of a joke, but it stuck with me. I realised that even those closest to me had no idea who I really was.

I think one of the things I have found challenging since this question of giftedness came up is that I'd always believed I was quite self-aware and reflective; I'm always thinking, analysing, reflecting. So to sit with new knowledge about myself calls into question all the perceptions and beliefs I have about who I am. If I didn't know I was gifted, what else don't I know? 

Anyway, I found a scanned copy of a pencil sketch I drew about 12 years ago. At the time, it was a way of trying to represent what I wished for in life: healing and balance, an ability to find peace and acceptance of who I am and where I've been.  To be able to "sit with" the reality of painful experiences without the intensity or power to hurt me in my present life. Although I'm spending quite a bit of energy and time digging around in my past lately, I feel like I am closer than ever to this goal. Sure, some unresolved emotions still come back with an intensity... but it's not all there is anymore. It's not the "whole" and it can't take away all of the blessings and gratitude I have in my life today. 

There's a song lyric that I like by Imagine Dragons that feels like a fitting way to end this post:

"I'm an apostrophe, I'm just a symbol to remind you that there's more to see." 

"Healing Balance"