Finding balance: Between home, the office, and the sea

I started working remotely a year ago when I moved to Devon, and it was always something I was anxious about because I love being with my team. What I’ve learned is that balance doesn’t have to be about choosing one way of working over another, but knowing what I need, and when.

Today, I split my time between working from home and going into the office, and I genuinely see the value in both. There are days when being at home suits me perfectly: I’m productive, focused, and grateful for the quiet. However, I’m also an archetypal extrovert, and if I stay away from people for too long a low-level paranoia creeps in and I overthink.

Being back with the team is a personal and professional tonic. It’s like hitting a reset button in my brain. Going into the office grounds me - seeing people, chatting, being reminded that I’m part of something bigger brings me back into balance. At the end of last year, when stress had built to the point where I genuinely felt like I might crumble, coming into the office steadied me. It didn’t magically fix all my anxieties, but it reminded me who I was and gave me space to breathe again.

As a result, I’ve stopped seeing working from home and being in the office as opposing forces and as complementary ones instead. One gives me autonomy and calm; the other gives me energy and perspective, and both are immensely valuable.

Finding connection with new people

When I moved to Devon, people questioned whether it would be isolating. Instead, it’s opened up this ability to, in essence, have it all.

Like I said, I am an extrovert - I love being around people and the energy it brings, but during Covid the relief from constant socialising was something I hadn’t realised I also needed. That gave me my first insight into the idea that perhaps it wasn’t about being around people all the time, but finding balance between different sides of myself.

It’s true that meeting people in Devon is very different to meeting them in Brighton, but I decided from the outset that I wasn’t going to force new friendships - I would let them happen organically. I’m old enough now to know that the right friendships happen naturally when you follow what genuinely interests you. I already had friends and in a digital world you have the ability to interact with them at the touch of a button no matter where they are in the world.

With that knowledge, I trusted that the right people would come into my life, and they did. It would have been logical to have met people at the school gates, dropping off and picking up my daughter, but so far, almost all of them have come through surfing, which is wonderful because that’s a genuine shared interest rather than a coincidental life stage.

I met one woman early on through a surf shop and she’s now one of my closest friends. Through surfing — including a menopause-focused surf group, I met others who, like me, were new to the area. We now meet weekly, message constantly, and honestly, I don’t think I’d surf half as much without them, so it’s become both a valued friendship group and a meaningful new hobby. I feel genuinely blessed that we found one another.

Wellbeing, water, and listening to my body

I also treated moving to Devon as an opportunity to take up hobbies and activities that created the life I had always wanted. Surfing has been central to that. I surprised myself by finding it so quickly, and even more by how much it’s given me — not just joy, but a life outside of work and family that feels truly mine. Sport has always been my easiest route back to myself. Movement calms me; It always has, but surfing is something else entirely.

As a family we walk a lot, but I’m also in the water year-round now. I’ve layered up, invested in a winter wetsuit, and embraced the cold. Surfing keeps me constantly moving - paddling, jumping through waves, trying again and again. I even had a breakthrough with my flexibility, something I didn’t expect at all!

Of course, the self-doubting voices creep in. I’m 46, so I don’t expect to pop up on a board like a twenty-year-old. However, this morning, I found myself practising pop-ups on my knees in my hotel room without even thinking about it. Not long ago, I’d have told myself I couldn’t do that - I would have thought I was too old, too stiff, too inflexible, and yet, every time I think I’ve reached the limit of what surfing can give me, it offers more.

Having got to grips with surfing on my initial board, I bought a smaller one this year and I had to start again from the beginning because it’s harder. That didn’t bother me because I knew I could do it, and now I’ve cracked that board as well and I’m so proud of myself. Knowing I could do that has shifted my mindset in other areas of my life as well - it’s given me more confidence.

I’ve also started looking at Pilates classes which are coming to a local café - it’s the kind of thing I’d once have talked myself out of. However, now I know how much flexibility and strength feed directly into my time in the water. I don’t want to just surf - I want to enjoy it and I want to be good enough that it remains a pleasure, so my mind has opened up to other things I can do to support that goal.

Stress, stillness, and salt water

I’ve always known sport helps my stress levels, but surfing might be the most powerful regulator I’ve ever found. My mind is always busy, which is a gift in many ways, but when I’m stressed, I’m wired. I talk at a hundred miles an hour, my thoughts race and my body feels like it’s buzzing.

Historically, I haven’t really had a way of channelling that feeling when it becomes overwhelming, but now I know I can grab my wetsuit, get into the sea, and come out a completely different person - brain reset, no more shaking, and able to think clearly again.

It’s the parasympathetic nervous system in action, but it feels almost magical. I’ve been out in the water in torrential rain with incredible waves, feeling absurdly lucky to be there. Finding a hobby like that doesn’t just help in the moment, it stays with you: you read about it, think about it, look forward to the next time you can do it. I’m reading a book about cold-water swimming at the moment, and even that feels restorative.

Community, sustainability, and what comes next

Surfing has also made me more conscious of the sea itself - of protecting it and respecting it. My daughter has picked up on that too. She’s fiercely passionate about sustainability, and was heartbroken when her primary school cut down a tree. They encourage the children to form their own groups, and she’s joined the sustainability one, which she enjoys immensely, and which hands out awards to teachers who do the most for the environment. There’s even a local independent school with an Earth scholarship, which I love the idea of.

Living by the sea, you realise how much all these things are affected, and my next goal is to try to expand on that and find some charity work I can do within the surfing community - perhaps something that helps give access to more people. I think it’s such an incredible way for people to find wellness, and I’m especially passionate about making sure my daughter has that kind of outlet, so she has a way to manage her mental and physical wellbeing as she grows up.

Still learning; still balancing

I don’t think balance is something you find once and tick off; it’s something you keep recalibrating, whether it’s between home and the office, work and rest, ambition and wellbeing. Right now, mine includes spreadsheets and meetings, wetsuits and waves, community and quiet, and I’m still learning - still falling off and getting back on the board - quite literally.