One of the beautiful members of The Love & Magic Salon asked about creating Balance, and because I love my Salon members, I got right on it.

And, I figured if Cassandra wanted help with finding balance, then you might too.

 

We hear about “balance” all the time, in fact there are even “life balance coaches” that specifically help people create balance in their lives.  Some people seem to think that balance is the be all and end all of successful living, while others think it is bogus – usually the people that want to throw them self into one project at a time – I’m guilty of belonging to both groups.   I guess I’ve struck a balance between the two.  (Sorry, bad pun.  But I couldn’t resist.)

Here’s the deal, balance is something we bring ourselves back to.

That amazing rock in the picture above was left behind by retreating glaciers in the last Ice Age. That rock sits perfectly balanced on top of another rock in Haida Gwaii. Even the 7.6 earthquake of October 2012 didn’t disturb it. That is amazing balance.

And, we are not rocks that can achieve balance and then remain there forever (or for an ice age). We are not static.  We are human.  We move, we fall, we get back up.

We have feelings and emotions and sometimes we have a lot of work  to do and sometimes there is a big opportunity to play and sometimes even though we have our calendar all figured out, well… shit happens.

Sometimes life is going along just swimmingly and then a tragedy happens.  We lose someone we love,  we get laid off from our job, we get diagnosed with a terrible illness, we get divorced.  These times practically demand that we get “out of balance” for a while, that we allow ourselves to sink down into the grieving process, dive into a career search, immerse our self in healing modalities, spirituality, self-love, self-care, self-discovery.

So the key to balance is to be acutely aware when we are best served by being “in balance” or are better served by being “out of balance” for a season.  And then we can be intentional and make adjustments if we choose to.

When people first begin a meditation practice they often complain that they are having trouble “doing it right” because their mind keeps wandering.  But that is the whole point of meditating, that’s why it is a “practice”..because over and over we bring our self back to our center. We bring ourself back to focusing on the breath.  Over and over, the mind wanders, we bring ourselves back, the mind wanders, we bring our selves back, the mind wanders, we come back.  Until one day we realize that the mind didn’t wander as often, or as far.

Generally, life balance (sans tragedy or anything catastrophic happening) strikes me the same way.

At one point we may realize that we have absolutely no balance in some area (or between the areas).

Maybe we are focusing SO much on work or school that there seems to be little time for anything else.  So we take some time to play.

Or maybe we one day realize that we take care of everyone else but don’t spend much time or energy on self-care.  So we shift gears.

As we get intentional about balance we suddenly become more aware of when we are beginning to get out of balance and we begin to correct our course sooner.  This way we “stay” in balance.

Instead of waiting until we are starving to eat, we recognize hunger sooner and we take care of it.

Instead of waiting until we are completely sleep deprived, we notice our need for sleep sooner and we give our self an opportunity to rest.

Instead of giving away all of our power, we recognize that we are not keeping strong boundaries and we take a step to strengthen them.

Instead of waiting until any extreme forces us to regain balance, we make a course correction and become more balanced sooner.  In this way we have less of the “pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other” type of experience.

Like anything else, balance takes practice.  Like anything else we learn from our mistakes.  And like any other rule, we sometimes choose to break the rule of balance in favor of a short term goal. Like an athlete who runs a marathon, or a writer who stays up all night to meet a deadline.  The occasional extreme is sometimes necessary, it’s when we consistently swing from one extreme to the other that we get ourselves into a place where it takes more work to regain our equilibrium.

What areas do you struggle with keeping in balance?

Remember, there are no mistakes and no “shoulds”. Let Love guide you and everything will balance out in the end.

Love & Magic,

 

 

P.S. Have you joined The Love & Magic Salon yet? It is a free community over at Facebook full of Love, Magic, and well, it’s Beautiful.  We uplift each other and support each other with our intentions and well, our “stuff”.  It’s a lovely place and I encourage you to come right over and join us.  It is a closed group, so once you get there just hit the “request to join” button.

Balanced Rock Photo
By Rosemary Ratcliff