11 The Keys to Achieving Balance in Your Life
Balance is the bottom line. We strive all our lives to keep in balance. Our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual being is constantly striving to stay balanced. When we are balanced, our “whole-self” works in conjunction with all our other beliefs. When we are not in balance, we allow ourselves to be more susceptible to doubt, even illness or dis-ease. Keeping this delicate balance is up to you.
Achieve Balance in Your Life
Everything works in a delicate compromise. Therefore, balance is constantly fluctuating. Moving in and out of balance is a natural process. The Universe is always re-balancing itself. It is an on-going recalibration of the elements from the largest mass to the smallest atom. Balance is literally seen as standing on a seesaw or teeter-totter and consistently keeping the ends from tilting too far to one side or the other.
We can find the “strive for balance” within ourselves, and everywhere we look. Consider how our bodies re-balance as the seasons change. A women’s menstrual cycle is the body constantly rebalancing. It is related to the moon and how our birth, life, and death cycles are similar to the cycles of nature. It is important to realize that we are never fully in balance all of the time.
The proponents of Yin and Yang, our Circadian rhythm, and the energy of Biorhythms are ancient paradigms used to understand balance. These theories show how life finds a point of equilibrium and constantly works to stay within this balance. When factors are introduced to sway this balance, the energies surrounding them push back to find that point of equilibrium once more.
“Balance… comes from your vital engagement in, and personal striving toward, goals that give your life a sense of meaning and purpose.” ~ Ellen Ostrow
The Keys to Achieving Balance
You need to find the right balance that works for you. Take the time to enjoy your successes and remember, what you consider failures are usually just choices that did not go your way at the moment. Life is a process, and it changes, minute by minute. Striving for balance in your life will come and go and then return. The most important aspect to remember is how you choose to deal with these moments.
1. Be Patient: We live in a world that is “immediate gratification” driven. If we cannot have something we desire, right this minute, we become impatient. As we become more spoiled by having “life at our fingertips,” it makes it more difficult to accept the fact that we may not be able to have everything we want when we want it. This is where learning the art of patience is imperative.
2. Slow Down: This is probably the first step in understanding patience. If we did not multi-task 50 things in one day, we feel like we have wasted time. Take time to stop and enjoy situations and people around you. Schedule more time between appointments or meetings. Do not make plans for every evening or weekend. Learn to accept situations as they come. Take time to deal with them. I appreciate what is right in front of you at that very moment.
3. Learn to Delegate: This implies an issue of trust. You cannot do everything yourself. I know that some of us feel that way, but in the end, you tip the scales to the point of saturation, leaving yourself overwhelmed, over-worked, and fully stressed. Start by giving simple tasks to those who are willing to help you.
4. Don’t Get Caught Up: The minutia of life can bog us down. Our minds can get wrapped around details that may not necessarily be important at the moment. We can spend hours in a day looking for the right color to match our curtains, dealing with customer service on the phone, getting angry over things we cannot control. Try to learn how to move past these issues that waste time and create imbalances in our life.
5. Learn Time Management: You will be surprised when you learn how to work smart and efficiently, how much time you save. Try delegating less time to a project in smaller increments instead of over-extending yourself all in one day. Procrastination is also the cause of much strife in our lives. Make time for everything. Create a schedule. Schedule time for work, exercise, play. You will find that balance will make you feel much lighter, happier, and powerful.
6. Daily Balance: When choosing which areas of their lives, they are mostly out of balance with; most of my patients will say “work.” We devote more time to our work and deadlines than we do with any other facet of our lives. Because of this, our family, home, exercise, play schedules all fall prey to this imbalance. By the time we can actually spend time balancing the other areas of our lives, we are too tired, too stressed, or too late. Whatever area of your life, you are the most out of balance with, consider regulating your time, schedule, or routine.
7. Open Yourself Up to Other Possibilities: There are always other possibilities. If you are feeling overwhelmed with your responsibilities, find other options. Balance comes when you understand there is another way of doing something. It may take some time to see, but the possibilities are there.
8. Make Things Easier: Simplify your life. Make priorities happen. Change your lifestyle choices. Begin looking at ideas that cut corners, give you relief time, or ask for help if you need to. Organize your life in ways that allow time for the most important aspects of that day and stick to your plan.
9. Declutter Your Life: If you were to strip away everything in your life, what would be the top 3 things you would add back into this “empty space?” If you only had 3 options, consider how you would make these 3 options works for you. Keep in your life, only the things you love and make your heart sing!
10. Find Gratitude: Really appreciate it when you have achieved some balance in your day. Acknowledge it. Be grateful. When things are really working in your life, accept and observe this balance. Recognize what made this come together.
11. Learn What You Want: More importantly, learn to recognize what you don’t want in your life. These are usually the things that take up a large percentage of our time and block the real desires we want to bring into reality. Balance comes from knowing what you wish to and engaging with it.
Balance Within
“I seek to find a steady frame,
and believe that life is but a game,
of finding focus, setting stakes,
to reach or fail then reach and make,
a goal or a certain set of rules,
that, I set ~ and then re-tool.
for balance comes, and then it goes,
to find its way back where it knows.”
~ Andrew Pacholyk MS L.Ac
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You should also read The Feminine Art of Slowing Down and Andrew Pacholyk: Spiritual Journey through Life’s Seasons
About the Author
Connect with Andrew Pacholyk MS L.Ac at peacefulmind.com “Living Life, Consciously” Alternative medicine and therapies for healing mind, body & spirit!
