Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. – Thomas Merton
Being in balance isn’t about restriction or holding back. It’s about aligning with the greatest source of power in our lives. From a state of internal balance, we can create a life that feels super-charged with passion, purpose, and vitality. I’ve learned some powerful practices for bringing our bodies and our lives into balance. Along the way I made some big mistakes. For the details on these and five of the best ways to balance your body and your life, read on.
First, let me tell you some of the biggest mistakes I made…
- I listened more to others than I did to myself. I let outside pressure and comments about my body and my life dictate what I ate and what I did.
- I prioritized living a life that felt impressive, instead of a life that felt right for me.
- I saw things like a parking spot with my name on it and the best office in the building as key goals in my life path.
- I thought a lot about how to get things that I really wanted, instead of what I could offer.
- I made what others’ thought about how I looked more important than how I good I felt.
Yowza. All of which led me to a life filled with anxiety, tension and overwhelm. I was missing the most powerful, vital part of myself—the person I really was. I took my first steps towards getting that person back accidentally. I started doing things that helped me bring my body back into a state of balance, not even realizing that this would eventually lead me to living a life that’s best for me. Here’s what I did.
5 Ways to Balance Your Body and Your Life
1. Check out Ayurveda
It’s the holistic health science from India that’s all about helping people feel and live vital lives. The most important thing I learned is that each individual has his own unique body blueprint, and Ayurveda works with this to come up with ways to adjust activities, foods and the external environment in ways that suit any person. You can discover your own blueprint, plus recommendations for how to make changes that work for you here.
2. Learn How to Listen to Your Body
Did you know the non-verbal part of your brain processes more information per second than the verbal part of your brain? The verbal part of our brain, that part that communicates to us through thought, processes about 40 bits of information per second. The non-verbal part of our brain, the part that communicates to us through physical sensation, processes between eight to 11 million bits of information per second. That’s way more.
To learn how to hear what your body and the non-verbal part of your brain is telling you, simply start listening. When do you feel tense and restricted? When do you feel more energized, relaxed, in a state of flow?
3. Make Choices That are Right for You
This is where our internal state of balance begins to be reflected in our external world. By learning first that we are unique, and having that affirmed, and then how to listen to the wisdom within, we’re ready to start making choices from that place. Instead of canvassing for opinions or doing what we think other’s want us to do, we start to do what’s right for us.
4. Stick With Them
It’s hard, especially at first, to change how we do things—especially if people are used to us doing things a different way. We can run up against everyone from loved ones to total strangers trying to push us back to the way we were. It’s this very struggle to continue on that helps us gain the strength to keep going.
5. Notice the Small Things
Once we start living in the way that’s right for us, small things start helping to encourage us to keep going. We get asked to do something we’ve always wanted to do. People we don’t know reach out to us to offer support. Money arrives unexpectedly. Noticing these things and giving thanks for them is an important way to shift from feeling anxious to knowing that everything is going to be ok.
What’s within is reflected around us. We begin with balancing our body to see that reflected in our lives. And from this place, we begin to live a balanced—purposeful, joyful, and vital—life.
Good luck!
photo source: vk.com