Last night I was thinking about what it means to me to “live a life in balance”. I started thinking about the times I feel most in balance and when I feel most out of balance. I began to realize just how much the dichotomy of life plays a part in my feeling of balance.
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Everything about life is a dichotomy ~ and as an “all or nothing” thinker I tend to swing from one end to the other.
Fat ~ Skinny
Happy ~ Mad
Sacred ~ Mundane
Scheduled ~ Free Flying
Strict ~ Liberal
holding a grudge ~ forgiving easily
Love ~ hate
self love ~ beating myself up
and I could go on and on. It’s this dichotomy and my tendency to live in a state of either or that I believe leaves me in a life out of balance.
It seems like a natural conclusion that living in the middle of the dichotomy would lead me naturally and easily to a life in balance. Seems obvious ~ but how the hell do you do that??
Or is it really living in the middle that creates balance or is it choosing the “best” end of the dichotomy and living on that end more often than not?
I mean let’s take fat vs. skinny.
Is being medium chunky the key to living a life in balance or is it really about choosing to be skinny (or fat) and moving to BE that all the time? I guess what I’m asking is it the wavering on decisions, lack of confidence in what I want to BE have and do, that leads to imbalance ~ or is it really about living in the middle?
Hmmm…
I thought I knew what I was talking about when I started this post, now I have no frickin’ idea. I thought it was going to be all about living in the middle ~ but now I’m not really sure that’s where it’s at at all.
honest vs. Deceitful
Do I really want to live in the middle? Do I wanna lie sometimes? Or be honest with others and just dishonest with myself as a middle ground?
Does that breed balance?
hmm…
I’m thinking that being honest ALL the time is really where I want to be living, but the times I’m living in the other end of the dichotomy is when I feel out of balance.
OHHH ~
Maybe life in balance is really about BEING who you REALLY are.
The times I feel out of balance is when I step away from WHO I REALLY AM. So maybe it’s not about the dichotomy at all, maybe it’s about turning inward, and being open to realizing who I really am, at my inner core of spirit.
Abraham recommends using your emotions as a guidance system. When you’re getting off track you will know because you will have “negative emotion”. I know this in my head, but I keep thinking “ack, checking in with my feelings isn’t getting any work done” lol. Checking in with my feelings could feel like a waste of time, but I guess it would depend on what the “goal” of life is. If my goal is to live a life in balance, then checking in with my feelings, and trying to redirect myself back to feeling good would be my #1 tool to achieve the goal of balance.
So for example ~ If honest is really WHO I am at a spiritual level, I feel yucky when I know I’m not being honest (with myself or others). It is that yucky feeling that signals me that I’m not being/doing who I really am, and shows me I need to realign myself/actions back to center (center being honest in all action and deeds).
Well this has really moved me in a direction that I wasn’t anticipating, so I’m going to have to chew on this for a bit. I’d love to hear your thoughts ~ do you feel like you’re living a life in balance? What would balance in life look like to you?
I’ll be back ~
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OMG I just got this “Message from God” via Neal Donald Walsch
“On this day of your life, Jackie, I believe God wants you to know…
….that the gifts you have to give are multitudinous and magnificent — and your time to give those gifts has only just begun.
The life events of this moment are being placed in your experience to provide you with a perfect context within which to experience the true wonder and glory of Who You Really Are. Honestly, without a lot of fluffy talk, it is time for you to know and to express the fullness and the richness of how wonderful, of how special, you are.
These events, the occurrences of these days and times, the challenges in your life right now, are designed by you (at a very high level) to give Little You a chance to experience and express Big You…right here, right now. Take a look at what you are facing in this moment, on this very day. Do you think this is by accident?
Love, Your Friend….”
Hellloooo . . . thinking I might be on the right track. 🙂
wow… wow… wow… WOW!
I’m so glad I landed on this post, Jackie.
I so appreciate you sharing the ‘catches’ along the way here… why, it sounds like you climbed into my mind (*scary thought*) 😉
And I agree… you ARE onto something here. Balance comes when we are aligned to our Inner Being in each given moment… and simply recognizing that you’re ‘not that’ in any given moment is an AMAZING power tool for reminding us we have a new opportunity to make a choice to move back to center… or not!
How empowering!!! Thank you!
–Mary K
¸..· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:-
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´* Light
EXPECT MIRACLES!
*and what a fun confirmation you got with your ‘Message from God’!!! 😉
Me thinks that was your Inner Being giving you a big “High Five Girlfriend You’re On!” 😉 Reading your blog post was like peeking into one of my journal entries!
Living in balance, to me, is listening to your inner core & coming from that place of knowing what’s best for you. I can be on one end or the other extreme on some subjects and very middle of the road on others. I keep a better feeling of balance when I stay present and focused on now. In that now, when the feelings come up (like fat vs. pleasantly plump vs. skinny) I tend to dig a bit to see what’s going on within that’s provoking a feeling of “unbalance”. On the same coin, I can feel unbalanced in a good sense because I have such an adrenaline rush from something that excites me. Either way, one of my favorite tools to find my equilibrium is to go into the garden, barefoot, and pull weeds. Another favorite that I’ve been working with around weight issues is to journal the feelings that bubble up instead of my old habit of stuffing them down with food. I also find balance, as you mentioned, by accepting myself right where I am, dichotomous feelings and all.
This came in my e-mail from Abe-Hicks today and I think it’s relevant to when we have those unbalanced moments that don’t feel good:
“There will be a time, not so far from now, that you will look back on this phase of your life and instead of condemning it or beating up on it… Instead of blaming or guilting, you will feel appreciation for it, because you will understand that a renewed desire for life was born out of this time period that will bring you to physical heights that you could not have achieved without the contrast that gave birth to this desire.”
— Abraham
Tracy ~ thanks for coming by. I thank you so much for the Abe quote ~ that definitely helps. It’s funny how for quite a while now the abe quotes, as well as my messages from God have been things that have gotten pushed aside in the “business” of life ~ it’s already feeling a little better letting them back in. 🙂
thanks.