Cultivating Awareness To Stay Grounded & Balanced
Can you remember how much fun it was to to-and-fro, back and forth on the swing-set at the playground as a kid? The higher you went in the air, the more thrilling the plummet, as your stomach turned upside-down. Or how about when you were on the seesaw as the arms of the pendulum took you up or down? We all started exploring the principle of balance very early on. And it turns out to be the outer thrill in the game of life.
However well we might have swung the pendulum when playing as kids, once we grow up, most of us end up with our life-pendulum imbalanced in some areas — physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Our thoughts, habits, beliefs, and actions are either underbalanced or overbalanced. We seldom experience true balance — peace and calm. We are too often expressing the extreme. Think of areas like eating, drinking, exercising, working, playing, expressing ourselves, sex, social media usage, or entertainment. Any extreme takes us out of balance and out of our wholeness.
Why are we so out of balance? Why are so many people stressed, anxious, depressed and even lonely, and feeling empty on the inside? We get our imprinting from our surroundings. We get our human conditioning from our families, community, culture, and society. We place extreme value on the logical, rational mind and overlook feelings and intuition. That’s an imbalance. We place an emphasis on masculine traits in the workplace at the expense of inclusion and integration of the feminine. That’s an imbalance. We live in a society that is driven by fear, competition, and scarcity instead of fostering love, collaboration, and abundance. That’s an imbalance. We value financial gains over meaning and purpose. That’s an imbalance. We pillage the Earth instead of protecting her and giving back to Nature. That’s an imbalance. We live in a world that too often uses brute force versus an organic flow. That’s an imbalance. The thing is that if we don’t have an awareness of how it feels to be balanced from the inside out, we start to believe that the imbalance is perfectly normal. We have become numb.
Now, what’s the solution to our numbness and ignorance of being out of balance? It’s to wake up, practice feeling our feelings, be honest with ourselves, and cultivate awareness of the imbalance. Then we take a big swing to the other side and start practicing the opposite of what we were doing. Once we start getting a feeling for that, then the middle way starts to show itself to us, and it will become easier to aim for the center and enjoy moderation. It’s an inside job. Taking responsibility for our state of being and practicing discipline will help us stay awake and to be in a relative balance, even true balance. That will create the inner peace and calm and also bring us clarity and focus. Once we master the principle of balance, we are in our power.
Make sure you are in your power. BE power! Be TRUE Power!