28 Jun Is Your Life Balanced? Life, Work, & The Inner World

Ever done a quick search on what life balance really means? Probably not! You’re likely too busy trying to offset the implications of imbalance rather than ponder the cultural meaning of the term. Indeed, the world balance is used ad nauseum throughout the wellness community. It’s even used to justify ineffective habits, in the same sense as “everything in moderation.”

 

If you do happen to search it out online, since you’re probably curious now, you’ll find that almost all results refer to a work-life balance, as though they were separate entities which require our constant negotiation. Indeed “work-life balance” is an even bigger buzz word, and it’s an ongoing struggle for many people.

 

So, what is life balance, and how do we achieve it?

 

For some people, their work is their life. They’re addicted to their careers, haunted by the idea of failing, or feeding on ambition to cultivate a sense of self-worth. Being immersed in your work isn’t a bad thing, of course. Many of us care deeply about the work we do, and we’re fortunate for it, regardless of what that work is. That care and commitment we devote to our livelihood is a choice we make, whether we’re cleaning houses or developing a cure for cancer. 

 

For others, work is merely the task that earns the bread to pay the bills, and it may feel like a slog we have to face every day. Regardless of our relationship with the work we do, we have to keep at it because it allows us the privileges other areas of our life affords. There are ways in which we can reduce the stress of feeling overburdened by our work, but balance is key. Finding a way for work, play, and downtime to co-exist in happy harmony even when it feels like work demands the majority of our time is possible. It depends a lot on how we think about it.

 

“Balance is the key to everything. What we do, think, say, eat, feel, they all require awareness and through this awareness we can grow.” – Koi Fresco

 

Awareness, honesty & heart-centred living

 

Everything you read or listen to these days discusses balance. It’s a catch-phrase that sounds simple enough to understand, but because of its prolific use, there’s a tendency to misunderstand what it actually means within the context of our lives. 

 

Trying to achieve a better balance often results in more work, greater stress, higher expenses, and shifty outcomes. When we really dig down into it, balance is a more inwardly negotiated task, built through small secret vows we make to ourselves. It’s in the thoughts we keep, the contracts we make with ourselves, the ways in which we care for our physical and mental health and establish a sense of robust and reliable honesty with ourselves.

 

Achieving balance requires us to look more critically at all those resolutions we make for a healthier, more fulfilling life. As poet David Whyte suggests, we need to begin with a radical undoing of ourselves to get to the heart of what is healthy, effective, and heart-centered living for our individual selves. 

 

What questions can we pose to ourselves that encourage a deeper, fundamental look at the way we live, and not just the small day-to-day details?

 

Where does ambition and the impulse to criticize our decisions, responses, and tendencies become too much?

 

For example, a desire to make better eating choices often leads many people to being overly concerned to the point of stress about everything they’re buying and eating. The intention is good, but the execution counteracts the goal. 

 

So too is the goal to lose weight through regular exercise. But then we have to miss a day because our child is ill or a storm prevents us from getting to the gym and we’re stressed because our perfect weight-loss plan is marred by a missed day. In short, our attempts to achieve balance often result in manic or exhausting activities that throw our cortisol levels out of whack, affecting our sleep and our ability to meet our responsibilities.

 

What demands do we place upon ourselves that overburden our minds, hearts, and bodies?

 

Keep this in mind: Balance isn’t just a short-term strategy with quick results. It involves a reassessment of your lifestyle and inherent, programmed tendencies. 

 

How can I find balance with all my responsibilities?

 

Let’s consider the word responsibility for a moment. The root word is response. The suffix is ability. Therefore, responsibility denotes our ability to respond. Respond to what? Respond to life. Obligations will always be a part of life. So too, there will always be problems to work out. If we think that life will finally be good when we don’t have either, we are shirking our responsibility to show up as our best selves in our own lives. We’re demanding too much from life without offering enough in return––that’s an imbalance.

 

Cultivating wellness and life balance requires us to acknowledge that we are responsible human beings, capable of doing what is required while also using our challenges and obligations as opportunities for growth, learning, and greater awareness. As another way of being present in our lives. 

 

Practical matters…

 

Now that we’ve considered some of the necessary inner adjustments, let’s take a look at those activities that take up our time and comprise our lives.

 

Behold the Wheel of Balance, also called the coaching wheel or the life wheel. It’s a visual tool designed to help you assess how balanced your life is. It consists of several categories, which you can choose to best define the unique structure of your life. Examples of categories include the following:

 

Personal & Spiritual Growth | Career | Finances | Family & Intimate Relationships | 

Social Network | Fun & Recreation | Health | Free Time

 

Many people wonder, should I look at how these aspects comprise the overall picture or the everyday picture? I believe it is a continuous negotiation between the two perspectives. It’s easy to get caught up in the daily activities of our lives, but every once in a while, it’s critical to drop back and look at the expanse, or broad landscape of our lives to determine if our everyday balancing act is serving the fundamental ideals about how we want to live.

 

To create your own personal Wheel of Balance, consider the following questions to help you determine categories and assign each one a slice of the pie or a spoke of the wheel: What are the most important dimensions of your life? What do you value? What roles do you play? What are your primary responsibilities?

 

Keeping this in mind, there is no cookie-cutter approach to establishing or maintaining a work-life balance. Your methods are unique to your needs and the structure of your life. It’s simply a tool to help clarify where you’re at and define where you want to be.

 

Schedule some down time for yourself to fully consider what you’ve read here and how it applies to your life. Wellness and energy balancing techniques can help bring the energetic body to homeostasis (read: balance!), which helps create greater clarity in all aspects of our lives. 

 

As a Black Pearl & Reiki Practitioner serving Clarington, Durham Region, and the surrounding areas, I’ve devoted my life to wellness and the achievement of balance. My goal is to help others become more conscious of their personal well-being. If you want to know more about how to create a healthier balance in your life, give me a call today to schedule an appointment.