A5-06

“Achieving Balance” (2-11-04)

Quado’s messages are channeled through Carrie Hart.
Please visit Carrie’s website at www.carriehart.com

Question: Everyone says I should have balance: balance in my marriage, balance in my work, balance of the spirit. As a 50 year old woman who has raised 2 children and spent most all of my waking moments trying to make ends meet, I'm not sure what exactly balance is, or how one goes about achieving it. Could you explain this to me?

Quado, do you have an answer to this question? Yes, of course, of course.

Balance simply means honoring all of the parts of your life and making sure that one part does not dominate so completely that you are out of touch with the others. You know when you are out of balance. You are full of stress and pressure and feel overwhelmed. Or you are full of envy of others who have something you have lost touch with. You are depressed and feel hopeless, thinking that you have lost forever what you needed. These are sign of being out of balance.

To achieve balance, you will need to learn to come into the present moment.
This is a learned practice. You do not need to be born with any special skill; you need only to practice and become proficient. You do this by spending a little time each morning breathing deeply and letting the quiet come into your mind. You may practice formal meditation techniques or you may just give yourself a moment full of physical beauty, looking at a flower, breathing in fresh air for a moment or two and clearing your mind and emotions.

Do this faithfully every morning, going down into the moment, this one moment now and silencing the voices of regret and guilt from the past and worry of the future. And then, through the day, when you feel yourself falling out of balance, when you go into your regrets of the past or your worries over the future, when you feel overwhelmed by one aspect of your day, then just breathe deeply and pull yourself down into the moment, the deepness and silence of the present moment. Practice every morning and you will be able to do this under even very stressful situations.

This is the beginning of balance, this ability to balance your spiritual side with your physical life and its demands. It is the most important part of balance and requires nothing more than a few minutes each morning and vigilant practice during the day.

You may also expand this so that every moment not filled with activity becomes an opportunity to balance your spiritual and physical sides. When you are walking across the parking lot to your job, walk more slowly as you pass under that tree. Observe the flowers in the flower bed on the edge of the lot. Look up at the sky and let yourself float with the clouds for a moment. Breathe in deeply and rhythmically with each step, allowing the energy and goodness of life to flow through you. Make it a ritual that this walk from the car to your place of work is a refreshing and energizing time, not a time of stress.

Look for these opportunities in every part of your day. While you are sitting in traffic, listen to beautiful music and breathe it in. Let the music fill you. Be glad for this moment to be alone with your own self, surrounded by the music you have chosen. Or choose music you can sing along to. Do something invigorating and enjoyable. Listen to an audio book. Take every moment which is not committed to other activities and find ways to fill it with something which speaks to you, which fills you, which brings you into the present moment.
People talk about balance as if it is the ability to spend equal amounts of time doing things with family, work and self. But as you know, this may not be possible. It may be that for some period of your life, one part of that life dominates so utterly that you cannot manage to find this so-called balance. And yes, of course it is desirable to give all parts of your life equal time, but you are living as you are living, and your life goes through stages where this is simply not the way it will be.

And so, let it be. Let your life be what it must be, and find the balance with in each day, within each moment. Find it in the shower, for example.

Instead of letting your busy mind dominate you at all times, pick times when you free it from itself. Let your shower be a wonderful experience, a time to connect with yourself and the spirit within and above you. Set aside this time to feel your physical body in all of its beauty. Feel its wholeness; feel it vibrantly as the water washes over you. And then reach up and feel the soul self above you, hovering over you, full of joy and love and peace. And then, pull down that soul self and let it inhabit your beautiful body, filling it completely, bringing all of that joy and love and peace with it. Feel the peace filling your mind. Feel the joy filling your heart. Feel the love as it caresses you completely, inside and out, connecting you to yourself. Feel so full of the joy that it makes you smile.

This is balance. You have given yourself a little gift. You have set aside time which is entirely yours and disciplined yourself to quiet your mind and simply be one with yourself, your physical self and your spiritual self. You can fill your day with such moments. You can look at your routines as opportunities to do this, taking every chance you have to connect. This is balance too.

Most people give so much to others. To their families, to their jobs, to their friends. They give and give and give and deplete themselves. Balance is bringing energy back into your life, so that you are a blazing fire with a center strong enough that it can light your own life as well as others.

Balance means refreshing that source of energy, stoking yourself high so that you have the strength to go on. And this can be achieved by taking vacations, by setting aside large chunks of time, if you are fortunate enough to be able to do this. But it can also be achieved today, in this life just as it is, in this moment as you sit at your desk, by taking just a few seconds to look at that beautiful flower you have placed in that pretty little vase, seeing and feeling the way the sun streams in and lights that one petal just so. Ah, yes, this is balance. This is beauty. This is connection This is being now, right now, in this moment, connecting with all that is and becoming, for just at one moment, utterly refreshed.