How To Find Balance

When your life feels imbalanced, you might feel like you are ignoring your relationships, inner work, goals, spiritual values, and needs. It is easy with the demands of parenting, work, caregiving, health issues, grief, and other problems to lose our equilibrium. I have been there in my own life and know when I feel myself losing balance, I know I am tired, irritable, stressed, and even more prone to injury. Here are a few ways you might find that sweet spot of balance.

1. You can vent and express your feelings when you are worried, sad, or angry, but you can also strive to find the good in life by expressing gratitude. Balanced people can express the joy and sorrow of life. Carl Jung once said, “The word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” When I was young, I tended to be an optimist who would downplay my sadness. I look back and feel thankful that my work as a hospice chaplain taught me how to more profoundly enter the depths of others pain and my own.
2. The Serenity Prayer is an important tool in to add to your handbag when you are faced with a difficult decision. This prayer can remind you to let go of striving to control or fret about something when you really don’t hold power and instead focus on what is in your power to change. Recognizing what you can and cannot control is an important way to achieve balance because you find a balance between what you can do and what to let go to God.
3. Attending to your mind, body, and spirit is a great way to find balance. You must ask yourself if there are one or two parts of this triad that you are ignoring. Do you care for your physical, mental, and spiritual health? Which part of the triad needs more of your attention? There have been seasons in my life where I have overemphasized one part of the triad and under emphasized another, which always leaves me out of balance, but when I intentionally care for all three, I am more attuned to life.
4. You can cultivate balance by having a realistic view of yourself and others. You don’t want to be a narcissist who views yourself as better than others, but it is also important to see the many gifts you have to offer this world. And so, you will keep balance by knowing you are special, but making sure you don’t think of yourself as more significant than others. People who dance with both their shadow and light tend to have a greater sense of balance. Carl Jung said when you dehumanize others and point out their shadow side, you are often projecting onto them the dark side within you. You remain balanced when choose to not scapegoat and demonize others. Being able to see both the beauty and growing edges in others, will help you to have a more balanced view of others and yourself.

5. You will create balance by keeping equilibrium between your work and play. Are you playing or working too much? It is hard to strike the balance perfectly and yet all people need both rest and movement in life. In yoga teacher training I was taught the difference between the Sanskrit words, sukha (ease), and sthira (effort). This yogic principle of ease and effort reminds me to both work hard and find grace for myself on and off the mat. In my yoga practice and in life, I must find a balance between listening to my intuition when it tells me to slow down and find ease, but also being adventurous and pushing myself to find my edge.
6. You find balance when you know how to say the word YES and NO. It is important to have boundaries and it is also important to invest in life and serve others. When you are considering whether to say yes or no to something, you need to consider what will help your soul come alive. When you have learned to set boundaries and your own cup is full, it is easier to love and care for others.
7. One way I need to find more balance is between time connected to my phone and away from it. I didn’t have a cell phone in college and now this device sometimes feels like it owns me. While I have never been on Facebook, I joined Instagram in the last few years, and I have spent so much more time on Instagram than I ever imagined I would. I recently put a time limit on Instagram, so it could inform me when I went over 15 minutes of usage to help me set some limits. This is one of many ways, I am trying to disconnect more from my phone. Finding balance with technology is so important for our sleep and mental health.
8. Working on finding balance in our personality is also an important way to achieve balance. For example, if you are an introvert, finding balance might mean pushing yourself to spend more times with others. On the other hand, if you are a full-blown extrovert, balance might mean cultivating the joy of being alone. If you have a personality that keeps you from speaking up, you might work on finding your voice and power. Or you have a personality that leads you to speak up too much and run over others, you might develop awareness of how you can intimidate others and learn to soften.
9. Embracing both your masculine and feminine sides can help you to be more balanced. We need to learn to be cautious and adventurous. It serves us well to be assertive and yet kind. How do you connect to both your yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) energy?

I want to close by sharing a breathing practice that can lead to balance between your masculinity and femininity.

Alternate Nostril Breathing is an uplifting and calming yogic breathing practice that works to balance your masculine and feminine sides. This practice engages the right and left sides of the body and brain to help you come closer to experiencing balance.

Alternate Nostril Breathing Directions:

Sit comfortably with a tall spine in a chair or on the floor. Place your left hand on your lap, with your palm facing up or down. Place your index finger on your left nostril and softly close the nostril.

Take a deep inhalation through your right nostril. When the breath is full, then gently switch and release your left nostril and close off your right nostril with your thumb.

Take a slow and long exhale through your left nostril. Once you have released the breath, keep the hand as it is and take another deep breath in through your left nostril. When your inhalation is complete, repeat by switching to exhale through your right. Inhale again through your right nostril, then invite the thumb to close the right side, and exhale through your left. Close your eyes and repeat this practice for several minutes.

A version of this article was published in The Mountain Mirror.