Finding balance in life is not a “one and done” kind of proposition. It’s something you will constantly be trying to do. Let’s face it, life can throw you some curveballs! You may think all is going great in the direction you wanted to go, and then bam!
Something unexpected happens, you lose your job, or someone you love becomes sick, or the furnace in your house breaks down and you have to replace it, you slip on some ice and break your arm....
It can even be something good, like your career is taking off, and you’ve been given a lot more responsibility at work, or you find out you’re expecting a baby, or you get engaged to be married and now you need to plan a wedding.
All of life’s challenges and celebrations bring their own kind of stress to our lives. And as we go through them, we can become off-balance. We may not sleep as well. We may stay up later than we should and stay in bed longer than we wanted to the next day. We may feel rushed and stressed trying to get to work and get the kids out the door to school. We may grab fast food more often than we know is healthy, because it’s convenient and we’re tired and hungry and we didn’t have time to figure out supper.
We may not take the time to exercise because we’re tired and stressed, and hungry. And now we’re feeling guilty about not doing any exercise and eating the junk food, and we still have to get the kids to their activities, figure out what to feed them for supper, help them with their homework, and get them all to bed before we can relax in front of the TV with a glass of wine and a bag of chips!
Yes, folks, finding balance in life if a constant struggle. And sometimes our life circumstances make it really hard. Believe me, I get it. I have been that stressed out Mom, feeling like you’re on a never ending treadwheel, doing for everyone, and leaving yourself out of the equation.
It’s really easy to go down that dark hole, draining your energy and your joy, especially when it feels like there’s no end in sight to the busyness.
Finding balance in the middle of the chaos seems impossible, but it’s not really. It starts with a seemingly small thing. You need to breathe.
A long time ago, a counsellor who is also trained in Body Work and Therapeutic Touch, led our staff team in a breathing exercise which helped us relax each part of our body, one part at a time. It took two minutes. Everybody has two minutes, right?
We sat on a chair with our feet planted firmly on the floor, eyes closed, and breathed in, and breathed out, relaxing our toes, breathed in, breathed out, relaxing our feet, breathed in, breathed out, relaxing our ankles. And we continued on breathing like that, working our way up our bodies to our shoulders, our necks, our face and our heads.
It took two minutes, and at the end of it, we were all feeling relaxed, breathing calmer, feeling more centred.
Obviously, this was just a first step. Actually, realizing you are living your life “out of balance” is the first step. Most of us are just so used to living in a constant state of busyness and stress, that we don’t even realize how out of balance we are. Until our body lets us know, of course.
Taking two minutes to breathe and be aware of how your body feels is a gift you can give yourself today. Hopefully it will be the start (or restart) of your commitment to find balance in your life. Add a couple of drops of your favourite essential oil to the bottoms of your feet or the palms of your hands or just start up your diffuser to make this an even more grounding experience.
Start small, get some easy wins, and keep going! You got this!
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