In Search of Balance
When most of us think of balance, often we think of stillness. There’s a picture of one sitting quietly in meditation, undisturbed by anything around them. And though that may happen from time to time, balance is not remaining in constant stillness, it’s actually navigating through the fluctuations of life and flowing with our experiences and emotions.
The universe is not still, our world is not still, our lives are not still; they are in constant movement and change. Standing amidst this movement is balance.
Like many people, I’ve been on the quest for find balance for myself, searching for stillness within, and outside myself. But by my early 20’s, I’d gotten really good at creating imbalance. Even if it wasn’t chaos, there was always slight disorder, constant low-grade stress that escalated to high-grade stress when I piled on more tasks and responsibilites for myself.
I felt I always had to “do more” and “be better”, so I busied myself to distraction. I believed that balance was something to be achieved, something “out there”…that someday…after I’d gotten to that certain point at which I’d “done enough” to create order in my life, then I would relax into a balanced life. So I pushed myself to achieve more so that I would someday have the comfort I so desired.
With school, work, volunteering, mothering, helping the family or focusing on friends, I did anything I could to avoid the turmoil that boiled inside me—hoping that if I did enough or became enough the turmoil would subside.
One day in 2001, my friend took me to a yoga class and I fell in love. I’d found a beautiful connection to myself and spirit through this ancient practice. I began taking classes and began to understand how yoga is more than just doing poses and looking cute, the practice is meant to translate to every aspect of our lives in order to cultivate a state of peace and acceptance. Slowly, I began to allow myself to truly feel what I’d shoved aside and covered up by being busy. I realized that by holding on to unsettling emotions, I was creating imbalance.
Gradully, uncomfortable memories and emotions that needed to be witnessed came to the surface for me to look at. When I was able to be with the emotions, to feel and process the discomfort, the stress began to melt away. With growing inner awareness, I began healing from emotional wounds, receiving Reiki, bodywork and counseling, I began meditating and reflecting on my life and allowed myself—finally—to release stored anger and sadness.
Over the months and years, I began to experience less chaos in my life. I began to practice being in the moment, being stressed, or sad, or happy. Whether I was working, going to school, taking a trip with my son, I was practicing being.
Slowly, a more balanced state began to emerge in my everyday life. I felt less stressed and overwhelmed and began to understand that I didn’t have to avoid the tough emotions—I just needed to create space for them. These emotions were there to guide me, to tell me that something needed to be released, that I needed to set boundaries, or they were showing me the immense well of compassion within for myself and others.
I realized that balance, in fact, doesn’t mean that we are happy all the time, or that we will always feel calm or great or ready to take on the world. Balance means that sometimes we are frustrated, irritated or tired. Balance means that other times we will feel happy and energized, be grieving or laughing. To be balanced means to be exactly where we are in each moment.
Yoga is specifically designed to teach us to be. Yoga brings balance to our whole being, the definition in Sanskrit means “union”, reminding us that all aspects of the self are unified, and it’s the fragmentation that we experience that causes us to suffer. The practice of yoga does not require a certain ability or level of flexibility, a certain size shape or age because it’s so much more than moving the body.
Yoga is breath, sound, connecting our energy channels, moving the body through specific shapes, and cultivating awareness of body, emotions and mind in each moment of life.
The practice of yoga is designed to move stored energy through the channels of the body in order to increase a more cohesive flow of energy, and each practice allows the opportunity for one to be present, to be in the moment with anything that rises to the surface. It’s just one practice of many that gently guides us to greater peace, and to ourselves.
Like the tree in the field that sits rooted through the storm, we can cultivate peace despite what is going on around us. It takes patience and presence as we learn to process emotions and thoughts in a producitve and healthy way, and when we do this this, it’s what allows us to feel more steady. The acceptance that things always change allows for greater peace and steadiness. The storm will pass, we will feel happy or calm again, we will face challenges and then…will overcome them.
The acceptance of a constantly changing reality will increase the experience of peace over time. We can be like the seasons that come and go, the sun that rises and sets. The constant flow and movement of life is the balance of the universe, and if we allow ourselves to move with this flow, we will experience that same balance.