This is a good question to ask yourself each and everyday: How can I find more balance in an unbalanced world? If you practice yoga, you’ll know the exquisitely light and effortless feeling that comes with performing a balancing pose. Even a pose as simple as tree pose requires a degree of both strength, flexibility and focus. It’s the focus, however, which is the key to every balancing pose. By learning to focus in yoga we learn to still our mind and thus tap into a well of peace.
Off my yoga mat is a different story. I am perpetually in a rush, and feel literally bombarded by the amount of information that floods into my life on a daily basis. Our lives are now so full of technology, which supposedly makes things easier, but ironically makes it much harder to find any kind of balance in one’s day. There’s this constant pressure of having to check your voice mail, your texts, your email and that’s before you’ve even started working.
If you tweet, which I do, that’s a whole other ball of wax – especially if you use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, which again, makes your tweeting life easier in some respects, but also serves to drive you crazy – if I hear much more of that tweetdeck bleeping sound, I’ll end up in a home for the bewildered. I do turn the volume down, but on the odd occasion when I forget, the sound is totally obnoxious.
All this technological “convenience” keeps us in our heads – in that frenetic “thinking” zone, where is seems although there are multi layers of ticker tape running across the screen of our minds – it takes mental multitasking to a whole new level. The other day at the gym, there was girl on a stair master next to me, who was plugged into the TV in front of her while texting and reading a magazine!
Given the fact that 99% of us will never switch all of this off for more than a day or so (unless you’re on vacation), it makes sense to find a realistic way to make it work for, not against us. If you feel stressed and burned out at the end of a day, it’s likely that you are living in your head, rather than your body. It’s so easy to become disconnected from our breathing, our spirit, our environment. A body that is not in balance will eventually get sick, just as a planet (any biological system,) that is out of balance will also suffer. Stress in the #1 killer in America – sometimes the cause of our deadliest diseases. I feel it’s my responsibility to somehow find a way to get back into balance, so that I can fire on all cylinders and be who I am supposed to be. Easier said than done!
I’ve realized that the key is planning and organization. I know that sounded horribly boring, but it’s the only way that I can find any kind of balance in the face of a crazy week. On the top of my list is making sure I engage in the one activity, which brings me to a place of stillness, at least 3 times a week. For some this may be running or rock climbing, for me it’s yoga and meditation. I rarely feel like doing it, especially on a day when I’ve got an insane to-do list. It’s so tempting to think myself out of it by telling myself how much I could “get done” in that 9o minutes of silly breathing and solitude, however, I’m getting better at not listening to that voice.
Connecting to my breath through running, mindful walking, yoga or meditation, is the first step towards bringing my attention inwards and towards my heart. Feeling my feet or sit bones firmly planted on the earth, breathing softness into my tight muscles, feeling the actual beating of my heart and becoming mindful of my “energy” are all part of bringing myself back into balance. It’s only by becoming still, that I can begin to see the wood for the trees, that I can become aware of the acute imbalances in my life. After this period of connection – I walk back into my day with a renewed sense of awareness and freedom, and the last thing I want to do is turn on my tweetdeck or start texting – I just want to hold on some of the stillness because it feels so good.
If I’ve established and planned my 3 or 4 “balance” sessions, I then need to make sure that I carve out mini-moments of stillness throughout my day. This often requires a little reminder – a post-it note on my computer screen or my phone does the trick. It’s a reminder to switch everything off and either spend 3 minutes with my eyes closed, breathing or even doing this one-minute mediation.
The other option is to learn to take a Siesta! My daughter wanted to know why all the stores close for 2 hours in the middle of the day in Italy and I explained how most adults take a Siesta and then get up feeling refreshed to carry on their day – which lingers long into the evening. As I was telling her, I felt all sleepy and yearned for one of those delicious Italian siesta’s where after a good read of a book, you sort of drift off into a heavenly sleep – BUT in our get-ahead lives in the U.S – we don’t do Siesta’s – shame!
Part of the battle is realizing that any extreme will eventually have a negative impact: too much adrenaline-fueled rushing or on the other end of the scale – lying in bed all day, extreme diets etc. Part of me has always been afraid of not living in the extremes of black and white – what if the gray area in between feels sort of boring and blah? I’ve found, however, that the beautiful balance in between these two extremes is more pale pink than gray – it’s a place where every cell of my being can do what it’s supposed to do because I’m not forcing it to go in one direction or another.
I’m so grateful for all my years of yoga practice, because despite how tight my hips and shoulders still are, I have learned that the practice of focusing the mind will ultimately bring me the one thing that nothing else can – peace, balance and harmony.
So as I sign off this blog, I’m off to take a leisurely walk with my pooches – not a get-my-butt in shape power walk, but a walk where I allow the dogs to sniff and explore their world, as I get connected to mine.
Campaign “I Want Siesta Too!” is on! Sophie is so right. I have stressed myself into being sick so many times I can’t keep track. Yoga and meditation literally save my life! When I do practice both regularly my mind and body relax and I can really get focused on what’s important.