Balance is the Key
Balance is the key to effectiveness in whatever we do. It’s also the key to physical, mental and emotional health.
Keys provide access, they open things. Balance is the key to a healthy, productive, and meaningful life. It can open doors that we don’t know are there because stress and tension are restricting our vision and holding our focus.
Balance allows us to be ourselves, to let go of fear, and realize who we are, where we want to go, and how to get there. It unlocks natural abilities and allows us to see and think clearly. When we’re in balance, we’re in touch with what’s going on around us. We see what’s important, what’s needed, and how best to respond. There’s no hurry or pressure when we’re in balance. We’re able to separate stressors and put things into perspective while seeing the larger picture and anticipating problems and obstacles. We’re able to respond rather than react, discern rather than demand, tune in rather than tune out. We see possibilities and potential and keep our mind and heart open.
These doors close when we’re out of balance. We’re not aware of what we’re missing. We believe stress is part of life, pressure is part of work, and arguing is part of relationships.
We make more mistakes when we’re out of balance. We’re more likely to get sick or be injured. We lose track of things, become disorganized and either find ourselves hurrying when we don’t have to or being so tired we don’t care anymore. One of the worst things about being out of balance is diminished awareness – we don’t see the larger picture, miss relevant details, don’t anticipate the effects of our actions and aren’t aware that we’re operating at reduced capacity.
Balance is also the key to resilience. Resilience is the capacity to handle and recover from setbacks and difficulties. We manage challenges more effectively and recover more quickly when we know how to restore and maintain balance.
Everything is easier when we’re in balance. Everything is harder when we’re out of balance – It’s as simple as that.
What is balance?
Balance is our natural state of mind, body, and emotion. It allows us to function at optimum capacity in any given situation. Being in balance allows us to most effectively deal with whatever is happening – even loss, pain, crisis, and death. Balance allows us to see trends, patterns, and relationships while focusing on what’s needed and important. We see possibilities as well as problems, opportunities as well as obstacles, potential as well as limitations. We can anticipate the effects of our actions on those affected by them and become more open to including them in the conversation.
Balance keeps body, mind, and emotion working together at maximum efficiency. Our body provides the right amount of energy to respond to the needs of the moment whether running from a fire or digesting lunch. Our mind is open and ready to respond to needs and opportunities in any given situation while maintaining awareness of our values and priorities. Emotions are clear and in touch with what’s happening in the moment. All systems are operating at full capacity in response to and within the limitations of the current situation.
What are the core functions that affect balance?
There are two keys to balance in the body: The autonomic nervous system and patterns of muscle tension. The autonomic nervous system regulates the flow of energy in the body. The muscular system is energized for work and activity and internal organs are activated when there is need for maintenance and recovery.
The key to mental balance is learning to control our thinking – recognizing where our thoughts are taking us and being able to redirect them to fit the needs and priorities of the situation. The ability to shift perspective and manage our thinking allows us to be fully present in the moment with awareness of what’s meaningful and important.
The key to emotional balance is being able to fully experience emotions as a response to the moment without triggering emotions from the past or building tension by recycling fear. Emotions then provide useful information about what’s happening and how we might respond. This involves clearing emotional tension left over from previous experience, which, in my experience, happens naturally when physical and mental balance are maintained over time.
Restoring physical balance makes it easier to establish mental balance, which makes it easier to achieve emotional balance. It all works together.
How this all works is explained in more detail using simple terms in Part Two. How to restore and maintain balance by directly addressing these core functions is described in Part Three.
How do we get out of balance?
The simple answer is tension. Tension is misplaced energy. It builds when energy is going to our muscles and we don’t use them. Tension narrows our focus, speeds up our mind and either numbs emotions, makes us more reactive or both. Tension drives us to act as it saps our energy and motivation. It builds up as a result of trauma, stress, pressure, hurry, lack of sleep, overwork, and/or a lack of belonging and meaningful connection.
Tension draws our mind to focus on what’s wrong – it’s part of our survival instinct. Dwelling on what’s wrong without shifting our attention to what we can do about it builds tension, which further narrows our thinking and leads to habits of worry and dread.
Emotional tension can also become habitual. Tension restricts our ability to experience emotion and we build more tension every time we stifle an emotion by holding our breath, tightening our chest, clenching our jaw, or raising our shoulders. The increased tension makes it more likely we will resist emotions setting up a self-escalating process similar to what happens in mental tension. This is explained in more detail in Part One.
Physical, mental, and emotional tension usually originate from fear. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly enmeshed in fear. Media and politicians have learned that fear is a very effective way to get and keep our attention and support. Fear is used to manage, motivate, and manipulate us into doing things that keep us out of balance. Tension builds whenever we receive a message of fear and can’t or don’t act on it. It builds when we push ourselves to get things done when we really need to rest and refocus. It builds when we feel inadequate, isolated, rejected, and alone. Fear has become part of our culture and it keeps us out of balance.
What happens to our body, mind, and emotions when we are out of balance?
When we’re out of balance, our body stops doing maintenance. We become more vulnerable to illness and injury. Sleep is disrupted. We have difficulty resting, become more error prone and either have less energy or can’t slow down.
Our mind loses it’s ability to adapt to the needs and priorities of the situation. Our focus becomes narrow and fragmented. We resist looking at things from different perspectives, don’t see larger picture, miss relevant details, become increasingly likely to dwell on problems, and become absent minded and forgetful. We repeat the same mistakes, don’t see possibilities, and miss opportunities. Creativity and curiosity are diminished along with our awareness, which means we don’t realize we’re operating at at reduced capacity.
We lose compassion and empathy and become less responsive to the needs of others as our emotions become more numb and reactive. Emotions from past get mixed in with our read on the moment and we react out of proportion to what is really happening. We also become vulnerable to manipulation and seek temporary acceptance and conditional belonging in ways that keep us from knowing ourselves and each other.
We don’t fully experience beauty or joy to the extent we’re out of balance. We seek stimulation and distraction and have difficulty finding time or situations where we can just be ourselves.
How long does it take to get back into balance?
That depends on how far out of balance we are and how long we’ve been that way. I gave my students an assignment to practice four techniques (described in Part Two of this book) for ten consecutive days. It involved three to five minutes of practice throughout the day for three techniques (they could be practiced simultaneously) along with ten to twenty minutes for one technique. Most of them described clear evidence of increased balance by the end of the assignment. Here are some of their responses to the question “What’s different after ten days of practicing the balance techniques?”
“I’ve noticed I’m more productive and less procrastinating. I feel the difference in my body, my muscles are less tense all of the time and I’m getting barely any headaches. It definitely has uplifted my mood and well being. I’ve found I’m less likely to get anxious and I’m able to stay calm during situations that would normally anger me.”
“I am way more calm and better able to cope with stressful situations. I can “take a step back” in situations where I would have blown a gasket beforehand. I do not feel so edgy or frenzied and can get more accomplished.”
“After practicing each of the balancing techniques for 10 days straight, I experienced a huge difference in daily life. (My) job is very mentally demanding and can get extremely stressful in the blink of an eye. These techniques made me become aware of when stress was starting to overtake my body and mind, reverse the effects, and help me maintain a stress-free composure.”
Most of my counseling patients were able to restore balance within two to four weeks of regular practice. Some who had experienced severe trauma might take six or eight weeks before they demonstrated consistent evidence that balance was being restored. A few with a history of severe trauma who were stuck in ongoing crisis situations required up to six to twelve months to maintain consistent balance. All reported being able to see and think more clearly along with the ability to handle difficult situations more effectively as they restored balance.
The key is learning to maintain balance. Patients who fully recovered from anxiety and panic but came back later when symptoms began to return had consistently forgotten about balance. It usually only took one or two sessions to get them back on track.
Restoring and maintaining balance is an ongoing process that leads to continuing improvement in health, productivity, and life satisfaction. Getting and keeping the autonomic nervous system in balance makes it easier to let go of physical and mental tension that may have been building most of our lives.
What’s different when we’re in balance?
More organized, efficient, do what’s realistic and most important in any given moment
We are more able to realistically anticipate the future to the extent that we are in balance. We become more organized because we want to avoid wasting time looking for things later. We are able to recognize potential obstacles before they arise and learn that preventing problems tends to take less time and effort than dealing with them after the fact.
Problems and challenges still come up but we are able to put them into perspective while maintaining a sense of calm without losing sight of our values and priorities.
Enjoy simple pleasures, appreciate little things, value relationships,
Is that really possible?
Actually it’s a choice. We have opportunities to restore balance many times each day. Those same situations provide the opportunity to get further out of balance. How you choose to live is up to you.
It sounds simple but it is often not easy. Restoring balance can be an uphill struggle when we’re caught up in a culture that pushes and drives us to do more and more while bombarding us with constant stimulation. The good news is that the hills that constantly challenge us become less steep as we restore balance. As we begin to see and think more clearly, we discover new ways of managing old stressors. Our priorities become clearer, we become more organized, can anticipate problems, and be more prepared to deal with surprises. We deal with conflicts and crises more effectively because we take the time and space to see them in context and understand what’s really happening.
Life becomes easier and more enjoyable as we restore balance but getting there requires an ongoing commitment and clear priorities that are fine-tuned to fit changing circumstances. Part Three of this book explores how that works.
How do we get out of balance?
In a word – tension. Balance is essentially the absence of tension. Tension drives us to act as it saps our energy and motivation. It builds up from stress, pressure, hurry, lack of sleep, overwork, a lack of belonging, connection and/or trauma. The most common source of tension is fear. Discomfort with emotion also creates tension.
Tension can build physically, mentally, and emotionally. Each one feeds the other. It’s the accumulation of left overs from our reaction to past events and worries about the future.
… more to come
Bring Truth to Fear 