Category Archives: balance

Your brain and your body work best with a balance between work, play and rest. Shifting gears is essential for optimal performance.

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Your brain and your body work best with a balance between work, play and rest. Shifting gears is essential for optimal performance.

—Calm App Reflection

Image from Unsplash by Alok Sharma

Your brain isn’t a machine. Push it nonstop, and it rebels with burnout and fog. Let it drift aimlessly, and it dulls.

The real magic happens when you honor the full cycle and embrace deep rest to restores clarity.

Shifting gears isn’t laziness — it’s precision tuning. Think of yourself as a high-performance instrument that needs contrast to create harmony.

The world celebrates hustle, but endurance belongs to those who know when to step back.

EXERCISE:

How well are you balancing focused work, play, and rest? Where is it necessary to switch gears to stay sharp, curious, and more fully alive?

Winter is a time for contemplation

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“Winter is a time for contemplation and quiet for balancing the inner and outer worlds.”

—John O’Donohue, late Irish poet, author, philosopher

Image from Unsplash by Hide Obara

Winter is a profound time for reflective thought, stillness, and introspection.

Following the hectic rush before and during the holidays, there now seems to be a distinct lull in activity similar to nature’s entry into hibernation. The darker days and colder temperatures are causing many of us to seek cozy, quiet, and warm spaces to rest and reflect.

For me, winter is a time to release old patterns of operating to emerge in spring with a new balance and bounce in my steps as the warmer and sunnier months emerge.

EXERCISE:

In what ways do and can you use the winter months to contemplate your inner and outer worlds? How can these efforts help balance and restore you for the upcoming seasons of your life?

Friday Review: Balance

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Friday Review: Balance

What can and will you do to find and maintain balance in your life? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.

 

“During times of change it is common to look for things we might lose or gain. Considering what will actually stay the same can steady your ship in the frequent rough seas of life.”

 

 

 

“Discover the right balance between effort and ease.”

 

 

 

 

 

“When you change direction radically, the loads can shift, and it can throw you off balance.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

During times of change it is common to look for things we might lose or gain

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“During times of change it is common to look for things we might lose or gain. Considering what will actually stay the same can steady your ship in the frequent rough seas of life.”

Calm App Reflection

Image from Unsplash by Torsten Dederichs

How has your life changed in the past few years?

To what degree have you experienced a wild ride of ups and downs?

When this happens on an ocean voyage, sea sickness is often the outcome. It is for this reason modern ships —especially the popular cruise lines — have a variety of stabilizers to help everyone maintain their footing and their meals.

EXERCISE:
What areas of your life seem the most steady and stable?

How do these areas offer you a sense of grounding and centeredness when other parts of your lifeboat may be rocking?

Discover the right balance between effort and ease

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“Discover the right balance between effort and ease.”

—Author Unknown

Image from Unsplash by Gustavo Torres

Create a list of your favorite sports. Do you or have you played any of those mentioned here? Consider what it takes to perform optimally in each of them.

Baseball Bowling Cricket Football
Golf Gymnastics Hockey Rugby
Soccer Shuffleboard Swimming Tennis

To what degree do you see the dance between effort and ease in these and other sports?

How are each of these qualities essential to play at a masterful level?

EXERCISE:

Where in your life is there too much effort or ease being applied?

How can you re-balance these qualities to perform even better moving forward?

“When you change direction radically, the loads can shift, and it can throw you off balance.”

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“When you change direction radically, the loads can shift, and it can throw you off balance.”

—Stephen St. Amant, author of the Savenwood Blog

Image from Unsplash by Mitchell Lou

Think of the many times you have been a passenger.

Include all forms of transportation, from the time you were a kid and went to an amusement park to the planes, trains, and automobiles we use today.

Recall some of the times when you experienced a radical change in direction in which the laws of physics jolted you and the things around you away from your previous trajectory.

How many spilled beverages and other unsecured items found a new home on your lap or the floor? Perhaps you even experienced a deployed airbag or a case of whiplash.

EXERCISE:

In what ways can you navigate the changes in the direction of your life more smoothly? How can you secure the things you value the most to not lose your balance when things begin to shift?

Desires that arise in agitation are more aligned with your ego

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“Desires that arise in agitation are more aligned with your ego. Desires that arise in stillness are more aligned with your soul.”

—Cory Muscara, instructor of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania

Image from Unsplash by Piret Llver

There is nothing wrong with wanting things. The idea that we can separate our desires into two categories seems like a useful exercise if we feel the need to do a bit of re-balancing.

What goals are you pursuing that create a sense of agitation and stress?

Where are you pursuing power, status, or other achievements viewed and scrutinized by others in your communities?

What are some of your quieter goals that bubble up in stillness?

These are likely the ones with no specific metric or scoreboard to measure yourself.

EXERCISE:

Create two lists of your ego and soul-based desires.

Consider letting your level of agitation or stillness guide you to which items deserves more attention.

Friday Review: Balance

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Friday Review: Balance

What can and will you do to find and maintain balance in your life? Here are a few related posts you may have missed.

 

Balancing, not balance, is the process of coming back to your center over and over.

 

 

 

“He who will not economize will have to agonize.”

 

 

 

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

 

 

 

 

 

When spinning out the only thing to do

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“When spinning out, the only thing to do, as hard as it seems, is to get off the mental merry-go-round.”

—Mark Nepo, poet and philosopher

Image from wikipedia

The Tilt- A-Whirl is a classic carnival ride found at almost every amusement midway in America. As its platform moves through hills and valleys on the track, the free spinning tubs rotate on an axis.

For people who get dizzy easily, the best coaching is to avoid this cochlear disruption altogether or at least avoid eating beforehand.

Many of us take a mental merry-go-round on a daily basis. We have our ups and downs and we often find ourselves going round and round, always returning to where we began.

Last fall we took our grandson Weston to Sesame Place on a fairly unpleasant day. Most rides — including the merry-go-round — had no lines and we could ride multiple times in a row if we wished. We all declined another spin.

EXERCISE:

Where is your personal or professional life spinning a bit too fast?

How are you making yourself dizzier through your own mental carnival ride?

What do you need to do to stop or slow down the ride to regain your balance?