Finding the balance point
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”
― Byron Katie
One of the most common things I overhear as I move through my day is what’s wrong. Wrong with others, wrong with ourselves, wrong with what’s happening to us. I love Byron Katie’s view of all of that. What if we began to consider that all the circumstances that happen are part of honing us to be our best selves? Can you imagine trusting life that much?
The blessing of aging is the ability to look back and see this to be true. From THIS vantage point I can see that living life well is much like learning to ride a bike. There’s a balance point for every human being, one that allows us to live well, with interest, compassion and ease, in the flow. If you remember back to learning to ride a bike, there were falls along the way as we leaned too far in one direction, then over-compensated in the other. It took practice and something intangible, like a sense of where the body was in space, to be able to master this balance thing.
Living life is like that as well. What if the things and people around us are life’s way of helping us find our balance point. Whoa, way too much to drink last night….OK, not doing that again. Wow, doing what I love makes the time fly. Great, let’s find work that feels like that! Relationship woes? How do TWO people find balance? That’s a more interesting question than thinking there is something wrong with you, or them!
2015 is the year for learning to live from the inside out, to find that balance point. If you imagine a channel between you and the wisdom of life that allows for life to guide you, the most important thing to do is keep that channel clear of debris and noise. The more you can practice quieting your mind, even for 3 minutes a day, the more that muscle will strengthen, and the more normal that quiet mind will become. Isn’t that worth 3 minutes of practice a day?
Just start by sitting. Set a timer for 3 minutes, and just be. Pretend your mind is a new puppy, and gently corral it if it wanders. I like to come back to my breathing as a focal point. If you try this for a week and like it, gradually increase the time to again strengthen the muscle of quiet mind. And suddenly, what happens on the outside doesn’t overwhelm you quite as much. And that balance point is easier and easier to locate.
