Three Ways to Seek Balance and Shine a Little Light
We all crave balance in our lives. Balance with ourselves and others inspires a welcomed sense of joy and peace. Emotional well-being, in turn, motivates us to shine light on those around us, hopefully giving them some balance, too.
Here are three ways you can seek balance in your life.
1. Seek Balance with Your Time.
Many of us spend our day doing things for other people—our children, a dependent relative, our boss. At times, we fulfill other people’s needs to meet our obligations. Other times, we devote too much of our time to others at the cost of our peace and, potentially, our physical well-being.
Seek to balance your time by remembering that God wants us to love our neighbors as ourselves. This means He expects us to love ourselves in healthy doses. Make time to follow your passions. Enjoy time alone or with friends. Allow yourself to relish being a child of God, which is who you are aside from being a parent, a relative, or a wage earner.
Personal balance-seeking tip: Proverbs 4:23 instructs: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it,” (NIV). When you consistently put your needs and wants last, resentment of those around you may grow in your heart. Keep resentment at bay by taking time to nourish your needs. Doing so will make your life sweeter and prompt you to treat others with more patience and positivity.
2. Seek Balance with Your Health.
For many people, a major hindrance to finding balance with themselves is their relationship with food and exercise. Take a mindful approach to food and exercise and you’ll view both as roads to health and vibrancy. Take a heedless approach and you’ll quickly see either or both as your nemesis! Luckily, barring any disability, we have control over what we put into and how much we move our bodies.
Train your taste buds to appreciate healthier meals by choosing foods with incrementally lower amounts of sugar and salt. Increase your daily intake of fruits and vegetables by adding them to your breakfast to start—bananas, avocados, or tomatoes are good breakfast additions. Pack a hearty salad for lunch—add chicken chunks and low-fat cheese for a more satisfying meal with added protein. Don’t forget the vegetable side dish for dinner, or bowl of fruit for dessert. Also, if you prefer carbonated drinks, trade out sugary sodas for carbonated water.
Likewise, train your body to want exercise. Get moving for a few minutes each day and soon you’ll look forward to the feeling of well-being and strength exercise brings. Baby steps in this area can quickly build into a physically and emotionally rewarding exercise routine.
Personal balance-seeking tip: If food choices are a problem for you, invest in a weight management program that teaches you to make healthy nutritional choices, versus joining a quick-fix weight loss scheme. I joined a weight management program for a year, lost 49 pounds and still employ the nutritional education I learned from that plan. I joined that program three years ago and have kept the weight off to date.
3. Seek Balance with Your Friends.
Just as important as the way we treat ourselves is the way we permit others to treat us. You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.
The people you call your friends should be enjoyable, caring people, not fickle souls who bring stress into your life. Once you experience the joy a good friend can provide, you’ll be more apt to pay that joy back by being a more supportive friend yourself.
Personal balance-seeking tip: For those of us who have felt a calling to befriend a difficult or irresponsible person, we should do so if it fulfills our calling. But we must balance the tug to befriend that person with our own entitlement to peace, our family’s entitlement to peace, and the understanding that we may actually be keeping that person from seeking the professional help they need to overcome their own imbalance.
Cheers to more balanced days!
In what ways do you seek balance in your life?
Janette Dolores is a mom, wife, and blogger. She is passionate about family and spirituality, and draws inspiration for her writing from everyday experiences. Read more of her posts at www.janettedolores.com.
Image: David Castillo Dominici
