A balanced life - can we achieve our goals and enjoy life at the same time?
We often have the feeling that we can either achieve our goals or enjoy life. Having both in our lives, a.k.a. having a balanced life is difficult. We feel like we can't be a hundred percent fulfilled in both departments.
If you’re like most people, you probably think that only other people can have them both, who are super extraordinary, and you feel that you don’t fall into the mix. Today, the demands of work, career, education, family, and homeownership seem to take priority over enjoyment. We schedule relaxation time as a once-a-month outing or even an annual vacation. However, even those pleasures seem to be filled with work.
Are you waiting for retirement to enjoy your life? Many people feel as though they are waiting for life to happen rather than creating the life they want.
Creating a balanced life
If you think about being balanced, you might imagine a seesaw or an old fashioned balance in the position of being directly balanced in the middle. When it goes up or down it’s out of balance. It needs an effort to keep it in the middle position and it only stays in the there when the weights on the two sides are perfectly matched.
Life works similarly. There are ups and there are most certainly downs. Sometimes you might feel as though you just want to jump off the seesaw and lay on the ground for a little while to just gain your equilibrium back.
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What if your fears were a doorway into new and exciting prospects? What if fear is an opportunity for personal growth in disguise?
You probably guessed it by now. Yes, it's meditation.
Do you know someone who meditates? Probably you do as more and more people take on the practice of meditation. For some of them, it’s a daily practice, while for others it’s just for emergency situations. What are some of those emergency situations? It’s those moments when you feel like your life is spinning out of control. It’s for times when you can’t seem to get out of your own way.
It was also an "emergency situation" when I first turned to meditation. I was extremely stressed and overwhelmed trying to juggle work commitments and motherhood, up to the point when I started to have panic attacks out of nowhere. I was desperately trying to find a solution to relieve stress.
As working less, walking in nature, self-care and other recommended approaches were not feasible at that moment, I figured I could meditate for a few minutes every night before I fall asleep and see how it goes. And it worked, I felt fresher, happier, more focused, and more energetic than usual. I was able to deal with stressful situations much better. Then it became an almost daily practice.
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