To understand the benefit of a balanced life it’s important to first have a clear picture of what a balanced life is. A balanced life is one that has varying facets, each one merging with another whether it is with one aspect or several coming together. Some of the different areas of life include: education, family, career/job, health, relationships, financial, social, and spiritual. The key in all of these areas is to find and divide your time between each one in a manner that is right for you. No one can say that you should have 15% education, 39% work/career, 10% social, etc. The balance is based on how you are fulfilled within each of these areas where you experience being at ease, joyful, loving and free. The balance is what you do to enhance positive experiences through these aspects along with the flow at which you can do this.
So here are the individual areas of life…
- Education: This may be a formal education such as working toward an undergraduate or graduate degree, doctorate, or specific degree in a specialty such as special education teacher, nursing, psychology, etc. However, education also covers learning new things such as: operating a specific computer program; learning a new language; playing a new game like chess; learning finance, or any number of things that are uncharted regions which teaches new knowledge or how to do something.
- Career/Job: This is a rather large area encompassing a high percentage of one’s life. At some time or other, after adult-hood or sometimes before, a work life is established. The profession you work in and the specific job within that profession is either one you chose or fell into. It can make a difference as far as this area of life being pleasurable or simply what one does for money to live. For many, having a job means surviving from pay-day to pay-day. When it’s a chosen career, there is often a greater opportunity for thriving and more joy. But when falling into a job, it may not be as satisfying only a means to an end.
- Health: This aspect of life is very significant to the quality of your life when considering the ease at which the physical body is able to perform. Although taken for granted that the body will continue to function as designed, there comes a time in life when you are reminded that the body is vulnerable and must be taken care of as best as possible to sustain its performance. Some people take very good care of their health not only physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. On all these levels health offers a whole and real aspect for thriving.
- Relationships: This area of your life includes all forms of relationships. A mate or spousal relationship, siblings, parents, children, colleagues, friends, acquaintances and others. Relationships can be complicated in that they involve so many different facets of interaction including communication, time spent together, a level of relating that’s comfortable, trust, support, and how one feels from the interaction exchanged. In relationships so many emotions, feelings, sensations, as well as mental and physical triggers come to the surface, regardless of whether they are wanted (good) or unwanted (bad) experiences. Relationships help you fully connect with another person which helps you get in touch with yourself more deeply.
- Financial: Either you have money or you don’t. Either you are able to handle your living expenses as they are now or you don’t. This is an area many people are weak in because of less income and more outgo. There is no blame put on you; it simply is. The financial area is one of the most explosive of all life’s aspects because it appears that if you have money, all other areas of life will be happy, or at least better. And…this is a myth. Yet without a positive cash flow where monthly discretionary money is available to spend, finances can be a very dark place emotionally causing your life flow to seem out of balance.
- Social: This is another very significant part of life that people don’t understand the importance of. Being social with others allows you to temporarily forget your troubles. You begin having fun which raises your vibration and energy. Socializing moves you out of the way of continued focus on self and opens you to the consideration of others. It is an aspect of life that acts as the caulking between all other life aspects. It helps make dismal, out of balance situations more palatable while shifting your perspective to a higher more open consciousness toward positive experiences.
- Spiritual: This part of life is what colors the other life aspects. Spirituality is what you believe and the way you go about living every day. It is what you do in times of challenge, blessings, and even the hum-drum routines on a daily basis. The path chosen in light of every single life circumstance is based on the essence of spirit and how the influence from your internal self dictates the correct road to follow at that given moment. Without direction from the spiritual connection of life, life is not worth living because only darkness would prevail and hopelessness would determine the way and how you live.
If you notice all of these life aspects have their own specific or compartmentalized function but only if you treat them that way. This is how your life can become
imbalanced. When you have more attention or energy in one area to the sacrifice of other areas, lack of joy, peace, genuine love or even freedom seem to be elusive. But the reality is, even when it is necessary to put more focus on one area of life than another, for a temporary period of time, the attitude, energy, belief systems, and emotional control can help you maintain a life balance.
Here’s an example: If you have to work long hours at your job due to a special project you may not be able to connect with your close relationships. Perhaps socializing is absent. Your finances might increase a bit but your health is compromised because you don’t eat as well and have no time for exercise. You might be learning something new as a result of the project yet your daily spiritual practice is faltering.
Shift your perspective and begin with the spiritual area of your life. What do you believe about yourself, your relationships with others, your ability to do your job, how you learn, the blessings of your finances (no matter how much or how small). How do you feel emotionally in all these aspects; is your spirit joyful no matter what? Do you feel content and at peace the way your life is for that short period of time? Are you loving your life and experiencing total freedom because you made the choice to work where you do and take on that project? If you answer these questions honestly and are able to say yes to the last few questions about how you emotionally feel then you have life balance.
In this example I invite you to look beyond the separate life areas. Here is how practicality can help you balance everything in this example. Although you are working long hours for your health you can get up every thirty minutes, walk around for two to five minutes and get back to work. You can eat healthy, wholesome low fat, low carb foods that feed the brain and body. Socially, the interaction with co-workers on the project and during break time can help boost your moral. The relationships strengthened with your colleagues can be very rewarding, particularly since you’re sharing a common interest. Seeing a higher paycheck is always a joyful experience and learning something new that you do with others can be fun. And, of course, taking time before starting the day to do a meditation, journal, read and work on self-help exercises are how you set the energy to begin a day where you can answer Yes to the universe for what’s ahead.
The benefit of having a balanced life is that you can live life in a state of freedom. Freedom from negative thinking, freedom from feeling emotionally down, freedom from experiencing struggle, and freedom from being stuck in a life you don’t want to live. Practice balancing your life and you’ll enjoy the benefits!
Meditation
Balancing Your Life – The Golden Sphere