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Balance is not a stable state.
It’s actually the process of regaining your balance, but it’s never a finished complete thing. You’re shifting a little this way, a little that way, always seeking the center and going right by it. What you want to keep in mind is to what extent you are away from the center and how long it takes you to get back closer to it.
The shorter the distance back to the center, the better things will be for you across the board.
Having an influx of information without intention puts us in baseline dizziness.
Leaving it up to culture, our natural impulses, and the algorithms is a recipe for losing your balance. You can get turned upside down and far off course, making it harder to find your way back to the center. Internet media will bombard you from all angles and blow out your foundations if you don’t tend to it with care and curation.
If you pay attention, you’ll notice a strong correlation between the existential nausea and the flavor of media you’re consuming.
But, there’s no need to lose hope quite yet.
You can still make certain moves to regain your footing.
The center you seek didn’t disappear, you just forgot where it went, where it lives. The trick is you have to feel your way back into it by letting the mind settle back down to firm ground. You cannot think your way back to center, instead, it’s the slight adjustments until you arrive at it.
Silence is your friend here. Focus is your friend here. Patience is your friend here.
Once you’ve regained your center and are no longer dizzy, you’ll want to notice right away when you start to veer.
Notice when your sense-making gets jumbled up. When your future begins to blur more. When life starts to lose its color. When paranoia knocks and doom & gloom enter your sacred house. Ssssshhhhhhhhh. Quiet down. Deep breaths. North, South, East, West. Oriented toward the good, the true, the beautiful.
Let nothing steal your peace. You’re there, standing on stone.
Firm ground.
Keep it.
As we learned back in our high school economics class, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Everything, everything, everything comes at a cost. And these associated costs aren’t always financial. The government offers something for free, the taxpayers paid for it. You drink a whole bottle of wine to free yourself of anxiety & stress, you and your body pay for it later. You take on a new political identity and it costs you your family & friends.
There’s no getting around the true cost of things, but you can (at the very least) be mindful of what you are actually giving up in exchange for them.
Back in the day, one of the greatest retailers of all time, Sol Price, had this idea he developed called the Intentional Loss of Sales.
The idea is you want to have a limited selection of items in your store instead of carrying everything in stock for your customers. The reasoning, according to Sol, is that for every extra product you carry in your store, it’s more work for your employees to deal with. More items to ship, stock, & sell. So while you may be technically losing sales because you aren’t carrying every single product option, you are actually saving money as a retailer by reducing the other costs associated. Those that are typically overlooked. The whole idea comes down to paying attention to what’s gained for what you miss out on.
We can use this idea with our beliefs too.
We can put in place an Intentional Loss of Beliefs. Where we first analyze what our current beliefs are truly costing us across all areas of our life. Then we can get rid of those beliefs that are costing us the most with little upside.
It’s impossible that every belief out of the plethora of options is worthwhile.
Never hurts to look closer at your operating system.
If your beliefs are leading you down a disorienting path, it’s time to ditch them for something more stable.
There are bound to be better beliefs out there that place you into more of a balance with life. And wouldn’t this irk you to know that you are submitting to a subpar belief when a better one exists? Time will tell what was worth it and what wasn’t.
Of course, you may in fact find that you’re right on track. You nailed your belief and somehow lucked out with the one that centers you. One that washes you over with immense peace and love for the world.
In that case, keep it up and message me the details. (For real)
Balance is the process of coming to center and recognizing when you come up short or go right past it.
The better you get at balancing, the more subtle and nuanced your moves become. It’s not the huge swings and big jumps that get you on the mark, it’s the minor modifications and mindfulness. This balance I am talking about applies to everything.
Literal physical balance. Mental balance. Spiritual balance. Familial balance. All of it.
You know you’ve got it dialed in when you’re only noticing when you fall out of flow and a bit off balance.
Whereas when you’re beginning to cultivate this skill you are only noticing when you do hit it and get it lined up. This lets you know you’re on the right track and get it down more often than not, which is a great sign. If you don’t think you want the centered place, it’s because you’ve never felt it.
Because once you’ve felt centered, especially in your soul, you’ll never forget it.
So walk with your eyes open.
As simple as it sounds, pay attention to what works and what doesn’t.
Iterate like a mad scientist and dial it in. Make the necessary tweaks.
Fine-tune what’s out of sync.
And you’ll eventually get there. And keep getting there.
Better than the opposite of spinning your wheels for none of the thrills.
“Always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” -Timothy 2, ch.3, v.7 NIV
