By, Dee A. Rowe, Basic B Finds Balance

There is a common idea that finding balance is a state you can arrive at, like the final destination after a long and dusty road trip. It’s a lie. The truth is finding balance is a never-ending journey of growth and self-discovery. It’s not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s an action, one that can be refined but never perfected.

There’s a talk on finding balance by Simon Sinek that is absolute effing gold. If you have two and a half minutes and can turn your sound on, I highly recommend you take a few minutes to listen to it.

Wait, if finding balance is not achievable, why bother? Because, my friend, on the road to balance you will also find:

• how to love yourself, imperfections and all
• the ability to set and enforce healthy boundaries
• your intuition and creative abilities grow stronger
• emotions no longer control you and it becomes easier to practice empathy without losing yourself
• when something knocks you off track, getting back in balance gets easier and easier

So, read on to discover why finding balance may be a never-ending journey, but also the most worthwhile trip you’ll ever take.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning that if you click through & make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Finding Balance and Loving Yourself 💗

Modern society bombards you with messages that you are not enough. Parents and teachers tell you to get better grades and or a better job. No matter how hard you work, you can’t get a perfect review. Ads show beautiful women applying skin-perfecting and anti-aging creams to their already-perfect faces, making you feel like you need to buy the extra-large tub of cream for your less-than-perfect mug.

Instagram is full of apparently fit, put-together, happy, wealthy, yet somehow always on vacation Influencers. You look at your own life and wonder where TF you went wrong because you think that what you see online is their reality. What you don’t see is the binge drinking, massive credit card bills from always having to have the newest, cutest clothes and countless beauty treatments, the fights with their partner over how much time is wasted on taking selfies and filming vlogs, the worries about inconsistent income, and the endless hours spent in airports. Not to mention the constant criticism of internet trolls eating away at their self-esteem.

When you start finding balance, the first thing you realize is that balance is not perfection. Soon after you discover that perfection doesn’t even exist, it’s an even more impossible illusion to chase after than a static state of balance. Nature is not perfect, but it can be balanced, and it is more beautiful in its imperfection than it would be if it were perfect. Once you accept that human beings are a part of nature, it is easy to see that we were not designed for perfection. Letting go of the idea that you have to be perfect makes it much easier to love yourself, imperfections and all.

To Read More About the Art of Self-Love:

Finding Balance and Boundaries

If you struggle with finding balance, as I did for so many years, you may have grown up in an unbalanced family. There may have been addiction or physical abuse, which is obviously toxic, or it may have been more subtle. Parents and guardians don’t mean to cause harm in most cases, but that does not mean it does not happen. They are imperfect too and were probably doing the best they knew how. But, growing up in an environment that makes you feel unsafe makes it hard for you to set and enforce healthy boundaries. As a child, your experience was that your needs don’t matter, and this is a hard concept to let go of as an adult.

Once your finding balance journey has taught you to love yourself more, it’s easier to see where your boundaries need to be. You understand that crossing those boundaries is not an option, even when it feels painful to enforce them. Even when it hurts, you let go of toxic relationships. You’re able to set boundaries for your work life so that it does not overshadow your home life.

It is important to note that setting and enforcing boundaries is not the same as building a bunch of walls that no one can climb over to protect yourself. Walls that high close you in and shut you off from experiencing the best things in life. Boundaries do not protect you from everything that might hurt you. They do protect you from repeated abuse if you enforce them.

To Read More About Boundaries:

Finding Balance: Intuition and Creativity

Don’t roll your eyes and stop reading. Intuition is not “woo-woo”. Creativity is not just for artists. Even the most scientific minds will benefit from improvements to intuitive and creative abilities if they focus on finding balance. Why?

Balance is a verb that describes finding an equilibrium between two opposing forces, like work and rest. You may never find that perfect balance, and if you do you won’t hold it for long. But, to find anything close to balance, you will have to give up on the “hustle until you drop” mindset. This means you allow yourself to have periods of true rest. Turns out, resting resets your brain. This strengthens both your intuition and creativity.

Still think intuition and creativity aren’t important? A strong intuitive ability helps you recognize which opportunities will benefit you and which will not. A creative mind is better able to come up with solutions and innovations. Studies show that periods of rest increase productivity overall. Burnout benefits no one. So stop hustling until you drop and start finding balance.

Read More About Intuition:

Read More About Creativity:

Finding Balance and Emotions

The art of finding balance requires you to practice mindfulness, aka focusing on the present moment instead of the past or future. When you do this, you begin to experience emotions differently. You realize that emotions are not you, they are something that passes through you, like an electrical current. If you are empathic (someone that can easily feel the emotions of others as strongly as if they were your own) this can be life-changing. If you aren’t even your own emotions then you certainly aren’t anyone else’s. Yogis have a saying “notice without judging”. That’s what the act of finding balance lets you do with emotions. You notice them passing through you like you notice clouds passing above you. You can feel an emotion, learn what you need from it, and let it pass. This is a huge improvement over being controlled by emotions.

Read More About Managing Emotions:

Finding Balance Over and Over Again

The thing about finding balance is that it’s a journey that is hard to start but even harder to stop. Just like many balance-focused physical activities (surfing, yoga, skating, dance, parkour, etc.), it’s addictive AF. Have you ever met someone that was into one of those activities but was not kind of obsessive about it?

It would be boring if balance was a static state of being like Simon says in the video at the start of this post. Nothing exciting would ever happen!

Of course, you will fall off balance but the more you practice, the better you get at regaining it. The better you get at regaining it, the less bothered you are to have fallen off in the first place. This is why finding balance is the best journey you can take, even if it is a never-ending one.

Read More About Finding Balance:

Another way you can learn more about finding balance is to subscribe to my weekly blog posts and emails. I write about everything related to living a more balanced life, including:

• Discussions on what balance is (and what it isn’t)
• Places you can go and things you can do to have more fun
• How to care for yourself mentally and physically
• And secrets to being successful while finding your balance

I hope you join me on the never-ending journey of finding balance if you haven’t already!

Until next week,

P.S. – If you’re reading this in October 2022, I’m in a contest to raise funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation in partnership with New Beauty Magazine. If I win, I get a vacation package that I’ll write all about and money to take courses and get certified in the healing arts so I can provide better advice in my blog posts. Please vote for me as Ms. Fab Over 40 2022!

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