Finding Balance

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about the importance of finding balance in your life. I believe that having balance is important in everyone’s life, but for those of us with chronic illness we tend to become more aware of the need for it. Additionally, we also tend to experience adverse consequences sooner if we aren’t maintaining a good balance.

Knowing that finding balance is important isn’t the same as finding it. One of the biggest challenges is that balance looks different for everyone. This means that finding a good balance in your life will be a process of trial and error. It will take time and patience. And your needs will likely change over time which means that things will constantly need to be adjusted as you go along. When you begin seeking balance in your life, it is important to start by thinking about what it means to have balance.

It’s about finding the Goldilocks Zone of “just right” where things aren’t too much or too little. Thus, the first principle in finding balance is that of moderation or the avoidance of extremes and excesses. This means that there are rarely any absolutes in life where something is always or never done. Rather things are given a time and a place where they can be done in moderation. It also means that things need to be considered for their frequency for evaluation of whether or not they fall into the category of too much or too little which can vary greatly depending on a person’s medical conditions.

This brings us to the idea of pacing which is frequently talked about in the chronic illness spaces. Something to keep in mind is that pacing is about finding the right balance between activities and rest for your unique situation. The point in maintaining this balance is to enable us to maximize the amount of productivity that we can achieve each day. Something that we quickly learn is that resting is an important factor in being productive. When we do not appropriately attend to our rest we become fatigued and can no longer be productive, usually for much longer periods then if we had been attending to our resting properly.

Embracing the idea of Essentialism can help you find better balance in your life. Essentialism is a systematic process of discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so you can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter. It is about removing anything from your life that is not worth investing your time or energy into. Keep only the things that matter to you.

It is important to remember that healthy living can be much easier than what the media is showing you. After all, they are likely trying to sell you some product or another that their message is connected to. You don’t need pre made or special foods. There is no need for complex routines. All the trend diets and workouts are not sustainable or helpful over the long term. None of that is required for you to achieve wellness, balance and happiness. All movement has value and is more sustainable if it is something you enjoy. Keeping your meals simple and affordable is more likely to keep you on track. Taking time for rest and relaxation is just as important as getting things done.

Finding balance is about looking at the problems that life is presenting you and coming up with creative solutions that work within your life. It doesn’t matter if there is no one else doing it that way. These solutions need not be completely corrective to be worthy of keeping in your life. Just because something only reduces the problem by half doesn’t mean that it isn’t an effective intervention. Things that make your life more manageable, even a little bit are worth having in your life.

Finding balance also extends into our relationships and the ways that we interact with others. It means creating new boundaries or moving the ones that we already have or letting go of some that we’ve been holding onto that no longer serve us. Those who are worthy of being in your life are the people that will help you find your balance and will then help you maintain it once you’ve found it.

Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like my rambling then click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!