Aim For Balance.

A friend wrote in recently and asked how he can stay focused on positive things, when through life experience his mind has come to focus on negative stuff. And it got me thinking.

As young children we’re told that we need to look for the silver lining, the half-full glass and the opportunity in every adversity. The key to overcoming negative situations, we are told, is to shift our focus.

Firstly let me ackowledge that this is a powerful process. It helps us to see that there is a lot of good in every bad situation. But it is also incomplete. We’re never told what to shift to.

An important principle to keep in mind about how the mind works –

“In any situation, the natural tendency of the mind is to look for more of the same”

What this means is – when we’re down in the dumps, the mind focuses on even more negatives. You’ve probably experienced that when things are going bad, everything looks doomed!

And when we’re on top of the world, the mind focuses on even more positives. You’ve probably experienced this too. A striking example is the beginning of romance. You’re feeling great and your partner looks perfect!

The mistake we make in applying this principle is that we believe that the second state is better than the first. And we constantly try to shift to the overjoyed, elated, excited state and reject the miserable, down in the dumps state. In reality, neither state is better than the other because they are both lop-sided views of reality. No situation is completely bad or totally good. It’s only our state of mind that makes us believe so.

The higher state of being is Balance. Learning to shift to this state is a worthwhile pursuit. The key to being in Balance is developing the skill of seeing how every situation that appears bad also contains an equal amount of good, and every situation that appears good also contains an equal amount of bad.

There are at least 3 skills to master to achieve Balance. There may be more but I practise these three and have found them to be very effective. I hope you will participate in this article and try the exercises recommended. You will experience some powerful shifts by spending 2-3 extra minutes.

1. Emotional Awareness – Let Peace be your guide
What are you feeling right now? Be aware of your feelings in three broad categories to begin with – negative, positive and balanced.

You’re already an expert at categorising emotions. Try this and you’ll prove it to yourself right now.

Summon a negative feeling right now. Feel anger. Notice how it feels for 5 seconds.
Summon a positive feeling right now. Feel excitement. Notice how it feels for 5 seconds.
Summon a balanced feeling right now. Feel peace. Notice how it feels for 5 seconds.

The skill to practise is Awareness of these emotional states. Just tell yourself to be aware of your emotional state. Congratulate yourself whenever you remember to be aware. It’s a step by step process =)

2. Using a Multi-Dimensional Approach to Shift – the body and breath
We’re often tempted to use the mind to treat the mind. This is useful, but it can be much more effective to involve other dimensions of your being in shifting to balance.

Use your body. Right now, whatever posture you’re in – sitting, standing, lying down – can you adjust the posture to reflect a negative feeling? For eg: if you’re sitting, can you sit like a sad person? Notice your breath. Is it long or short? deep or shallow? smooth or jerky?

Can you adjust your posture to reflect an excited, overjoyed person? For eg: if you’re sitting, can you sit like you’re on top of the world? Notice your breath. Is it long or short? deep or shallow? smooth or jerky?

Can you adjust your posture to reflect balance? For eg: if you’re sitting, can you sit like a you’re at peace and ease with yourself? Notice your breath. Is it long or short? deep or shallow? smooth or jerky?

The amazing thing about this process is that by changing your body and breath, you’ll notice that you’ve immediately and effectively changed your state of mind. Learn to use your body and breath to come back to balance and peace anytime.

3. The Art of Questioning – Using the Mind to access Wisdom
Let’s compare this idea with files in a computer. You create a file and store it in a folder. At any later moment you can access the file by opening its folder or making a search with specific commands to the computer.

Our mind works like that too. With each life experience it creates learning and memories that are stored like files. These learnings can be accessed later by specifically remembering them [like opening their specific folder] or by making a search [asking a question that draws upon that particular learning]

Give a computer a bad command and you’ll get rubbish, and similarly ask your mind a dumb question and you’ll get all sorts of confusion. Know that whenever you’re feeling unbalanced negative or positive states of emotion, your mind is asking the wrong questions. Asking powerful questions leads to peace and balance.

All the answers are within you.
Minds are even more powerful than computers. They can use intelligence to make correlations and integration. They can take many seemingly unrelated life lessons [different files in different folders] and synthesize a new learning [make a whole new file].

Given a good question, our minds can synthesize come up with pretty much any kind of answer, whether or not we’ve directly experienced it =) For example, may not have served jail time. But if you ask yourself how it would be to be in jail, your mind will integrate your previous experiences of feeling shackled and restrained, and come up with a pretty accurate synthesis of being in jail.

Similarly you may not currently be experiencing peace or balance in your life right now. But asking your mind a powerful question can immediately help you to synthesize peace in the moment.

Ask yourself “How can I feel at peace with my life exactly the way it is?”
Or ask yourself “What is the balance in this situation right now?”
Or ask yourself “What is it that I’m not seeing in this situation, that can bring me to balance?”

Don’t try to force the answers. Just ask with an open mind and your mind will give you the answer. Try it! See how that works? Amazing, isn’t it? You can use these questions or come up with creative questions that work for you.

Just to summarise, don’t aim for being happy, aim for being at peace. Happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin. One always flows into the other. It’s only a matter of time =) A more powerful place to be is in balance, and feel at peace. It is a centred state of being.

To feel peace, you can learn three skills.
1. Practise how it feels like to be at peace, and summon this feeling in any moment. It is always within reach.
2. Use your body and breath to change your state of mind.
3. Ask powerful balancing questions to access your inner wisdom.

I hope you’ve participated in this article and tried some of the exercises that I’ve recommended. Did this article help in any way? I invite you to leave comments.

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Wishing you Lightness.