I wanted to talk a little bit about balance today, because I sprained my ankle and tore my ligament a few weeks ago. It’s healing well, but there’s still pain when I turn it to a certain angle, and obviously, I’m not very balanced because of this. But it does inspire me to discuss this topic because it’s so important in life.
So, what comes up for you when you see the word “balance”? Is it work-life balance? Is it the tree pose in Yoga? Is it your financial flow? Or is it the Yin and Yang?
Now, let me digress a little bit. I practice Taekwondo, and balance training is one thing we do all the time. I remember a couple of years ago, we were doing balance training, and we were asked to kick while balancing on a large shield. If you’ve seen those shields, you know it’s not flat when you put it down on the mat. It got harder when it was a pile of them stacking up. it was kinda fun watching people struggle and fall one after another. 😊 But here’s the thing, through that practice, it struck me that to balance yourself, it involved far beyond just the steadiness and stability of the body. It requires your concentrated mind, relaxed muscles, as well as precise movement and energy control. When I missed any of these, I fell off the shields.
The right amount of the right energy in the right place at the right time.
In my martial arts journey, my Masters coach us not just the physical moves but also the mind and the spirit.
We are trained to improve our physical balance, but also importantly, to restore the balance of the physical and the mental. This is particularly powerful for adult students, as we could easily get carried away in our busy day-to-day life and lose our sense of balance; or we could get mentally stimulated all day with little or no physical movement.
Some people think balance is focused on the separateness of different parts, for example, “work” and “life” exist separately, whereas integration focuses more on bringing difference pieces together.
I’d agree, however, I prefer thinking that the ultimate balance IS integration. It’s acknowledging and appreciating the uniqueness of different parts AND bringing them together holistically without tilting too much to any side. It’s the law of action and reaction. It’s the beautiful integration of the left and right hemispheres of our brain where we generate creativity built upon the balance of structure and freedom.
“There is one thing that, when cultivated and regularly practiced, leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now, and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening.
And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centered on the body.”
- Gautama Buddha
For me, quite honestly, I never really paid too much attention to my body in most of my life, apart from the basic wellness and healthcare, but since I resumed Taekwondo training a few years ago, I’ve become more and more interested in our somatic intelligence, because our physical body can teach us so many things… if we really pay attention to it. Learning how to balance our body and our mind, how to balance different priorities in life, is a huge topic that’s worth practicing continuously, and I wish that you always live a balanced life, dear souls.
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