One of the most common challenges leaders face is the elusive notion of “balance.” Leaders know balance is important to performing and sustaining high levels of excellence. Many books, seminars, and popular programs promise to help with “finding balance.”
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What if balance doesn’t have to be “found?”
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What if balance has never really been “lost?”
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What if what is lost is the ability to access what is already present?
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How would you be different if you acted as if you already had balance and stopped looking for it on the outside?
Human beings are pre-wired for balance.
Our bodies are designed to be in homeostasis; a balanced state is our birthright. Eastern wisdom traditions teach us that everything in the universe is designed to be balanced; this is referred to as “polarity.” Consider yin and yang, masculine and feminine, positive and negative, etc. The problem comes when we live in one extreme or the other. We appear to be out of balance when we live in duality. When we are at the extremes, either for or against, we experience life around the edges.
Fortunately, our nervous systems are designed for our brains and bodies to be in homeostasis. The sympathetic nervous system is active during our waking hours. When we are “thinking and doing”, the sympathetic nervous system is most active. The problem comes when this is our primary or only way to experience the world. When we operate exclusively in this state, imbalance occurs. Too much imbalance begins to show up in high levels of stress, deteriorating performance, relationships, and even health.
The para-sympathetic nervous system counters this. It is active when we are relaxed and asleep. It can only be activated in a deeply relaxed state. When accessed, it allows us to access intuition, visualizations, creativity, and other “feeling and being” sorts of activities. The problem is it cannot be accessed in a state of distress, stress, anxiety, or overwhelm.
The solution to imbalance isn’t to control and regulate more on the outside; it’s to ACCESS what is already present inside us.
Getting to a balanced state is possible for each and every one of us.
(Continue reading my article published with the Conscious Shift Community page)