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On the Precipice of Balance
If you are anything like me, you are looking for balance in your life.
What does that mean? The average life consists of many different aspects. Work, play, family, friends, uptime and downtime. Some of these are nuanced, some are in-your-face. Life tends to go by quickly, and you can become easily overwhelmed, in especial if you are working on being more mindful.
Mindfulness can be both liberating and entrapping. This is because, while becoming more aware of what you are thinking, and what and how you are feeling, opens you more to the present; it also puts you in your own head. For a lot of people, that’s distressing. Now you can’t avoid what is going on in there.
Because of the stigma often attached to mental illness, and because our society is full of distractions, being aware of ourselves can feel pretty traumatic. This is because if you become aware of yourself, you may believe that you now have to be accountable for yourself.
The thing is, while the idea of accountability may be scary, the truth of it is actually quite a positive force. How? Because now you position yourself to change it.
My own experience has caused me to believe that part of why people get so distraught over this is imbalance. We live in a society of extremes, and teetering to one or the other takes you out of balance…
