A short day. A long day. You work “x” amount of hours to measure your worth by how long you have endured your tasks. Or maybe you only worked a few hours and now you feel like you didn’t do enough.
At the end of the day if someone asks you, “How was your day?” how do you typically respond? It was a “long” day; it was a “productive” day; it was a “busy” day; it was a “joyful” day; it was a “stressful” day.
There are many words you can choose to insert to reply. But have you ever thought about answering in this way…”It was a balanced day.”
When you are connected to your heart, time passes by and the attachment to how long or short it takes seems relative. There is no thought of time. Albert Einstein said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.”
Ego creates time, tasks and hard work or lack of in its eyes to justify its existence of control in our lives. If you want to start creating consciously perhaps this exercise in conscious awareness would be something to consider for balance. These conscious questions may help you to reflect if you are following your heart and seeking truth within for your growth or if you are following ego that controls with fear? When you ask yourself these questions, it is meant to be with love and compassion towards yourself, removing the judgment of good or bad, right or wrong and instead a conscious reflection of where you are and where you choose to move toward.
- Was my day balanced with Body – Mind – Spirit?
- Was my day balanced with masculine and feminine in giving and receiving?
- Was my day balanced with what is important to me right now in my spiritual growth and the inspired action I want to take in following my truth?
- Was my day balanced with what is important to me which could be spending time with my Spouse, my children, my Family, my friends, my Spiritual Group, Nature, my Career and the things I love to do that feed my passion?
- What choices will I change to start seeing the shift towards the balance I want in my life?
You may come up with a totally different set of questions and only you will know what things are important to you in your life that will bring you the balance you want. You may very well be at peace with how you are balancing your life right now and it feels great. The exercise is to check in with yourself not just once but it could be a daily, weekly, monthly or however often you choose to reflect within to see if you are staying in balance. Are you maintaining a conscious balance or do you need an adjustment to get back in alignment? We take our cars in for a tune up to make sure everything is in balance and running right. Why not take our self in for a conscious living diagnostic?
When our energy is balanced, everything seems easier because we are aligned. The frequency is higher. We are centered and connected with our authentic self.
The cycle we can get into is saying we want balance in our life but we do not make the choices to align to those words or that energy, and we continue to make the same choices that Ego wants us to. We can get caught in a trap of becoming used to allowing external choices to lead us on our path and we convince our SELF or should I say Ego convinces our SELF and we listen, that we are allowing things to happen as they should. Are you making choices from habit and routine or taking inspired action from within?
What are you really allowing to flow in your life?
Remember Ego loves us to THINK about things and justify all our choices. We are the hero of the company; we are taking care of everybody’s requests in our life without hesitation; we are the person everyone goes to because we never say no; we are providing financial stability to our family. Of course money is essential to living and providing. This is about conscious living and being aware of where your actions are coming from and are they rooted in balance or ego. Are you making conscious choices to respond in the moment? Or are you reacting to everything in your life and allowing your EGO to choose what you create?
If you stepped out of your path for a moment and observed your SELF and your ACTIONS to reflect on an experience you just had or to just check in, perhaps these questions may help:
- Are you in your heart space or your ego?
- Are the choices you are making going to propel you on the path you desire?
- Are you allowing Ego to justify why you must keep doing what you are doing even when it doesn’t feel right inside?
- Are you Balanced or Not?
We are the creators of our hamster wheel and can run the same circle of choices, choosing the same actions, same routines and we continue to get the same result, even when we say we want Balance in our life. Ego proudly stands in the audience watching our circle of busyness and applauds our performance.
Ego loves to keep us busy, TIRED and occupy our mind with sticky notes of grandeur that if we don’t do this, than we fail the team. If we don’t continue to take care of others, we are a bad person. If we don‘t provide financial stability we are letting our family down.
Or on the flip side Ego tells us we are a Hero for helping to save the Company and we can’t quit supporting now and will charm the pants off us by complimenting how wonderful we are at DOing all of the tasks. How can we connect to source, our truth and our heart when we are so tired we have no energy to connect! Or if we are feeling like a hero or rock star by Ego’s whispers in our ear and telling us we must, at all cost cater to all others and fulfill their requests without hesitation, blocking out our own heart like a black sun so we dare not connect to what fulfills our truth within.
We choose either to be governed by the Ego or free our heart to awaken to the truth within. This means not only saying you want balance but making choices that produce a different result. This might anger the Ego and some people around you that are not used to you saying things like “No, I am choosing to do ______ to grow and balance my life.” “No, I will be spending time with my Family and I am choosing to allow someone else the opportunity to do my job.” Saying no is a practice. It is only when you identify your boundaries that you are willing to change from years of serving the EGO, and start practicing those boundaries, that the space around you will change. The EGO is no longer allowed into your space. Only you can create that Boundary, have the will to change a thought or a habit and then speak your truth in the moment. It takes practice and consciousness but is part of balance and living from the heart if that is what you seek.
There are people in your life that you may consider a friend and relationships that you have created in your life. Reflect on all of your relationships and ask yourself if these are nurturing your Mind – Body – Spirit health. Start observing your relationships from a conscious place. Do the people in your life that you may be so busy providing immediate responses to ever ask you what you want? Do they ever consider what is best for your health and balance? Do they ask about your wants, desires and thoughts and truly listen to your words? And is that something you practice for them? Is the flow there with giving and receiving? You cannot say you choose balance and continue to make choices that produce the same imbalance in your life. Are your partnerships in all areas of your daily life based in love or ego?
Einstein knew of the power of words alongside the choice in action long ago when he said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Words, choice and inspired action walk hand in hand or the insanity will continue.
One of the hardest truths of all for some of us to face sometimes is knowing that you are the only one that chooses who controls your choices and who you allow to govern your life.
Will you allow your ego that rules by fear, control and judgment? Or your heart that rules by Love, Acceptance, Allowance and Compassion. And not asking yourself the question is a choice too in unconscious allowing which is another article in itself.
So, I encourage you to reach within, grab on with both hands, take a deep breath of courage and exhale knowing that breath connects you with your heart and the transformation from fear to love is inside you. I have walked that journey and continue to walk it. I can tell you from experience it might not always be easy but it FEELS amazing to connect with your SELF, your TRUTH and your HEART.
There is only love.
M.A. Schmid
