Balance

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

We are coming into the spring equinox, the day the earth experiences equal day and night. Globally we are coming out of a pandemic, lockdowns, as well as the emotions attached to those chaotic times. The equinox is a time we celebrate the return of light after winter, plants sprouting back to life, and the return of spring. Day and night create a harmonic balance. With the return of warmer weather, what better time to seek balance within ourselves?

Let in fresh starts.

Where do you want to focus your energy? Creating helpful habits is the best way to produce a lasting change. You don’t need to do everything all at once; in fact, overdoing it invites burnout. The best way to change is by small acts every day. 

Spring clean in moderation.

Let’s say you want a clean house. Doing a deep clean overhaul of your house in a day might make it better for a few days while you are too sore to enjoy it. In the coming days it will likely return the way it was in the first place due to everyone’s tiny messy habits. Instead of focusing on over the top perfection goals, we need to place our awareness on accumulating smaller tasks over time. A Buddhist mindset is to have one bowl and wash the bowl after you use it. It’s a simple task, while washing a sink full of dishes is a big to do. Everything in life works this way. You can’t spend 10 hours in the gym one day and become super fit; you will only injure yourself. Doing 15 minutes of something once a day is more helpful than spending hours toiling once in a blue moon.

Warm up and cool down.

Just like the equinox balances day and night, light and dark, sun and moon, we too must seek balance. Staying in bed all day is not helpful, but neither is working all day. We need to slow down and reward ourselves by relaxing when we need it. Time to recover is equally important as time spent on tasks. It’s important to take breaks. Instead of being always on or always off, strive to seek a middle ground. When we treat ourselves with due care, we will be better able to move forward in the future in a positive state of body, mind, and spirit.

Hold on to what you love.

What do you want to keep? What are you grateful for? What is important to you? Will you prioritize what makes you happy? Consider activities you enjoy that make you feel confident or positive. Look at what gets you energized and alternately relaxed. Take time to be grateful for friends, family, pets, and anyone special in your life.

Air out grievances.

There’s a tradition of opening all the windows on nice spring days to freshen your house and let out the old, stale air. What if we did this exercise with our minds and bodies? Imagine clearing out grudges, regrets, and grievances. Imagine the freedom of forgiving yourself for anything you may want to be different in your life, and instead, accept yourself for who you are. 

Let Go.

Let go of whatever you are holding onto that is not serving you, your health, your spirit, your mind, and your well-being. The items holding you back can be physical clutter around the house. Anything you haven’t used in the past year is questionable to keep around. Anything that doesn’t have a space or is unusable due to space, may need to be rearranged or donated for a new home. Channel Marie Kondo and ask yourself, “Does it spark joy?”  What’s holding you back can also be old habits, toxic relationships, or patterns that no longer need to be repeated. Now is a wonderful time to let go of anything you do not need, want, or enjoy.

Clear a cluttered mind.

Give yourself permission to let go of recurring negative thoughts that are stuck. Sometimes recurring thoughts seem like they may be helpful or motivating a positive change, yet often looping thoughts act as distracting mental clutter. Negative thoughts have the power to clog up space in the same way as unused exercise equipment clogging up the hallway. Notice when good intentions are not helping and instead leave you feeling bad about yourself; treat yourself with kindness and move on. Question if continuing to chew on that same line of thought is creating the growth you want. You can move recurring thoughts of what you’d like to change onto a ‘to do’ list; this moves them out of your head and into a plan for action.

Movement frees stuck feelings.

Light, regular exercise is a great way to shift stuck moods. When releasing endorphins, negative feelings melt away. Physical movement creates positive mood shifts and allows you to unblock emotions and stiff points in your body at the same time.

Are you ready to let go of any feelings of resentment, agitation, or disappointment? It’s normal to want to hold onto painful feelings in attempts to punish ourselves into being better; in reality dwelling on misery only creates more of it. Treating ourselves and others with love, understanding, and care is far more effective than punishment or feeling bad about ourselves. Letting go of grudges or insecurities opens up space to focus on compassion for yourself and others.

Build Your Strength.

Many of us are carrying grief from unexpected losses that occurred over the past year, and it is weighing us down. It’s alright to feel this way and to mourn expectations that didn’t come to fruition as long as we keep ourselves in check. Continuing to dwell on losses becomes physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting. Like the changing seasons, we can spring back to life, and move forward.

Write a list of 5 things you would like to let go of for the spring of 2021 as well as a list of 5 things you want to bring into your life. Keep a copy at the start of your agenda, on a post it, or somewhere where you can see it every day. You can scratch items off when you feel satisfied and no longer need them.

Letting Go of Uncomfortable Feelings

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

“One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go.”

— Mareez Reyes

It’s easy to stew in uncomfortable feelings and allow emotions to overtake us. Letting go of strong emotions and moving them into positive actions gives us strength to make positive changes in areas that upset us. Strong emotions have power to motivate change.

You’re in a rush because you really want to pick up a surprise for your friend before catching the bus to meet them. You feel great about yourself as you daydream about surprising your friend while catching your breath in line with the perfect gift, when out of nowhere, someone cuts you in the queue. They have loads of items while in the express checkout and are acting the epitome of rude. You are fuming. You clench your jaw and your fists. Every item they ring up and every word they utter sends you further into rage as you force yourself to retain composure. Finally, you check out your single item and move as quickly as you possibly can to catch the bus, which you do not.

Now you’re stuck waiting for the next bus, all because that muppet cut the queue. Your excitement to see your friend evaporates; for now, all your attention is dedicated to mulling over a few choice words you feel you should have said to the queue cutter. Rest assured these critiques are all deserved for making you late and upsetting everyone else’s plans. You were having such a lovely morning, and now everything merely adds to your frustrations. 

All you want is for people to have common courtesy, to mind the queue, to not cut everyone else off in queue with countless items, yet this savage did just that. The nerve of some people is all you can think about in an endless loop of aggravation. You can keep feeling like this all day; you just might. Something about reeling in their countless flaws seems just and deserved. They violated the honor code, the queue code, and common decency. They significantly violated your space and threw off all of your plans for the day. You have a right to be angry, but how is that going to help you when you get to your friend’s party? How can you not be furious? After all, you think you should be upset at the way you were treated.The choice is completely yours. You can stay mad, and carry this cloud into the party; alternatively, you can look at the situation, look at yourself, and examine other options. Being angry is not helping your current situation, after all, you can no longer take it out on the queue cutter who kicked off this whole mess. Pretending everything is honky dory will not do. Let’s face it, to get out of this mood you need to face what’s bothering you.

Identify Your Feelings. What are you feeling? Does it have a name?

Quantify the Feeling. On a scale of 1-10, where would you rate this feeling? Where would you like this feeling to be? What would be a more manageable level?

Locate Where You Feel these Feelings in Your Body. Stress, anger, and tense emotions are held in our body. Some people hold stress in their shoulders and back. Once aware that they raise and tense their shoulders, they can then let go and learn to lower their shoulders away from their ears. Then relax and unclench their jaw. Practicing Autogenic Relaxation Training, Meditation, Yoga, Self Massage, light exercise, stretching, or other body awareness practices will help you fine tune your ability to locate tension throughout your body. You can also become more aware by simply paying attention to yourself and focusing on your body and how different parts move and feel. Where do you feel pain, fear, anger, or resentment? Can you feel it in your face? Untense your face and body. Open and relax your hands. Breathe deep and lower your shoulders away from your ears again.

Identify the Cause of This Feeling. What is wrong? Perhaps you are upset at a person, a situation, or even yourself. Put into words what is going on that led you to feel this way. “I feel frustrated at the muppet who cut in the queue.”

Own Your Feelings. Take full responsibility for how you feel. This doesn’t mean making apologies for other people, taking blame for the situation, or others’ actions. You are only responsible for your own emotions, words, and actions. Give yourself space to feel your emotions. Hold your feelings in a place of respect regardless of if they are positive or negative emotions.

Accept Your Feelings. You feel how you feel. Even though it may not be the feeling you want to be experiencing, honour the reality of how you feel right now. This may sound like: “I feel angry, but I love myself deeply.”

Move Negative Feelings into Positive Actions. What can you do to change this situation or similar situations in the future? You can’t control other people or the situation. You can change the way you prepare, interact, and influence others. You can speak out and change the course of events by speaking up for yourself or advocating for others. Strong emotions like anger exist to scare off threats or jump us into action inorder to protect ourselves.

Be Assertive. Sometimes we feel guilty for not speaking out about injustices until after the situation has passed; luckily we can learn healthy, assertive communication so people are aware of our boundaries. There are various actions we can take to become more assertive and maintain healthy boundaries. 

Ask Yourself What You Are Meant to Learn. Every situation will teach us about ourselves and the world around us. Learning to identify how we feel in the moment is crucial to avoid being overwhelmed by our emotions. As we practice awareness of our emotions, we will be more able to assess the situation and find helpful ways to react.

Let Go. When you are ready, give yourself permission to let go of uncomfortable feelings. “I feel very angry right now, but it is not currently helping me. I no longer need to carry the weight of this feeling so I give myself permission to release my anger.”

Build Your Strength Take a few deep breaths and a moment to thank and honor yourself for your courage to address your feelings. It’s difficult work to step out of your comfort zone, to address uncomfortable feelings, to own your feelings, and use them to take positive action. Love, accept, and honour yourself for taking the responsibility to work with your challenging feelings.