Balance & Freedom

2021 was a year to reset and rewire. My old ways of doing things were no longer working for me. As I’ve been finding more sustainable ways to live and heal, I keep coming back to the word balance and I’ve embraced it as my theme for 2022. Well before the new year, I had begun to make big changes around the theme balance that has enabled me to restore my nervous system and heal anxiety.

My younger ways of always pushing, striving, working, and sometimes forcing wasn’t cutting it anymore. My body, mind, and soul are done with those extremes and won’t tolerate a minute more of it. My family and I moved into a fixer upper home 5 years ago and have been knee-deep with house projects. I’ve been working on other creative projects on the side too. As a result, by the beginning of this past summer I was completely burnt out. It was time for me to rest and restore like I had never done before. It was time for me to reevaluate my lifestyle.

I started making adjustments to three different areas of my life where I needed balance. I fully embraced my self-worth for just being a person instead of deriving my worth from my accomplishments. I identified the areas in my life where I needed to be gentler with myself and let go of anything harsh or extreme. I finally began to understand the necessity of rest and restoration and began to prioritize my sleep and schedule time for relaxation. These three parts of balance that I’ve detailed below restores our health and mental wellness, bringing us back to wholeness.

First Part: Being Instead of Doing

Many of us derive our self-worth from our accomplishments, especially people with anxiety which is part of the reason anxiety is so heartbreaking for us. With anxiety, there’s some things we can’t do and sadly that makes us feel less than and at times worthless. However, this is furthest from the truth.

We live in a culture that seems to propagate the message that our worth comes from our achievements, income, education, and more. We’ve become entirely focused on equating our self-worth based on what we do, how we look, where we live, what we drive, where we went to school, and where we shop. For many of us, especially women, it results in burn out.

These patterns of always doing and accomplishing to validate our worth is crippling. Having goals and accomplishing them are not inherently bad. In fact, it is good to have goals and to take manageable daily actions to follow through with them. At times we have to work very hard. But if we can learn to enjoy the process of achieving our goals and separate our worth from them, our work becomes more sustainable for our health and mental wellness.

Our self-worth only ever comes from within us - we are worthy just for being. In no way is our self-worth a product of what we do or have previously done. We have achieved freedom when we can fully grasp our self-worth and know it’s intrinsic. There’s nothing we have to do to earn it. Below are some ways to help you find you self-worth and embrace yourself for being alive, breathing, here on earth, and more.

Ways to Embrace Being:

- Realign your values with emphasis on self-care.

- Love yourself unconditionally.

- Spend time in nature and observe how nature just is.

- Watch your pet or any other animals in your life and see how they know their worth.

Second Part: Gentleness Instead of Extremes

Our bodies, minds, and souls need gentleness and tenderness instead of extremes. By extremes, I’m talking about extreme diet and exercise programs, adrenaline fueled recreation activities, or intense and unrelenting work habits. The pressure to perform or look a certain way causes many of us to turn to high intensity, perfectionist modalities. These extremes put our bodies and minds under an enormous amount of stress. This causes an increase in cortisol and adrenaline in our bodies, both which are highly toxic and corrosive for our bodies and nervous system. You can read more about the adrenaline cycle in my blog Anxiety and Adrenaline. Most people with anxiety have a vicious adrenaline cycle in their bodies and each time we go to extremes we add more adrenaline and exacerbate anxiety.

Practicing bold self-acceptance and self-love instead self-criticism and perfectionism will restore balance in our bodies, minds, and souls. Being gentle on yourself will heal anxiety. Not only is it soothing for our mental health, but it’s also a step to break the adrenaline cycle. Treating ourselves tenderly comforts and soothes our frayed nervous systems.

Choose foods and physical activities that bring you joy and nourishment. Love your body as it is today. Let go of the need to use food and exercise to manipulate and coerce your body it into some arbitrary ideal image. I’ve listed some ways to incorporate more gentleness into your life below.

How to Incorporate Gentleness:

- Exercise in ways that leave you feeling strong, pain free, and relaxed.

- Choose foods that nourish you, without the stress of eating perfectly.

- Work reasonable hours with regular breaks.

- Engage in activities that calm your nervous system and heal your body.

Third Part: Restore Instead of Forcing

Many of us ignore the subtle, and at times not so subtle, ques from our bodies, minds, and souls shouting at us to slow down and rest. Because we derive our worth from our achievements, we’re not giving ourselves the down time and restoration we need before we move onto the next project. We skimp on self-care to keep forging ahead. We’re trying to force things instead of honoring our soul’s divine timing.

There are times we need to forge ahead and sometimes we have to cover a lot of groundwork in a short period of time. That’s how life rolls. However, it is imperative for our health and mental well-being that we take the time to rest, reset, and recuperate afterwards. Always pushing and forcing is not sustainable and will sooner or later lead to adrenal fatigue and burn out. Many of us who have anxiety have adrenal fatigue which also creates adrenaline and feeds anxiety.

We need rest and rejuvenation to heal our bodies, minds, and souls instead of always pushing ourselves. Respecting our natural rhythms is more effective than forcing our bodies to perform. Tuning in, listening to, and honoring our need for restoration is the key to balance. Rest restores our essence, our vitality, and our life force. Even though we’re not actively doing anything when we’re resting, healing is still occurring. Below are some ways to deeply rest and restore our bodies, minds, and souls.

Ideas for Rest and Restoration:

- Get plenty of sleep every night.

- Meditate.

- Read a book.

- Go for a relaxing walk.

Balance makes room for deep healing to take place. Physically, balance will support our bodies and shut down the adrenaline cycle restoring and healing our nervous system. Emotionally, balance provides the space and framework to hear our own thoughts and feelings. Balance is the gateway for us to connect to our souls.

It’s OK if we don’t have it all figured out. There’s a learning curve whenever we’re trying something new. We’re constantly changing everyday so what works one day will be different in a year, month, or even a day. Just keep exploring and trying new ways to bring balance into your life.

Those of you who are familiar with me know that I’m all about freedom, specifically freedom from anxiety. True freedom from anxiety is letting go of the cultural norms and constructs that don’t serve you. Your freedom requires you to learn what works for you and sticking to that. Balance is a tool that gives you permission to be free.

The number 2 signifies unity and coming together from a loving foundation according to Kyle Gray’s Angel Numbers book. Therefore, I think all of the 2’s in 2022 is about reconnecting with each other authentically. Balance initiates this connection because only when we feel whole and balanced can we create loving and honest connections with others from a place of integrity.

What can you do to bring more balance into your life in 2022?

Tricia EasterJanuary 16, 2022Comment