True Balance

A couple of weeks ago, the amazingly creative and colourful Melba at Be Alive, Believe, Be You announced that she was going to start reading True Balance - A Commonsense Guide for Renewing your Spirit, by Sonia Choquette, and invited anyone who was interested to join her. The book looked interesting to me, so I straight away ordered a copy online, without even being sure about joining a group to read it, I just wanted to read it for myself anyway. When it arrived, I glanced through it, but in the meantime, had become more attracted to the idea of working through the book in a group, like we did with the Artist's Way earlier on this year. So, there is a group, and there is a schedule for reading chapters (one every 2 weeks, which is nicely manageable for most people, I'd imagine!), and posting something on our blogs about it. .... Go to Melba's blog for all the information if you feel you'd like to join in.

Each chapter concentrates on one of the Chakras, so we'll have seven of those, but before we begin that, Melba suggested, and I think it's a good idea, that we give some thought to What does True Balance mean to me? What does it look like? My artwork leaves a lot to be desired, but I enjoyed playing with crayons, and it does portray the energy of my idea of true balance, so here it is:


I spent some time writing in my journal ... (Hey! I just noticed a similarity between that picture and the illustration on the cover of the book! I hadn't realised I was doing that!) ... this morning, on what True Balance means to me. Here's the outcome:

True balance is living in a way in which all the parts of Me - body, mind, spirit - operate in alignment, and move fluidly from one state of being, one activity, to another. It's not a fixed, static state. It's a process, not a goal, to me. We are in a constant state of movement and growth, and so true balance is a dynamic state in which we shift to accommodayte changes to re-balance, re-align our entire being when new elements are introduced, or one part becomes temporarily more or less active, the others respond in support of that or to adjust.

In a Truly Balanced state, movement is the key. Being able to move, and energy is necessary to movement, and energy needs to flow, and in order to flow it needs a path that is clear and un-blocked, and that's the purpose of seeking to achieve true balance really - to unblock the energy paths, to clarify the chakras (which are, after all, energy centres), to make space around them, to allow them to operate at optimum level.

The truly balanced life is hard to define, but you know it when you feel it, when the bits seem to fit together, when there is a sense of flow - from work to play, from family, to friends, to alone-time; when things are easy to do, and the present is where we feel ourselves to be more than the past or the future. When we're not having to Think too much; when we just know and trust our intuitive ideas; when the Universe itself always seems to be saying YES with affirmations, confirmations, synchronicity, serendipitous events... that's a time when I might feel Truly Balanced.

I was really glad to have identified what True Balance feels like to me. It's today's definition, but it fits for me. I've read the first chapter too, and answered the questions. Some people will answer them in a seperate journal, some on-screen and some in the book. There's plenty of space in the book, so that' s where I'm going to be answering them. I've been noticing things that I can connect to First Chakra energy, and will do a post on that next week.