I believe that managing a Life Balance Equation™ by balancing energies has practicality in our personal lives.

I’ll be the first to admit that I feel like I’m working on a threshold—of what I’m not quite sure—so I don’t know anywhere as much as I hope I will later.

All I want to do now is start the conversation.

Those of you who have read my books or have been reading these articles for some time know that the basic Life Balance Equation system depends on a balance of eight Life Balance categories that pretty much cover just about any situation or relationship in just about anyone’s life:

• Community and Contribution
• Family and Friends
• Fun and Frolic
• Health and Fitness
• Money and Finances
• Personal and/or Spiritual Growth
• Projects and Hobbies
• Work and Career

Because the categories have no real impact on the process (hint: it’s learning to pay attention to one’s intention that matters!), we encourage folks to come up with a revised list by combining categories, dividing them further, or even coming up with their own unique set if they have a mind to do so.

When we think of these categories we tend to think of them solely in terms of the tasks each contains. And so we attempt to balance the number or time or impact of the tasks in each. I know because I’ve done that also.

I see now that applying a “balancing energies” approach can be helpful.

Each category has the capacity to be expressed with a preponderance of yin energy or with a preponderance of yang energy at the extremes and an infinite variety between the poles.

Take the first category for example: Community and Contribution. One could engage in that by participating in an AIDS or Breast Cancer Walk, working with Habitat for Humanity to build homes, or organizing a bake sale for the local school—all very “yang” activities. One could also engage in it by participating in a candlelight vigil, a worldwide “prayer day,” or just being conscious about recycling and the use of resources—all very “yin” activities.

The same holds true for each of the other Life Balance categories or any set someone might develop.

What I am seeing is that at any given moment my Life Balance Equation is best when it contains a mix of yin energy and yang energy—but don’t confuse that with a jump to the middle where everything is “lukewarm.” That won’t work because our lives are not in our control, despite our beliefs to the contrary.

I think too many of us—Westerners in particular—have a tendency to run from one yang activity to the next with the mistaken belief that the shift from one task to another is contributing to Life Balance. It may be, but probably not.

I think it’s both simpler and more complex than that.

More later.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Life Balance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.