How to find balance - Pria's Ponderings

How Do You Find Balance?

Finding balance, How to find balance, Self-Care 7 Responses »

Mar 212010

Ann Curry from the Today show recently had a segment asking this question and sharing how she finds balance. When her Dr. asked the question of her, she responded that she found balance through her children and job. He told her that this would not be good enough, that we would all live more fulfilled and maybe longer lives if we can find our passions.

She said for her, that was taking pictures wherever she went. I can certainly relate to her interest and the concept that “photos capture moments and stop time. They immediately say something about people, places and events.” A friend of hers mentioned how it was a meditation focusing on everything around you. Nice!

Photography brings me balance by allowing me to capture moments I can remember later. As the family photographer, it connects me more to them. I enjoyed studying black and white photography in college and look forward to developing the interest more.

Other every-day ways I find balance include cooking, cleaning (immediate sense of achievement!), organizing (helps me see more clearly), yard work (being outside, burning calories), and humor (watching a funny show like SNL with Porter).

The segment on the Today show suggested we all spend a day a week on what we love. What a nice concept! What would you do if you could take a day a week to spend on your interest? Maybe we could start with at least a few minutes a day and build from there…

Be Proactive

Finding balance, How to find balance, Personal Growth Comments Off

Dec 022009

Stephen Covey is one of my favorite authors, and his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a classic that everyone should read. It made a significant impact on me and I aspire to practice these habits. I read and own the book, went to a class on the topic, and have the video tapes of the book and habits for my kids.

Habit 1 is to be proactive. The big point he makes with this habit is that we have choices in life that determine the outcome we end up with. If we didn’t like a particular outcome in the past, we can choose according to the outcome we want in the future. He points out that we design our life by these choices, so that life doesn’t “happen” to us. Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is also about taking responsibility for our lives and responding to events and circumstances based on our values rather than reacting. “Instead of blaming circumstances, conditions, or chance for our behavior, we choose our own responses and make our own decisions.”

Exercising this habit also means using proactive language such as “I can” and “I will” rather than reactive language such as “I can’t” or “If only.” Focusing on what they can control is an important aspect of proactive people. Understanding how we spend our energies is a big step towards being more proactive.

Sources: Stephen Covey, Franklin Covey

Meditation Techniques

Alternative Medicine, How to find balance, Meditation, Self-Care Comments Off

Dec 012009

Many of us know the effectiveness of meditation for many aspects of our lives. Some benefits include more energy, a calmer mind. What some may not know is that meditation increases levels of melatonin. This hormone helps our immune system and also promotes restful sleep, slows aging and cell damage, and even inhibits cancer cells.

Managing our lives to make time for meditation requires organization and planning. I know that I have had a challenging time fitting it into my current life with a newly-crawling, nine-month-old infant who likes to be up by 5am to be nursed. My day starts early and there is not a break to be able to quietly meditate by myself. My husband and I have talked about trying to squeeze in some meditation together in the evening, which has not transpired yet. Once the kids are put down to sleep by around 8:30, we are left with about an hour before we are ready for bed (the next day will start by 5am!). I will need to consider maybe trying to get a few minutes in when my baby naps, along with my shower, food, and everything else. What I want to get in during this limited golden 1-2 hours a day is increasingly ambitious. So much so, I forget to do things like have lunch, which I remembered today at 3pm.

Regardless, I commend all of you who can manage any time for meditation. It is best in the morning, as close to your waking up time as possible and before going to bed. A few minutes any time during the day is better than none. There are many types of meditation, including the following two types.

6-7.09, CA 042a

Mindful Meditation

Find a quiet place to sit, either on the floor or chair, keeping your head, neck, and back straight, yet not stiff. Try to keep your mind in the present.
Become increasingly conscious of your breathing, feeling your belly rise and fall and noticing each breath change.
Notice your thoughts come and go, without judgment, trying to use your breathing as an anchor. Keep bringing your mind back to your breath.
At the end of your allotted time, sit for a few minutes becoming aware of your environment and slowly getting up.

Relaxation Response

Find a quiet place to sit comfortably and relax your muscles.
Choose a word or phrase that has special meaning for you and helps you feel peaceful. If none come to mind, try “Ham Sah,” a Sanskrit mantra meaning “I am that.”
While breathing in, slowly state the mantra, making the sound “hammm” as you breathe in and “saah” as you exhale, as if you are sighing.
Breathe slowly, pausing after inhaling and exhaling.
Don’t judge how you are doing and when thoughts intrude, simply return to your repetition.
When ending your meditation, focus on your breathing and sit quietly, slowing becoming aware of your environment and getting up gradually.

Source: About.com: Alternative Medicine

Simplicity is Simple!

How to find balance, Simplicity Comments Off

Oct 092009

CA - Simplicity
Simplicity is often taken for granted. It includes making daily choices that support having just enough on our plates and not too much. Ensuring this can include saying “no” to requests that make our plates overflow and at the same time saying “yes” to ourselves.

When was the last time you spent hours lost in a good book or lying back and listening to your favorite music rather than just having it on in the background while driving from A to B?

Choosing simplicity for our lives can range from daily choices affecting how much we are doing to thinking further about our lifestyles over-all. This can include thinking further about our careers, our current job, whether to add another job, how we spend money, and on what. It may mean some soul-searching about what materialistic items we want versus what we need.

Over-all, there seems to be a correlation between simplicity and stress. The more simple we can make our lives, the less stress we feel…

Fitness is a Daily Choice

How to find balance, Self-Care Comments Off

Sep 242009

Colin Strolling on a Beach in CA

Fitness is a daily choice at every level – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. For long-term fitness, balance and moderation is required. It is not about any specific, trendy diet. For our bodies, it is about choosing most of the time what we know fuels us best. Exercising moderation means we can treat ourselves here and there and know that we will make up for it the next day. We use discipline to make that happen! We don’t beat ourselves when things don’t go as we planned. We kindly pick up from where we are and start from there.

I’ve often used a reward system to get through tasks that didn’t feel very fun. In college when studying something not very interesting, I would allow myself a treat or break every 15 minutes or so. I often found that I could go longer without noticing. Sometimes it was about “tricking” myself to just get going. The same process can be applied for exercise or chores. It also helps to make the task as pleasant as possible, such as listening to music we enjoy when exercising or cleaning.

In our diet at home, we try to exercise moderation. If we have dessert one day, we might not the next day or choose something healthier, like fruit. We also try to replace some items with healthier choices, especially when it is barely noticeable. There are lots of new vegan items that are coming out all the time that I’m trying that concept with. It’s an adventure! For instance, I found that “Tofutti” is a fine alternative to regular cream cheese! I don’t notice much of a difference in taste and feel better having it knowing that it doesn’t have the fat and cholesterol of the regular stuff.

Slowing Down

Children, How to find balance, Parenting, Simplicity Comments Off

Sep 042009

Maya touching grass for the first time, with Colin looking on (I remember him doing the same at her age)

If there is one concept that motherhood encourages, it is to slow down. Often, I find myself caught in a whirlwind of multi-tasking, as most women do. Then everything comes to a halt as I nurse or tend to Maya in other ways. She doesn’t care about the tasks I’m trying to get done; the small goals I want to cross off my list. As our kids grow, we are often pulled into their world, to view things from their perspective. They are amazed by so much and can easily find so much to laugh it. We end up laughing with them, out of amazement.

Maya laughs easily – when her tummy is nuzzled, when we play silly games, and when her big brother says or does anything. Her laughter is the greatest sound in the world. In those moments, the “Things to do list” fades in the background and all concerns disappear. It’s a feeling to treasure and remember later when we are back in our frenzied whirlwind.

In the Western culture, multi-tasking has been looked upon as part of a positive skill-set. Women, in particular, have gravitated toward trying to squeeze in as many tasks as possible, just because they can. Men know to not even bother, as their brains don’t seem to allow it as much. 😉 The success we feel in occasionally getting more done encourages us to multi-task even more. However, we all know that at times, the productivity is not increased, and sometimes even leads to danger (if we are driving, for instance).

What living in a frenzied way and multi-tasking does normally do is deprive us of moments that we can remember and treasure when it is our turn to “clock out.” Maybe it means that I didn’t take the moment to look out my window and notice something fascinating that my tiger kitty is doing (which he always does). Or worse, maybe I didn’t see my baby reach a milestone, such as sitting up on her own without supporting herself, which she is reaching now.

Like everyone says, these early days with a child go by very quick. I was amazed to see some “recent videos” of Maya and noticed that she was less than 1/2 her current age (about 3 months and now she is almost 7). In totality, she has of course not been on the planet for very long, so everything about her seems recent; but she was so different and much smaller!

Our kids’ rapid growth is amazing. It certainly reminds us of our mortality and that life is about constant change. It’s important to slow down when we can to experience it all.

: Raj (“King” in Hindi, our tiger cat), drinking from our bird bath – fascinating!