3 Steps to a Balanced Life
2 
0 I’ve been seeing a lot of posts lately and watched a couple dozen videos where the creators talk about these three steps and I think everyone can benefit from it. Instead of just sharing this with you, I’ve decided to apply these three steps to my daily routine and hopefully it will improve my life and help me find a greater sense of balance. The idea is to add to each day:
Something for your body
Something for you mind
Something for you heart and soul
There is no exact “thing” to do as each of us are different. The idea of having a tailor-made template to improve your life certainly is more appealing to me, than a mainstream solution that claims to work for everyone. Anything that you feel you could do to benefit either your body, your mind or your heart/ soul could help in the journey to self discovery and ultimately finding balance and happiness. We need to do more of what makes us happy and make us feel joy.
In order to have these things, we have to first understand and realize who we are. The way that we find ourselves is to be honest with what we love and what we don’t. The things we enjoy doing and the idea with accepting our unique qualities even if others don’t understand them.
Something for my Body
With living in Cape Town, my body seems to find it difficult to sleep early so I toss and turn for what seems like forever. There are a few factors that plays a roll in my insomnia; the climate adjustment, the sun setting after 20:00 every night, the heat in my home and getting myself out of vacation mode. I try to get to bed around 10pm for the latest but I usually start preparing for bed after 23:30, lay in bed for some time on my cellphone and actively try to fall asleep around 00:30. There have been numerous nights where I am still wide awake at 02:00 and when I need to wake up for work, I feel like I haven’t slept at all.
It is so important to get a good eight hours of sleep every night, I’ve touched on sleep and it’s benefits a few times on the blog so I won’t go into it again, but I still struggle with getting to bed earlier. Waking up early in the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day, but when you wake up tired and lethargic, it’s becomes the most unproductive days.
My body does not get sufficient rest and therefore I wake to aching joints and an overall sense of heaviness. So I am going to actively start preparing for bed earlier. Even just this one thing would make a huge difference for my body as well as my mind.
I am also going to start drinking more water and prioritizing my Sunday morning hikes with the Hiking group I joined when I moved. I look forward to the many more discoveries along the hikes in this beautiful city.
Something for my Mind
With prioritizing my sleeping patterns and the scenic hikes every week, it ought to set my mind at ease a lot more than before. I have also recently applied to study for my Corporate Communications degree so I believe this will not only challenge my mind but also explore and grow more. Apart from this I have started a social media cleanse today. I deactivated my Facebook and Instagram accounts on my devices because I feel that I waste too much time showcasing my life when I could be living a lot more actively. I think the deactivation is temporary and I’m sure I will get back into it but for now, I just don’t have the drive to offer that part of myself.
Something for my Heart & Soul
This is something that I feel I don’t put enough time and effort into thinking about, I always set aside the matters of the heart. The spiritual work always has room for improvement. When it comes to relationships I am a little too optimistic and always choose to see the best in others. Friendships or relationships required a sense of trust and respect and of course a compromise from both parties. I find that because I am easy-going and not quite as selective as I should be, people tend to take advantage. But I can’t blame them for this, because I created the preset and the availability of my time and efforts.
One of the major things I am doing going forward, is to choose who I want in my life, who I choose to spend time with and kindly cut my losses. I will never treat people as they treat me, because not everyone is as kind. I choose to be kinder to the next person, even if they do not award me the same respect.
I have also realized that I am not for everyone, it’s not a one size fits all kind of life, and I shouldn’t be either. We are too apologetic about our differences, to soft to speak up when confronted and in putting our well-being in second to last place, we allow others to do the same. I need to constantly remind myself that “You cannot pour from an empty cup” because if I don’t look after myself and my well-being, I will not be able help others as effectively as I would like.
I look at help as light… If my torch is dim, how am I able to ignite somebody else’ flame? It’s near impossible. So in order to be that light people need, I need to first make sure my torch is ablaze.
Each of these three categories coincide with each other, but in some parts more focused on one at a time, but I see the value on working on each of these to the best of my abilities. To actively focus on my body, my mind and my soul…ultimately my well-being and hoping at the end of it all, that I would feel more balanced, healthy and happy.
What an awesome read, I totally agree with you, we become very caught up in our daily lives but not 100% present in each moment so we don’t fully experience it because we’re thinking of the next, I too after reading this am going to work on those three aspects, thank you for sharing💯💯💯
Thank you so much for sharing Jody =)
I think that it is incredibly important that we make little tweaks in our daily lives for us to have a better, more balanced outcome with minimal effort.
I find laying in bed and clearing my mind usually helps me get a good night’s rest 😌 but I think as we age our thought pattern alter and thus this technique doesn’t always help but meditation is a positive whether it helps with sleeping patterns or not so yeah …… good read -as always 💙
Thank you for this comment. I think people also need to realize that we each find peace in different ways and we need to find what works for us. Think we need to try different things until we find what truly works.