Holistic Balance

Being holistic means focusing on ALL areas of our lives; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Let me describe how I keep myself more or less balanced in the four areas.

Spiritual has never been a problem for me. I was spiritual all of my life. I always found the divine in nature – in the color of the sky at sunset, in the rustling leaves, in the beauty of flowers, in the song of birds, and the furry critters that scamper about. I have a deep love for our planet and that love flows out of me into all areas of my life. Is it no wonder, then, that I chose an earth-based spirituality for my religious path? I love being a Druid and leading a small druid church in Scottsdale. I love honoring the Earth which nourishes us and the cycles of the seasons that keep us growing.

Mental has always come easily. I am an avid reader and always have been. I love to learn and grow and my thirst for more knowledge is never really quenched. There is always more to know! In addition, I consider communication skills to fall under the category of mental, and I feel that I have a great ability to communicate with people. I am easy to talk with, and I love to talk about what I am doing – as evidenced by these blogs! Our thoughts are also part of this category, and I will address this more a little later.

Emotional is a bit more challenging for me. I know I still have some emotional baggage that I am working through. It seems to me that no matter how much work I do, there is still more. Some of our emotional issues have deep, deep roots, and I am learning that the best I can do most of the time is just not let them get in my way as I live my life as I choose. This takes a fairly rigorous habit of self-examination and acceptance, which I usually accomplish by keeping hand-written journals. On the positive side, I am very good at relationships, and have great friendships, all of which are part of this category.

Physical is probably the most challenging for me. Physical includes our health and our wealth. I have had times in my life when I have been really diligent with my lifestyle choices to eat healthier and to exercise regularly. And I have had times in my life where I have totally ignored it. Unfortunately, ignoring our bodies, our health, usually means we have consequences down the road, doesn’t it? The same can be said in my wealth journey. I have had times of great abundance and times of great lack. Oftentimes the lack came as a result of poor choices I made when I felt abundant. Yet, one thing is for sure. We are all here in the physical world with physical bodies and physical survival needs, so we do really need to learn to develop the habit of making good choices.

How do all of these work together?

If our emotions are not in alignment with our spirituality, we may make poor choices physically, but in a like manner, we may also not be thinking well. Our thoughts ultimately lead to our choices and our thoughts are usually linked to our emotions in some way. So, in order to assure that we make good choices in all areas of our lives, we need to keep ourselves feeling good and thinking lofty thoughts.

A common way to do this is by having a few key affirmations or declarations that we repeat to ourselves throughout each day. For me, they are: I choose to experience the sweetness of the day, and Every day in every way I am getting better and better, and I am a money magnet. Any time I feel my emotions slipping or my thoughts moving in unhelpful directions, I repeat the appropriate declaration to move me back to that feel good place.

Once there, I know that the rest will flow easily for me.