How to balance the body, mind and soul?
The formula may at times appear straightforward, but striking a healthy balance between all three components can be an enormous challenge in an individual’s life. People devote most of their time to their minds and bodies, while their soul quietly and patiently waits for its turn.
The body as the headquarters of our soul, the temple of our being, is an incredibly intelligent machine that is capable of a multitude of simultaneous functions and a variety of interconnected processes take place in it. It slowly and subtly warns us that we may be doing something wrong, but we often do not heed this call. We look for instant solutions and don’t always treat the body with respect, but still it searches for ways to heal our unhealthy actions. Most machines are regularly serviced, while we usually only listen to our bodies when the red lights are already flashing at every level. It is similar with anxiety. We don’t sense it in time, we don’t stop it soon enough, when only minor changes to our daily habits are needed to prevent us from plummeting over the edge. When that happens, we frantically look for solutions to keep functioning properly.
The mind is the master of shaping our view of the world and how we think. For the most part, it guides us through unconscious ways of subconscious deeds, convincing us of all sorts of excuses and dramas that prevent us from living in a higher state of consciousness. Its task is to prevent threats from the environment, so it instils in us fear, various prejudices, misguided perceptions and limiting factors. We often give the mind too much power and hence lose the ability to exist in the present moment, to let and go with the flow of life. We don’t see the bigger picture; we don’t know how to rise above our trials and see our development as part of a greater mission. We try to accumulate as much knowledge as possible, with diplomas and certificates as validations, but we don’t learn to train our minds to support us in difficult situations and stressful periods of life. Numerous situations demand that we divert our focus from the mind to the heart, from knowledge to awareness. Our thoughts can be our medicine, only we can determine which thought will prevail in our life. Fear and love are the two chemical processes that affect our body.
The soul is the essence of our existence, which often comes to the forefront only after challenging times occur. A crisis tends to trigger the need for introspection quicker. We don’t dare inspect our essence because we’re afraid of ourselves. But all the necessary knowledge and awareness, the wisdom of life itself, resides within us, we just have to discover it. The soul never lies, we just don’t know how to listen to it anymore. We lose our intuition and connection to the wisdom above us. Knowing yourself is the most important type of knowledge that we should start learning from at an early age. Even anxiety is the soul’s cry, when we listen to it, the healing process begins. When we accept ourselves without feelings of guilt and shame, try to love ourselves and dare to show ourselves to the world without a mask, it becomes easier to live with ourselves. We learn to reconnect with ourselves, our mission, and the infinite energy above us. Let’s not be afraid of this journey, for amazing discoveries await. There is a force much stronger than any form of anxiety or depression, and that force is Love.
Traveling through life isn’t easy when we’ve lost our inner compass, and we usually pay the price on all three levels. Anxiety is living proof of that. It is the mind that reshapes our fears from the environment, reduces our faith in our own abilities and starts the body’s process of self-defence. Fear cripples us and makes it impossible for us to experience life in all its beauty. The choices we make out of fear manifest in three different ways: flight, fight or freeze.
Those who wish to escape fears from the environment are often blind to the situation. They don’t know how to accept the concept of otherness or see the bigger picture; they are satisfied with narrow-mindedness and pessimism. Even in the current pandemic, we encounter negativity towards everyone and everyone at every turn, like rude anonymous comments.
Many try to counter stress with addictions of all kinds. Alcohol and other substances, computer games, online sex, food. etc. Instant gratification is intoxicating and it helps you avoid contact with yourself, but in the end, it’s impossible to outrun yourself.
Freezing is very common. It comes in the form of apathy, when an individual lives outside himself and avoids social contact with others because he can no longer hide the physical symptoms of his distress. Such a person finds it difficult to talk about his ailment or to seek help in time, and all too often thinks about ending his own life. Therefore, we should pay attention to those around us, inquire with absolute sincerity how they’re feeling. Make the first step and engage with someone with a kind word or two. When we’re honest, people in need will also open up and perhaps disclose something that will end up saving them.
Finding the right balance is a lifelong challenge. Our body needs four essential elements: water, food, movement and breathing. Our mind needs meditation, mindfulness, conscious moments of happiness and gratitude. Our soul needs to reconnect with our intuition and the mission with which we entered this world.
It’s not just about what we leave behind when our lives are over.
It’s also important what life leaves within us while we’re still alive.
