“I am good when I give to others. It’s better to give than to receive.” Myth or magic?

Although many of us have grown up believing that it is our solemn duty to give, give, and keep on giving to others, that is only half-truth—a myth that prevents us from living joyfully and giving fully. Instead, consider what the world’s great sages say: You have a duty to give to others and to give to yourself. When you are in need, you must also receive. This advice sounds obvious, but how many of us are even near the top of our own copious to-do lists?

The principles of giving and receiving that apply to our daily lives are no different than the principles that operate in nature all around us. “A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop,” said the Roman poet Ovid. The earth must receive enough sunshine, water, and nutrients before it can produce a bountiful harvest from the seeds we plant. After the earth has given birth to the harvest, it must then rest and restore its life force so it can give again. The same is true of your life. How can you give to others if you don’t first nourish and fill yourself?

In a way that you might not have considered before, that question is embedded right inside the first principle we are taught as children—the golden rule. The golden rule is found throughout the world’s traditions. The Mahabharata, the ancient epic of India, says, “Do naught unto others, which would cause you pain if done to you.” Islam affirms that a true believer “desires for his brother that which he desires for himself,” and Christianity teaches, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Yet, if we are to love and treat others as [that is, in the same way that] we love and treat ourselves, how does that leave them if we treat ourselves with anything less than love and affection? Put another way, we can’t really honor others if we don’t first honor ourselves.

Myth: It is always my duty to give to others.

Magic: It is my duty to give to myself as well as to others. By giving to myself, I am giving to others.

Here, then, we meet the first paradox of the inner art of giving and receiving—we are able to care for and love others best when we care for and love ourselves first. Like all true paradoxes, the two seeming opposites are not mutually exclusive but mutually inclusive.

There is a season for both giving and receiving. Ecclesiastes, known as “the Teacher,” tells us [in the words made popular in the song by Pete Seeger]: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;… A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” Our job is to recognize which season we are living in at the moment and honor its call.

Learning to give to yourself

Some of us are awesome givers but not very good receivers. We don’t ask for support. We don’t admit to others or to ourselves that we need any. We don’t even like to accept compliments. We reside on one side of the paradox [“I have a duty to give to others”], but we have forgotten about its complement [“I have a duty to give to myself”]. When that happens, the universe will step in to wake us up, to create balance, and to show us that we must honor ourselves too.

No matter who we are, life automatically apprentices us to the art of giving and receiving, and our lessons often begin with what we can see and touch—our bodies. They start with the questions: Do you love yourself enough to honor your body’s needs? Do you give yourself the nourishment, rest, and recreation you deserve?

If you don’t willingly give that to yourself, your body will eventually make sure you get it. I saw this happen to an acquaintance I would spend time with a few times a year at business meetings. At one meeting, I asked how she was feeling, knowing that she had been recovering from a recent surgery. “I’m good, but busy again,” she said with a frown. “If I don’t get some time off soon, I’m going to have to schedule another visit to the hospital!” My heart skipped a beat as I realized that she might very well fulfil her own prophecy. She hadn’t learned the lesson her body had tried to teach her the first time.

I’m no stranger to these lessons myself. When I was recuperating from my own unexpected trip to the hospital, a friend, who was a nurse, insisted on dropping by a few times a day to make sure I had everything I needed. She could see I was having a hard time sitting still and accepting the fact that I should rest, so she appointed herself my guardian angel for the week. I kept telling her that I felt fine and there was no reason I couldn’t get up. Besides, there were so many things I needed to attend to. She didn’t buy it. Looking me straight in the eye, she said, “Your job now is to sit still and relax.”

If we want to get in touch with our inner potential, we must also care for our bodies

She went on to tell me that she was just passing on a lesson she had learned when she had gotten sick. Like me, she had wanted to bolt from her bed and get going. A mentor of hers, catching her out of bed, sent her right back under the covers. “It’s where you belong,” she had told her. “You’ve been a nurse for so long that you think you should always be giving to others. Now you have to learn to receive.” I could identify with that. I suspected that my tendency to work so hard for so long was partly what put me into the hospital in the first place. After my friend left, I sat back, closed my eyes, and promptly fell asleep. She was right. My body wasn’t quite ready to start giving again.

Although we have been taught to think that spirituality encourages us to turn our attention away from the body and the material world to what is “otherworldly,” there’s a misconception wrapped up in that logic—a misconception that the world’s great teachers have warned us to watch out for. They tell us that if we want to get in touch with our inner potential, we must also care for our bodies.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, for example, said, “Strengthen your body before you strengthen your soul.” More than two thousand years earlier, this same realization prompted the founder of Buddhism to develop one of the keystones of his philosophy—the Middle Way. Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince, left his wife and young child looking for something more than riches and material pleasure. For six years he was an ascetic, believing that the practice of intense austerities would lead him to his goal of becoming enlightened. Depriving himself of the nourishment he needed, he became so weak that one day he almost died of starvation.

Fortunately, a young girl found Gautama and offered him a bowl of nourishing rice milk. Realizing that his sacrifices and severe practices had not brought him closer to enlightenment, he gratefully ate the meal. Strengthened, he vowed to meditate under a tree until he attained enlightenment. Gautama faced many temptations during the ordeal but, with his strength intact, he succeeded at last in achieving his goal. After his awakening, the first thing he taught was that only when we walk the Middle Way—can we attain enlightenment, indeed any deeply held goal.

That universal principle of the balanced Middle Way applies as much to us today as it did to those who first heard it from the Buddha’s lips. We, too, must examine whether our extreme sacrifices and the habits we think are making us “good” are actually bringing us closer to the fulfilment and meaning we seek in life. Do you sacrifice the needs of your body because you have adopted the myth that “my one and only duty is to give to others”? Do you ignore the warning signs and messengers who are trying to get you back into balance? Do you think of your body as something you must love?

Nora, a biochemistry researcher, found that changing how she looked at her body changed her life. For years, Nora had struggled with all kinds of diets and regimes without any success. When she had a serious health scare, she told herself that this was the last straw. She had to get into shape. It was now or never.

Fast forward three months. That’s when I met a new Nora, with a triumphant smile on her face. She had astounded herself and her friends by losing more weight than she had ever thought possible in so short a time. “I tend to be in my head a lot,” she admitted, “and so I never took much time to pay attention to my body. Once I started doing what was good for me physically, I saw that it wasn’t about losing weight but about loving my body. That made all the difference. Being careful about what I feed myself isn’t hard when I think about it like that.”

The first step to bringing your life back into balance is to be able to recognize when you are out of balance

You don’t have to be overweight to identify with Nora. With the hectic pace of our lives, when something has to give it’s often our bodies that get the short end of the stick, whether that’s reflected in the meals we skip, the fast foods we gobble down on the run, the excessive stimulants we drink, or the exercise we never quite fit in. The problem is that when we don’t keep our body in balance, the rest of us—our mind, our emotions, our spirit, our relationships—suffer as well.

There is a scene in the book Zorba the Greek that sums up the importance of caring for our bodies. The earthy Zorba never does anything without total resilience and passion. Zorba’s boss has yet to learn the joys of his life-affirming lifestyle. When his boss, head buried in a book and in the clouds, claims he’s not hungry and doesn’t want to eat the delicious meal Zorba has just prepared, Zorba exclaims, “But you’ve not had a bite since morning. The body’s got a soul, too, have pity on it. Give it something to eat, boss, give it something; it’s our beast of burden, you know. If you don’t feed it, it’ll leave you stranded in the middle o’ the road.”

The illusion of being full

Another myth that makes it hard to give ourselves the attention we deserve is the myth that busyness is strength—that the more balls we can juggle, the stronger we are. When we seem to have the ability to keep pushing—to go, go, go—we believe that we can do anything. We think that we’re members of that special breed who are built to give and who don’t need to rest and take breaks as much as everyone else. This is, in fact, a trick we play on ourselves. The truth is often that the more driven we are, the less energy we really have.

Brendan Kelly, an acupuncturist and herbalist who specializes in Chinese five-element acupuncture, talked to me about how this works, because, admittedly, I’m one of those who has managed to fool myself. Like all healing traditions, there are many ways of looking at how energy works in the body and in our lives, and what follows is just one interpretation of the classic Chinese view of how the body, mind, and spirit work together. It’s based on the idea that the body naturally needs alternating cycles of activity and rest so that we can replenish our reservoir of strength.

Our modern, fast-paced culture adds to the illusion by encouraging the buzz of busyness

An abundance of activity in our lives creates what Chinese medicine looks at as “heat” in the body. The heat we produce by our constant busyness uses up our body’s “coolant,” which we need in order to maintain our internal resources and reserves. When we use too much of our reserves and have much more heat than coolant, we can start to have a variety of symptoms, anything from anxiety and insomnia to hot flashes, redness, or heat anywhere in the body. “This coolant is what the Chinese call yin energy, and it is one source, though not the exclusive source, for our internal peace as well as deep wisdom,” Brendan explained. “What happens when we burn out this coolant is that we are sacrificing the possibility of deep peace and wisdom for short-term activity and busyness.”

In other words, by keeping our lives full of activity without taking time to reenergize, we create “a lack of internal peace and we don’t have the ability to listen to who we are,” said Brendan. “Without enough ‘coolant,’ we cannot know who we are in our heart or express who we are in a balanced way.”

As you might expect, we can rebuild our yin energy [our coolant] by relaxing and creating a state of stillness, whether by giving ourselves more breaks or more sleep, engaging in prayer or meditation, or using certain healing therapies.

Now, here’s how we trick ourselves. The less strength or resources we have within, the more we may sense an internal inadequacy, as if we just don’t have enough to keep going. None of us likes that feeling, so we tend to push even harder to make up for it. We pump ourselves up with stimulants, fill our days with activity, and create more external busyness. All of that masks the feeling that we’re really running on empty. The busyness, the activity, and the stimulants conceal our internal depletion and create the illusion that we have more energy than we do. Our modern, fast-paced culture adds to the illusion by encouraging the buzz of busyness. We are skilled at creating all sorts of products and elixirs to help us keep on buzzing. But all along, the internal buzz that we label as energy isn’t real energy. Instead, it indicates a lack of real energy.

“The extra heat in the body gives us the impression that we have more energy,” says Brendan, “but we don’t have more energy—just more heat. When you use heat instead of real energy to propel you through the day, what you give up is a sense of internal well-being.” What’s the difference between that and a state where we are truly energized and full? When we have ample inner resources, we don’t rush to and fro. Instead, we are at peace and have inner stability because we feel full and secure. We take care of what needs to be done, but we aren’t consumed by the compulsive need to push beyond what our bodies can handle at the moment because we know that we cannot continue to give to others if we ourselves aren’t full.

Myth: My drive to stay busy and my ability to keep doing more means I am strong.

Magic: Stillness creates strength.

A classic image that is sometimes used as an analogy for this process is that of a fire [heat] burning beneath a bowl [our body] that is holding water [our yin coolant]. The fire heats the water and creates steam, which represents what the Chinese call ch’i, our vital energy or essential life force. The ch’i is the sustaining energy we need to live. When things are in balance, the fire creates a natural warming effect. But if the fire becomes too hot, the water begins to boil. If this goes on too long, the heat literally consumes the water and dissipates the energy we need to bank our inner fire. Once the water is boiled away, we can literally collapse because we are not able to produce any more energy, or ch’i.

“When this happens, the results can be dramatic,” says Brendan. “One month you feel that you have a lot of energy and the next month you fall off the cliff—you’re in bed and you can’t move.”

Are you running on full tank or are you running on the illusion of a full tank? Do you let your tank become empty before you fill it up again and therefore run the risk of stalling out? Do you let your light go out because you don’t have enough oil in your inner lamp? In short, where do you put yourself on the list of priorities in your life? Too often we relegate our needs to the bottom of the list, if we’re on the list at all. We take care of our duties and obligations to others first and use the energy that’s left over for ourselves. But, truthfully, how often is there any energy left over?

During the natural ebb and flow of our week, we all need relief

What if we reversed that order? What if we made sure our lamp had enough oil in it first before lighting the way for others? Wouldn’t that help us keep our lamp burning strong so we could give more light to others? To do that, we must learn to recognize our inner needs and then draw healthy boundaries so we have the time and energy to fill those needs. To renew ourselves so that we can continue to give, and give well, we must embrace the paradox that saying no will enable us to say yes.

If the idea of saying no makes you cringe, know that this principle comes straight out of spiritual tradition. The greatest teachers knew how to say no. Like all of us, they needed time alone to recharge and renew. Even an indefatigable missionary of mercy like Mother Teresa taught that renewal is a prerequisite for strength. She said that renewal is what gives us the energy to continue serving others. She observed that “the contemplatives and ascetics of all ages and religions have sought God in the silence and solitude of the desert, forest, and mountain” and said that we, too, are called to withdraw at certain intervals. It is when we are alone with God in silence, she said, that “we accumulate the inward power which we distribute in action.”

She was following the advice of her own teacher. Jesus did the same after he fed the multitudes the loaves and fishes. He told his disciples to go into the boat ahead of him, and “when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” With a somewhat lighter touch on the same topic, John Barrymore once joked that “God said it is not good for man to be alone, but sometimes it is a great relief!”

During the natural ebb and flow of our week, we all need relief. That’s when drawing boundaries [saying no politely, of course] is appropriate. When your energy is ebbing, it’s time to shift gears from an active orientation of giving energy to a receptive one of receiving. It’s time to plug back in to your energy source and do what most reenergizes you—whether it’s walking in nature, listening to a favorite piece of music, playing a game, or simply closing your eyes, doing nothing, and taking a long, deep breath.

Getting to know you

Instead of pushing yourself beyond your limits and pumping yourself up with more stimulants so that you can fulfil more commitments to others, honouring yourself calls for a different habit. It asks you to become conscious of what you need, right now, inside and out. In order for you to do what you must to regain balance, and to remember to do it tomorrow and the next day and the next, you first have to know yourself.

“I know myself”—it’s one of the most profound statements we can ever make. Self-knowledge, after all, is the ultimate goal extolled by mystics and masters the world around. Inscribed in the forecourt of Apollo’s temple at Delphi was the famous command “Know thyself.” The Book of Thomas the Contender says, “He who has not known himself has known nothing,” and the Zohar, from the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, encourages, “Go to your self, know your self, fulfill your self.”

One of the reasons you may not take specific actions to fill your own needs is simply that you don’t really know yourself at the most basic level. You don’t know how you really feel and what you really need. While “knowing yourself” is a lifelong goal that has deeper and deeper layers of meaning, you can take tiny steps toward that goal every day. Here’s a simple question that can help you refocus on what you need to do to come back into balance: What do I need right now to be happy?

When I’ve asked myself that question, I often answer that to do my most creative work, I need quiet and I need regular doses of fresh air out in nature. Yet awareness alone is not enough. If I don’t care enough to honor myself, to put those needs on my priority list, I won’t remember to turn to those antidotes when I begin to feel cranky and anxious. When things start spinning out of control, unless I make a point of asking myself that question again and again, I forget to fill my lungs with fresh air. I forget to take control and create the quiet I need by turning off the phones, refusing to look at my e-mail, or physically moving myself to a quiet spot to work.

A friend who works out of her home reminded me of how empowering it can be to know yourself and then act on that knowing. One day I asked her when was the best time for us to meet. She immediately replied in a straightforward way, “It’s better for me to meet in the late afternoon. If I go out in the morning, I am tempted to start doing errands. I stop here and there on my way back to my office, and I just don’t get the work done that I need to do.” She knew that much about herself and therefore she could set up a schedule that was best for her. Like many of the methods for honoring yourself, this doesn’t sound difficult, but it takes practice. The change starts with watching yourself, getting to know yourself, and then translating that knowledge into action that honors your needs.

The post Living in balance: As within so without appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The great inventor Thomas Edison was known to be a workaholic who regarded social gatherings such as formal dinners and parties as a waste of time. On one such occasion, feeling bored in the company of dull people, he resolved to escape to his laboratory at the first opportunity. Just as he was about to walk through the door, the host of the dinner appeared. “It certainly is a delight to see you, Mr Edison. What are you working on now?” asked the oblivious man. “My exit,” replied Edison.

Edison clearly knew his priorities and abided in them. To him, his work made him happy. In fact he once said, “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” Not surprisingly, he spent a significant amount of his time working, accumulating in his lifetime more than 2000 patents for his inventions. But most people are not so sure about their priorities. They have been conditioned to embrace social ideals, which they often accept and embrace as their own values. Then, when happiness eludes them, they wonder why. The answer is simple—they are not living authentic lives.

An authentic life is one in which you are guided by an inner conviction. Your thoughts and actions are aligned to your natural inclinations. Such a life is characterised by lasting joy, a feeling of freedom, extraordinary vitality and, most of all, a sense of effortlessness. “Is such a life possible?” you ask. Absolutely, and best-selling author and human behaviour specialist Dr John Demartini tells you how in the lead story this month.

The key to living your best life lies in determining your highest values and letting them steer your decisions and actions. True values are like fingerprints—each individual has a unique set of them. “They are a kind of internal compass, pointing you toward the activities, people, and places that most fulfil you, and away from the situations and people that are likely to feel unfulfilling,” says John adding, “Just as no one else can choose your fingerprints or alter the pattern of your retina, no outside authority—no parent, teacher, political leader, or religious figure—can define your values. Only you can look into your own mind, heart, and soul and discover what is truly most important to you.”

Once you understand how alignment to your values determines the quality of your life, you must identify your highest values. John has created a six-step process to help you discover your personal values, which is presented after his article. I urge you to spare some time and complete this very meaningful exercise, at the end of which you will know which of your beliefs have been blocking your rightful happiness from you.

No matter what your values, once you know what they are, you will never again waste your time living by other people’s standards. Like Edison, you will simply exit any situation that doesn’t line up with your values.

The post September 2015 issue: For lasting joy, align with your highest values appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Life is difficult. Many people rely on you: your boss, your colleagues, your customers, your spouse, your children, your parents and others. Their demands pull you in all directions, and you can’t meet them all. It’s often difficult to decide whom to gratify and whom to disappoint. The decisions require a delicate balancing act.

You can’t perform this balancing act on pure instinct. Your decisions must be made consciously, and this requires an awareness of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Once you have learned to act consciously, your thoughts and your actions will become so integrated that you will make appropriate choices naturally, without agonising over them.

The meaning of Life Balance

The whole of Creation is founded on balance. All its diverse elements have come together in just the right proportion to create this beautiful and fleeting moment in time and space that we call life. Creation, in its innate wisdom, never favours one and excludes another—because everything brings its own unique hue to the kaleidoscope.

And were it not for the delicate balance within each, life wouldn’t be as we know it.

Speaking on a balanced life, the Indian mystic Osho said, “A tree’s roots go down into the earth, and its branches spread towards the stars. Its blossoms flower into the sky, its nourishment comes from the deepest part of the earth. It is always balanced; higher the tree goes, the deeper it’s roots. You cannot have a Cedar of Lebanon, a 400- or 500-year old tree, rising so high in the sky, with small roots—it will fall down immediately. Life needs a balance between the depth and the height.”

To know what Life Balance means to you, it’s essential to know what areas of your life are most important to you

Life Balance can be viewed in many ways. It can be a balance between home and work. It can be a state of balance in one’s physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual health. When you have a balanced life, you are able to spend sufficient time, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in areas that you have defined as important to you. Life Balance is a state of feeling and being. You know intuitively that you are doing the right things, and you’re able to navigate through the many opportunities and challenges. You know what is important to you and you are able to choose appropriately.

Life Balance is not a static condition. It is a dynamic and evolving blend of the body, mind, and spirit. To know what Life Balance means to you, it’s essential to know what areas of your life are most important to you. I believe that life is balanced when we are centred. Being centred allows us to find equilibrium amid flux and change.

You are centred when you have a set of principles that are well grounded. When you’re centred, you know what you want and why you want it. This comes from clarity of purpose. This clarity allows you to navigate through changes without compromising your core values and principles. You become like an orchestra. It has diverse players and different instruments, yet all are synchronised to produce a beautiful symphony. This is how you synchronise your body, mind, and spirit to your purpose. You are able to make life decisions from your core values and principles, rather than succumbing to a reactive, “fire fighting” mode.

Being balanced means catering to your own needs as well as those of your family and the society you live in. You become an asset to the world you live in.

Going all-out pursuing every objective is a recipe for burn-out. Rather, pick your objectives and pursue them at an optimum pace

Moderation is the key

An airline pilot who picks up a tail wind, opens his throttle, and points his aircraft in the general direction of his intended destination may make excellent time. But when he arrives, he may find himself at the wrong airport.

Going all-out, all the time, in pursuit of every objective is a recipe for burn-out. To achieve Life Balance, it’s necessary to pick your objectives and to pursue them at the optimum pace, which means the fastest sustainable pace.

It doesn’t help to go at the fastest sustainable pace if you don’t have a clear idea of where you’re going.

A clear vision helps balance Ying and Yang

To master the balancing act in life, you must have a clear vision and a commitment to make the vision a reality. You can’t waste energy pursuing all the possibilities that are out there for you. You must decide which possibility you want to zero in on, and focus everything you do on this objective.

You must also understand all the aspects of your life, and keep them in balance. Taoists explain this as a balance between Ying and Yang. Ying and Yang represent the balance of opposites in the universe. When Ying and Yang are in balance, all is calm. When one outweighs the other, confusion and disarray set in.

Buddhism recommends the “middle path”—the one between the opposite extremes of luxury and hardship. The laws of the “Eightfold Path” were designed to guide people without making life too strict or too easy. They represented balance.

Staying in balance requires that you understand your whole being. You must know your physical, mental and spiritual needs, and you must bring them into congruence. If you don’t understand how each contributes to the whole of your being, you may end up catering to one facet of your life at the expense of the whole. If you understand the whole in relation to its parts, you can determine the amount of time and effort to invest in each facet.

To acquire balance means to achieve that happy medium between the minimum and the maximum that represents your optimum. The minimum is the least you can get by with. The maximum is the most you’re capable of. The optimum is the amount or degree of anything that is the most favourable towards the ends you desire.

In his book Stairway to Success, Nido Qubein gives the example of the Marathon runner who goes all-out for the first mile. This person will take an early lead, but the victory will go to the runner who strikes the highest sustainable pace. If your pace is too slow, the others will pass you. If it’s too fast, you’ll run out of energy before you reach the end of the race. You have to choose a happy medium.

To acquire balance means to achieve that happy medium between the minimum and the maximum that represents your optimum

You need to strike the same kind of balance in your personal habits and behaviour. If at work you try to produce the maximum, you may face burnout. If you go for the minimum you will get poor results and will not tap into your potential.

Let us look at some aspects of your life that call for balance between Ying and Yang; that call for pursuing the “Middle Path”; that benefit from adopting the fastest sustainable pace.

» Head vs Heart

“Your reason and passion are the rudder and the sails of the seafaring soul,” wrote Kahlil Gibran, the great Lebanese-born philosopher, poet, and painter. “If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.”

An equilibrium between reason and passion—between head and heart—is one of the essentials of Life Balance. It has been said that when the mind and the heart go to war, the body becomes the battlefield.

The mind allows us to think, to reason, and to apply our wisdom to make a difference. The heart is where we feel. Through it, we love and use our creativity without inhibition. When we merge education of the mind with education of the heart, we strike a dynamic balance. We look with “both eyes”—the eye of the heart and the eye of the mind. We look at life as a whole, realising that one element affects the other.

Reason without passion is lame, and passion without reason is blind. Reason alone is dull, whereas passion alone can lead to destruction. When we marry the two, we have a wonderful synergy. Our reasoning protects us from doing silly things. Our passion gives us the drive to excel and go the distance.

» Home vs Career

The balancing of home and career is the most common challenge that executives face. Many feel compelled to make a choice between home and career. Studies show that those who are employed outside the home cannot balance work and family demands. Most give higher priority to their work than they do to their families. Life Balance makes that stark choice unnecessary.

We’re living in the age of burn-out, in which workaholics pursue frenetic lifestyles that hog their time, drain their resources, and leave them empty and unfulfilled. Many people engage in activity for activity’s sake, burying themselves in work or play to avoid facing real personal and spiritual needs. Others are in love with money, and seek to express that love by spending all their waking hours pursuing their careers. But truly successful people know that balance is essential to achievement, and they make room for quality time for family, friends, spiritual interests, and hobbies.

Most give higher priority to their work than they do to their families. Life Balance makes that stark choice unnecessary

Lee Iacocca, as president of the Ford Division of Ford Motor Company and CEO of Chrysler, put in long days on the job. But he was also committed to staying home every weekend, enjoying time with his family, going to church, and reflecting on his life and times.

» Independence vs Interdependence

“No man is an island,” wrote John Donne, 17^th century English poet and churchman. We are all dependent on our fellow humans, and they are dependent on us. We are individuals with our own unique traits, but we are also tied to other individuals through bonds of family, religion, culture, community, nation, and many other commonalities. Our happiness depends, to a large extent, on how well we strike the balance between our independence as individuals and our interdependence with others.

When you foster strong and healthy relationships with others, especially those who are closest to you, the balancing act becomes easier. These healthy relationships provide a foundation for pursuing common goals. They also give you the confidence to pursue individual interests on your own. But if you don’t cultivate healthy and strong relationships, achieving balance will always seem like an uphill battle. Strong, healthy relationships don’t just happen. They require a huge investment of time and effort before they become reality.

Among the most sadly neglected areas of interdependence is the one shared between husband and wife. If you’re married, the marital relationship must take priority over all other human relationships if you are to achieve Life Balance. Too many marriages have floundered on the shoals of indifference and neglect. All too many men and women, hard-pressed for time, have suddenly discovered that time has run out for the person at their side. After years of playing second fiddle to jobs, careers, hobbies and other activities; after too many evenings deprived of the company of a soul mate; after too many meals in which conversation was no deeper than “pass the salt,” or “are you through with the newspaper?” the marriage partner opts out—emotionally, physically, or both.

Among the most sadly neglected areas of interdependence is the one shared between husband and wife

So don’t miss a chance to take a pleasant walk with your wife, smelling the roses as you go. Don’t miss an opportunity to take in a good movie with your husband. Look for shared experiences that will provide fuel for pleasant conversations far into the future.

Invest your time and heart in relationships with others who are close to you: your children, your extended family, your colleagues and your friends. Enhanced relationships lead to Life Balance and to joy in living.

The question of job vs. family doesn’t need to be an either/or proposition. For example, one day I returned home late from work to find my son Tawfiq, who was eight years old then, eager to play video games. Tawfiq was on a break from school and had been waiting all day for his dad to come home.

The next morning, I was scheduled to make an important business presentation before 40 senior executives. Should I disappoint Tawfiq and concentrate on polishing my presentation? Or should I use the evening to nurture my relationship with my son?

I chose to take Tawfiq to a video arcade. I later realised that the evening with my son was good for Tawfiq and good for business. It was a valuable chance to knit even closer the father/son relationship. And it took my mind off business long enough for me to shed my stress and approach the presentation in a fresh and relaxed frame of mind. The presentation drew plaudits. I was a success at home and at work. It wasn’t the result of good luck. It was the result of a good choice. It was the result of a balanced decision.

The balance between independence and interdependence has become critical in this age of diversity. Stephen Covey, in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, explained that we are living in an age that values independence; yet we occupy a globe that is interconnected as it has never been before. This has created a massive imbalance. We all need to learn to make choices that lead us to invest time and effort in building trust, appreciating diversity, and valuing and respecting others.

The balance between independence and interdependence has become critical in this age of diversity

Covey’s advice: “Seek first to understand; then to be understood.” What this means is that we must first seek to understand people who are different from us before we can expect them to understand us. Once we understand our own place in this interconnected world, we are better equipped to balance this interdependence with a healthy level of independence.

A healthy understanding of others is impossible unless you have a healthy understanding of yourself. A good relationship with yourself enables you to cultivate good relationships with others. It is an inside-out approach.

» Do it now vs Do it later

One of the songs sung at the funeral of the assassinated President William McKinley in 1901 was “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.” Written in 1897, it was about an imaginary land in which the sun was shining, the songbirds dwelled, and conditions were perfect. One of its verses begins this way:

Somewhere the day is longer,
Somewhere the task is done…

Many people spend their lives dreaming about the “Isle of Somewhere” but never getting any closer to it. The isle remains indefinitely “somewhere”; the day is always “some day”; the accomplishment is always in the future.

Such people dream of taking that family vacation “some day”; of pursuing that hobby “some day”; of losing weight, or spending more time with their parents, or enjoying some other enjoyable experience in that misty “some day” on the “beautiful Isle of Somewhere.”

It’s time to stop postponing your dreams and your happiness. It’s time to bring your beliefs and your actions into congruence. If what you do is not aligned with what you dream—if your actions are not aligned with your principles—you’re out of balance.

“Some day” is meaningless. “Today” is what counts. Sure, it’s easy to let things slide; to put off bringing your life into balance. The worthwhile things in life require effort. But the rewards for persistence are sweet. Make the right choices today. Tomorrow, you’ll be glad you did.

Life Balance manifests itself in many ways. It may be in the accomplishment of goals you set for yourself after leaving high school. It may be in the satisfaction that comes from the contributions you’ve made at work and in the security of having a retirement plan. You may achieve it through making friends or in cultivating outside interests such as the theatre or sports. You may find it in a family life that suits your needs and standards. And you may find it in a set of ethics that you yourself have defined.

All these areas add up to the sum of your life. Look them over and decide whether you’re satisfied with all of them. If you see areas where improvement is needed, go to work on them. Do it here and now. Don’t wait until “some day” on the “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.”

It’s time to stop postponing your dreams and your happiness. It’s time to bring your beliefs and your actions into congruence

Balance in your business life

Life Balance can bring richness to your personal life that goes far beyond the possession of material things, and significance to your business life that goes far beyond financial success.

Here are some things to consider as you seek balance in your business life:

» Slow vs Fast

“Slow but sure wins the race,” is the moral of Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare. “He who hesitates is lost,” states the oft-quoted adage. Life Balance requires a middle course between these two pieces of wisdom. Doing things quickly can save you time, and that time may be spent doing more important things. But doing things in a rush, before you’ve had time to think through the repercussions, can land you quickly in the wrong place. Life Balance requires that you know what results you expect before you take action. It requires that you focus first on where you’re going and how you plan to get there. It requires an assessment of obstacles and strategies for overcoming these obstacles. Only when you’re focussed on the destination, the ways, and the means, is it advisable to proceed with all due speed.

» Taking risks vs Playing it safe

If you risk too much, you may lose everything. If you risk nothing, you will gain nothing. Taking risks is a balancing act. Intelligent risk-taking is a key to success in any endeavour. How do you know when to take a risk and when to play it safe? Here’s Nido Quiben’s advice:

The process of risk analysis is not that complicated. Before embarking on a venture, answer these questions:

1. What is the best thing that could result from this action?
2. What is the worst that could result from this action?
3. What is the most likely result of this action?

If the most likely result would take you toward your vision, and you’re willing to deal with the worst possible result in exchange for a shot at the best possible result, go ahead with the venture.

» Focus vs Being distracted

“For everything there is a season,” wrote the wise King Solomon, “and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

So, when you’ve set aside time for a specific purpose, should you allow interruptions and distractions to break your focus? Some people are easily distracted. They’ll stop what they’re doing at the drop of a hat and enter into an unrelated conversation, focus on a different train of thought, or embark on a different task. Others become so absorbed in what they’re doing that they’re oblivious of everything going on around them. It practically takes an explosion to break their focus.

Life Balance enables you to know when to keep your focus and when to surrender to the distraction. If you allow yourself to be distracted by every minor interruption, every unplanned circumstance, you’ll never accomplish anything constructive. But, as Solomon reminds us, there’s “a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”

Suppose your teenage daughter wants to talk to you heart to heart about a problem she’s facing. Should you ignore her in favour of the column of figures you’re adding up, the speech outline you’re working on, or the specifications you’re drawing up for an important project?

A few minutes invested in connecting with your daughter will, in the long run, more than compensate for a few minutes in which your business interests are put aside.

Balance in your personal life

Balance in your personal life goes far beyond the accumulation of money and goods. At the end of the day, it’s not how much you’ve enriched your material assets that counts; it’s how much you’ve enriched your life, and through it, the lives of others.

How can Life Balance bring richness to your personal life? Here are some areas in which to cultivate balance:

» Receiving vs Giving

It may surprise you to learn that it isn’t enough to be a generous giver. Life Balance requires that you also be a gracious receiver. Giving and receiving are opposite sides of the same coin. For every gift there must be a receiver. If everybody gave and nobody received, to whom would we give?

There is joy in giving, so allow other people to give as well so they can also experience joy. When you perform as an artist and people applaud, allow them to finish their applause; people want to show their appreciation. Be worthy of both giving and receiving.

Kahlil Gibran explained the two-way benefits of giving and receiving this way:

“It is the pleasure of the bee to gather the honey of the flower, but it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee… and to both, bee and the flower, the giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.”

There is joy in giving, so allow other people to give as well so they can also experience joy

» Less vs More

You want to accomplish as much as you can. But when you aim strictly for volume, you may be adding accomplishments that add very little to your happiness or balance. Suppose someone were to show you a large bin containing a mixture of $100 bills and discarded tissue paper and offer to let you keep whatever you could remove in 30 seconds. Would you scoop up the contents by the handful, or would you quickly pick out the $100 bills and ignore the tissue paper?

You’d be most likely to go for the $100 bills, for they’d be far more valuable than the tissue paper. Picking up the tissue paper would simply distract you from picking up the important stuff.

In life, too, the best strategy is to focus on what is important and do it first. The person who does more is not always the person who succeeds. It’s better to do a little that moves you toward your goals than to do a lot that gets you nowhere. And if an action moves you farther from your goals, it’s best to heed the words of Chinese author and scholar Lin Yutang: “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.”

» Hard work vs Laziness

A life of total leisure is the hardest career to pursue. But being overworked can cause stress and anxiety, which inhibit productivity. Life Balance means finding a middle ground between the two.

Quiet time can lead to ingenious ideas. A few moments spent in total relaxation can be more productive than hundreds of hours spent at hard labour. Archimedes, the ancient physicist and mechanical engineer, was given the task of determining whether a crown made for the king was of pure gold. The solution to the problem came to him as he lay in a bathtub.

Relaxation paid off for Archimedes. But if you spend all your time relaxing and meditating, your ideas will never make it out of your imagination. To implement your ideas, there’s no substitute for action. So dream to bring your future into focus and act to bring it into reality.

Short-term imbalance

Once in a while, it may be necessary to allow for temporary imbalance as a means to achieve long-term goals. Such imbalance is tolerable, even desirable, if it is just for a short time. But if it continues longer, it can lead to danger. An author working on a book may have to work extra-long hours to meet a deadline, or may have to go to extraordinary lengths to conduct research. Athletes training for the Olympics may have to push their bodies extra hard to whip them into shape for world-class competition. A contractor may have to push extra hard to bring a project in on time and avoid severe monetary penalties.

An occasional imbalance is OK if you’re working toward something that will contribute to long-range stability. But make sure that the imbalance is temporary. And don’t forget let your family and others close to you know what to expect.

» Material responsibility vs Spiritual responsibility

At the end of the day we leave this world as we came—with nothing. So in the final analysis, material things become short-term and spiritual things long-term. But if we ignore our material responsibilities, we won’t be able to sustain our spiritual side. So the balance between the two is important. In fact, if we were to marry the two it would be a good blend: pursuing material things with a spiritual foundation. We have multiple needs and we cannot ignore our spirituality by being obsessed with material wellbeing. My friend once asked her mother how she would live her life if she were given a second chance. She responded: “I would try to make twice as much difference in people’s lives.”

The good news is that no matter where you are in life, you can always make a fresh start. Where attention goes, energy flows

The ultimate aim: well-balanced health

In this modern world, where wealthy leisure is often held out as the ultimate goal, many individuals have stood at the pinnacle of success only to find themselves looking down into the grave.

Paul almost became one of them. He was a senior vice president of a major corporation. He had been engrossed in climbing the corporate ladder, and was on the verge of realising a lifelong dream: promotion to CEO.

Then he was hit by a series of distressing developments. First he learned that his teenage daughter had a drinking problem, apparently arising from her feeling that her parents were neglecting her. Then his doctor told him he suffered from a heart problem and would need an operation. Then he received a letter from his wife’s lawyer—accompanied by separation papers. It caught him totally by surprise, though warning signs had been there for months. He had been so focused on his work that he had turned a blind eye toward his family and his health, and never realised it.

He recognised—just in time—that his life was out of balance and that success could not be sustained unless balance was restored. He made some conscious new choices, began putting his family and health first, and in two years turned his life around.

To accomplish this turnaround, Paul

• turned down the CEO position and opted to continue to work as senior vice president.
• gave up part of his salary to hire an executive assistant to help him with his many administrative duties.
• committed to building friendship with his teenage daughter. He accepted her problem, showed her unconditional love, and scheduled regular weekly meetings with her.
• went to counselling sessions with his wife to iron out their marital issues. He showed her that she mattered the most to him.
• hired a personal trainer and worked with her three days a week. He also switched to a healthier diet.

Roger and Rebecca Merrill, in their insightful book Life Matters use the term “navigational intelligence” to refer to the ability to make the choices that create what we want to have in our lives. Paul intelligently navigated his way back into Life Balance. But he began the balancing act as a reaction to his problems. If he had been proactive from the start, he might have avoided his heart condition, averted his daughter’s drinking problem, and headed off his marital conflict before it became a crisis.

The good news is that no matter where you are in life, you can always make a fresh start. Where attention goes, energy flows. When Paul turned his attention toward his family and health situation, results changed—gradually but effectively.

Some practical tips

1. The hour of power

In my book, The Corporate Sufi, I have suggested: “Practice the ‘hour of power’ first thing in the morning: 20 minutes of meditation. 20 minutes of exercise. 20 minutes of reading something inspiring. Go to sleep an hour earlier.”

Starting your day with an hour of power gives you a head start. Generally, if you leave things for the end of the day, they don’t get done. So I recommend that you start your day with things that are important in your life.

2. Smart use of time

Another way of finding balance is to combine two important activities. Try listening to educational CDs while driving or running on a treadmill. Or spend 20 minutes a day walking with your spouse, child or a friend. That way, you make sure you are spending time with the people in your life who are important, and are still getting your exercise. By scheduling weekly family activities, exercise, reading, or prayer time, you can ensure that you do not overlook them in your busy week.

3. “Undo list”

Eliminate unimportant elements from your life. If you can’t eliminate them, delegate them. If you can’t delegate them, postpone them. Then choose those remaining very important things in your life and execute them. In other words, execute around a tight set of priorities. Be proactive in putting important things in your life first.

4. Let principles, values, and ethics guide you

Whatever you do, be guided by principles, values, and ethics and make appropriate choices that invite Life Balance. The key is to exercise integrity in the moment of choice; otherwise, everything becomes a theory with no practical application.

As you can see from the above, the balancing act is needed in many areas of life. Don’t be overwhelmed by the many different possibilities. Focus on your vision and principles, and let them be the foundation for everything you do. Having a vision and keeping your feet on the ground will help you with the balancing act and will invite integrity and harmony into your life.

Parts of this article were excerpted from the book Life Balance The Sufi Way by Nido Qubein and Azim Jamal.

The post Success without life balance is incomplete and leads to burnout appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

On the morning of 8^th June, I was out for a jog. 40 minutes into my run, I experienced a sudden exhaustion that compelled me to pull up and stop where I was. This was followed by a bout of electrical twitching in the left side of my body—mainly around the hip and downwards. This made me so weak that I had to sit down on the side of the road and ask my wife Urvi to come over and pick me up—something I had never done before. The weakness and twitching subsided after a few minutes and I was able to get up and walk a few steps. After Urvi picked me up, we went to a garden center where I had an energy drink to hydrate my system and also get some essential salts.

Feeling better, I decided to run home for the remaining two miles of the distance, completely oblivious of what had actually happened to me.

Life goes on

I was working throughout the rest of the week with a busy travel schedule and an ever busier work schedule—as if nothing had happened. Through the week, I could feel numbing and weakness progressively increasing on the left side but I continued to neglect it—attributing it to this freak incident, which I reasoned must be due to physical exhaustion or lack of hydration.

Strangely, I somehow could not correlate this development with another phenomenon that I was lately experiencing. Over the previous 6 – 8 weeks, I was finding it difficult to drive my car properly due to poor clutch control [left leg!]. I used to grope for the clutch and often could not locate it. And when I was able to find it, I didn’t know how much I had pressed or had to press.

I live in London and I was scheduled to travel on a trip to India in the week of 17^th June for an important business engagement. Through the week, I was waiting for some improvement in my condition, to feel comfortable enough for the hectic trip ahead. But things did not improve. I waited until the weekend and found that the condition was getting worse. I had now begun limping and dragging my left foot around several times a day, and was carrying on through sheer willpower.

Through the week, I was waiting for some improvement in my condition, to feel comfortable enough for the hectic trip ahead

On 17^th June, I once again experienced two bouts of electrical twitching on my left side, each lasting 2 – 3 minutes, where I could not control my hands/feet and was reduced to a mute spectator. I ignored it once again. When we are in the flow of life and work, we tend to cast aside such incidents as routine—trivial matters, which do not need to be given too much attention.

My wife’s ultimatum

By now, Urvi was seriously concerned and gave me an ultimatum: I would be allowed to travel to India only if I went to see a doctor. Having no choice, I agreed and we landed up at an urgent care center, where a nurse on duty told me that I probably had a trapped nerve. She suggested that I see a GP. The same night, we went to A&E [accident and emergency] for a check-up. After an initial examination, the attendant doctor called in back-up doctors to further investigations. These new doctors were a bit more animated and went about performing a thorough check, which quickly led them to detect a big weakness throughout the left side of my body. For the first time, I too grasped a big difference between the two sides of my very own being and was quite flustered.

Now things began moving quite swiftly and decisively. I was admitted to the hospital and was inspected in the morning by an expert neurologist, who promptly dismissed all conjecture about exhaustion or trapped nerves. He strongly suspected some imbalance in the brain function, which had to be investigated on priority. An MRI scan on 19^th June disclosed a mind-numbing 52mm cyst in the right top side of my brain. Since this discovery, my perspective of life has changed completely.

Different possibilities

My scan was referred to Queen’s Hospital [National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery] right away and they immediately accepted my case. On 21^st June, I was moved to the best hospital that specialized in treating my condition.

We ignore our body signals until we are brought down to our knees in one sudden and swift chop

At this point, I contemplated what would have happened if

1. I had paid attention to my left leg/clutch problem and got it checked a couple of months ago
2. I had realized on the 8^th June that my sudden experience of exhaustion was actually a mini-seizure and worth a check-up
3. I had actually forced myself to fly out to India overruling the condition set by Urvi—I have been known to take such liberties with my health all my life. I shudder to think of the eventual outcome this could have lead to and I was so close to taking that decision!

We all tend to take our health and life for granted. We push ourselves through pain barriers, health warnings and common sense. We ignore our body signals until we are brought down to our knees in one sudden and swift chop.

A changed world

The discovery of a cyst in my brain had changed my world. Having spent a few days in the hospital, the first step out was special. I felt that I was setting out on a unique journey. I wanted to savor each and every moment of this. I could feel the gentle breeze. I could see the sun rays filtering through the green surroundings. I watched the clouds float around lazily and smile back at me. The day was wonderful and the scene looked divine. I was going back to where I belonged!

I could scarcely wait to reach home and get back to my life… the same life, which I was living so mechanically until only a few days back. The same house, the same footsteps the same door—but when it opened this time, the only thing different was me. I now realized how important it is to have this sanctuary that I call home within this vast world, where I can be myself in the presence of a loving family that surrounds me all the time.

I wanted to go and see each part of the house—the garden, the flowers and the vegetables

Everywhere I looked around, it seemed magical and wonderful. I wanted to go and see each part of the house—the garden, the flowers and the vegetables. Just like an excited little child, I enjoyed this second coming to a place that, until recently, I had taken for granted and was just using as a boarding home.

Reordering priorities

What I learnt on that day is that life can take us into multiple directions and we end up mixing our priorities and perspectives. The busy schedules that we create are often not important or urgent. Days turn to weeks, then months and years… we get into a rut even as we take the most important people in our lives for granted, ignoring their needs and importance in order to achieve our ambitions.

Before the fateful day, I had been neglecting my family, paying them little attention, under the pretext of being busy. I spent all my time, energy and efforts on other seemingly immediate and urgent deadlines, deals, risks, issues and pursuits of work and life. Even a beep of a new email would distract me from what might have been the most important conversation and I just couldn’t do anything else until I had finished dealing with the interruption, irrespective of the time of the day.

Since I wasn’t paying heed to the signs, life decided to pick me, put me in the washing machine and then through a tumble dryer…before squarely depositing me in the front seat of a humongous roller-coaster—without a seat belt! In hindsight, this has been an eye opening experience for me. How I decide my priorities from here onward has changed forever. One thing is clear to me—my family, my home, my friends… can’t be anywhere except at the top of the list. Work is, and will remain, important but it cannot replace everything else… otherwise I am living a lie instead of a genuine life.

Before the fateful day, I had been neglecting my family, paying them little attention, under the pretext of being busy

Lucky to be alive

In spite of everything that has happened over those two weeks, and the uncertainty associated with the future, I feel I am lucky to be alive. There is no other way of looking at it, considering my complete disinterest in maintaining the natural balance of life.

Also read » How to be mindful during a busy day at work

As I settle down in my new world, I have begun asking myself few questions:

1. When was the last time I sat down with my wife to spend quality time or just held her hands in mine? How often do I tell her that I love her dearly and how much she means to me? Have I asked her if she is happy with how we are living our life together?
2. When did I last tell my parents or the immediate family how much I love them? Have I asked them if there was something I could do to make them happier?
3. Have I done anything for a social cause recently?
4. Have I compared the time I spend on my gadgets [TV, iPad, phone, Facebook, WhatsApp] with the time I devote to in-person conversations and bonding with family and friends?

This introspection can go on. The essence is to understand our real priorities. I leave it to the readers to draw their own parallels from my story. All I can say is: if you drift too far away from the balance in life, nature will take its own drastic course correction on your behalf!

A version of this was first published in the August 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

The post The High Cost of the Rut appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Let me explain with a hypothetical example.

It’s 7.30pm on a Saturday evening, and all day Mr Ranchoddas Chanchad has been postponing his visit to the gym. Finally, he gives up on his noble intention as he’s not feeling up to it. He is well aware that for staying fit and healthy, he must spare time for exercising but he’s too tired to get up from the comfortable sofa. Besides, he’s had a hectic past week, he tells himself in defence.

A few minutes later, at 7.40pm, as Mr Chanchad is settled snugly, watching a dumb programme on TV, he hears deafening sirens—the building’s fire alarm has gone off. At once he jumps out of his couch, dashes out of his apartment all the way to the streets, without even acknowledging his equally panic-stricken neighbours.

Now, just a short while ago Mr Chanchad was feeling listless. Suddenly, he found all the energy to run as fast as he could. What changed? Nothing, really. His reaction to the fire alarm only showed his priorities—fitness was much less important to him than his life. It also exposed his feeling of ‘low-energy’ before the fire alarm went off, for what it really was—an excuse.

The problem with excuses is that they lurk in our subconscious and pose as genuine reasons. Their truth is revealed only when our priorities change. So often, we meet people who don’t attend to important aspects of their lives—their health, their relationships or their finances—until the siren goes off. It takes a heart attack to change the mind [and heart] of an incorrigible chain smoker; it takes a bankruptcy to transform someone from being reckless to responsible; it takes heartbreak to stop someone taking his or her relationships for granted. In each case, once the priorities changed, the self-defeating excuses perished on their own.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait for a siren to change your priorities. You can, right now, decide to realign your misplaced priorities. All you have to do is proactively look for self-empowering excuses and be wary of the self-defeating ones. For example, if you look for them, you’ll find plenty of excuses for that morning walk [fresh air, the sound of singing birds, personal space]—you get the drift. Of course, whether you’ll make this change will depend on your priorities.

The post Evaluate your priorities appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.