Letting go of the intensity

Posted by random olio

Life is an ebb and flow. Some years are full, intense, and feel like you are drowning in life and all that is required of you. 2013 for example was a year of crazy intensity for me, but not in the way you might think. The intensity was of what I had set out to do for the year, and not so much about working long hours, or balancing tons of competing priorities. I had set out to beat my goals from 2012, and with that continued my addiction to reading and running. I still have my addiction in 2014, but in potentially a more balanced way.

Last year I read over 100+ books and was running an average of 5+ days a week. I loved every minute of it. I loved wasting an hour of my time in a book, while running on the treadmill. It was “me” time. Moments where I could decompress from my day and jump head first into a novel, forgetting all else that happened that day, to pull myself out an hour later, refreshed, recharged, and ready for whatever came next in my evening. Somehow as 2014 has continued to evolve, my craziness over running and reading has not waned, but other things in life have taken precedence over my intensity to finish the amazing book I am reading, or to stretch my legs on the treadmill. I have played more, visited with friends, and worked on other creative endeavors. Maybe 2014 is my year to chill.

Has my life changed drastically to make this happen? Not really. What has changed? Mostly I have let go. I have relaxed and listened to what my body wanted at the end of the day. Sometimes my brain and body are so wiped out that I decide to take a hot bath and relax my body and mind for an hour instead of going for an intense run. I have relaxed more into myself and feel less guilty about not going for a run that day if my body is saying: “NO.” While I sometimes miss my daily hour of reading/running, I have begun to make other choices in place of my run/book. Every once in a while guilt will creep in and tell me: “You are lazy. It will hurt when you run tomorrow, or the next day.” Or I think wow, I have only read xx books and run xx times this year. But, who cares, right?

Do you have things in your life that you do not want to budge on, yet if you did your life might feel more balanced?

Balance, hard work, and play…

Posted by random olio

Does your life ever feel balanced? Often one thing or another is out of whack. Either we are working too much, or someone is consuming our time, or we are socializing too much and we feel the effects of the imbalance in our life. Yesterday’s Daily Om on balance hit home for me because it has always been something I have struggled with – finding a balance in my life. I love this quote from this Daily Om:

“Balance is the state that you achieve when all of the aspects of your life and self are in harmony. Your life force flows in a state of equilibrium because nothing feels out of sync. While balance is necessary to have a satisfying, energetic, and joyful life, only you can determine what balance means to you.”

Why does finding a balance seem to be so hard for so many? Is it because we have high aspirations and want to accomplish so much in our lives? Do we say yes to all things we are interested in, and there truly is not enough time in the day? There are days when I work long hours, write my blog, spend time with Chris, go for my run (and read at the same time) and crawl into bed and in a few short minutes I am asleep. I love all the different activities that fill my life, but there are times when too much feels like too much.

My issue might be that I immerse myself in the world I am in. I work hard. I have high expectations for myself. I do not like to give up. Ever. If only I could have high expectations for play. For learning how to relax. Chris does a great job at pushing me to relax each day, but it is something that I need to learn to also balance on my own. I often ask myself: Why is it so hard to relax? How can I better learn how to balance my life between work and play?

What do you do to find a balance in your life?

Finding Your Center

Posted by random olio

I have dabbled in ceramics and pottery over the years. One of the books that I love, still own, and look at every so often is called: “Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person.” The author talks about the ideas behind centering your life, and living in a balanced place. The author juxtaposes centering in life with centering a pot on a potter’s wheel.

one of my pieces…

It is not easy, but with practice, skill, and persistence, a potter can throw a chunk of clay on a potter’s wheel and quickly center it. I remember in college my ceramics professor told us of a blind potter. The potter was amazing at centering because they were not looking at the clay to see if it was centered. They could tell just by feeling the way it spun around the wheel. We spent a few classes trying to center the clay while blind folded. That was an amazing experience to me. It taught me how to approach the wheel in a different way, and gave me almost a quiet, calm anytime I started out on the wheel on my way to centering.

If a potter begins to form the clay before it is centered then two things will happen: either his pot will come out lopsided or it will get so off-center that it will come off the wheel or fall over and the potter will have to start over. So it makes sense for the potter to spend more time in the beginning to make sure that the pot is centered, rather than go fast and have to start over again.

What a metaphor for life. If we just took the time at the beginning of a project, trip, plan, etc to find our center and be balanced we would not have to go back and start over again. If we go off course, we just have to go back to our center. Just as on a potter’s wheel, if we go off-center, we can bring it back to the middle and re-center if needed. This is only if we have not made it so off kilter that we have to start over completely, or if we have added too much water that the clay is too elastic and it is not possible to bring it back to its original form.

The potter teaches us to always go back to our center when we feel life has led us astray. Stop. Go back to center. Sometimes we have to change course. In the end, life falls into place when we start from our center.