Life is ever-changing, just like the seasons. As we move into the new year, we have choices to make.
Will you allow this year’s challenges to throw you off balance and keep you down, or will you choose to find harmony and tranquility amidst what may feel like chaos?
Strength in Unity
To find peace and acceptance within the hardships you face, begin with an understanding that you are not alone. Everyone has struggles and painful challenges.
You are interconnected with everyone else. There is no separation. We are all made of energy, indestructible and everlasting. Look around you. Your neighbors, your friends, your family — they all face difficulties. It isn’t a competition to see who has it worst.
Recognize that this year involves change like every other year before it and every year going forward. Some changes you will embrace, like the birth of a grandchild. Others you’ll wish never arrived, like the loss of a loved one.
Knowing that you are one piece in a big, beautiful, divine masterpiece — full of wonder and challenges — can help change your perspective when you feel that no one understands your suffering and that you are alone in feeling off-balance and out of sorts.
Peace in Gratitude
The next step in feeling grounded when life delivers unwanted change is to find the wonder.
It seems crazy to talk about finding things to feel awe over and gratitude for when you’re feeling lost, but it works! There is an immediate lift and shift in your energy and mood when you stop lamenting for a moment and look for hope.
Open your eyes. There is hope all around you: Amongst the trees and flowers, the sky and stars, the sunshine and the way a child laughs.
You have infinite reasons in which to find gratitude. Dwell on those instead of your misfortunes; you’ll feel your heart rate calm and your anxiety soften. That is how immediate and accessible moving back into balance is.
Power in Embracing Change
The highs and lows, the ups and downs, the joy and the pain, the light and the dark… it’s the yin and yang of forces in our lives shaping our outlook and who we are.
You are in your power when you can accept and embrace it all. Every bit of life is a journey with lessons, from fantastic to traumatic, on the path for each of us.
How you choose to think and live in each present moment is an expression of honoring your most authentic self: The You that remains constant, from before the moment you are born to beyond the moment you take your last breath and all the moments in between. That inner You is always powerful and in balance.
A Pendulum of Feelings
Finally, accept our feelings are naturally in a perpetual swinging motion. Not even the Dalai Lama is in a constant state of Zenful enlightenment.
The key to finding balance is to let go of forcing yourself to dwell on what has happened in your past, which could be five minutes or 20 years ago. If you notice you’re hanging onto a mood, choose to release the mental stronghold. Your emotions will naturally swing back to the center — to balance.
It isn’t always easy to get back in balance. But as the saying goes, what you seek, you will find. We are ever learning, growing, and searching for ways to live better, and looking for feelings of peace is a worthwhile and rewarding quest.
I wish you harmony, balance, and a hope-filled New Year.
