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Feature ArticleA Balanced Life
What comes to mind when you think about balance in your life? It's a good idea to check out your personal connection with the word, balance, because it may be different than what is meant here. Ironically, ideas about living a balanced life have become one of the biggest stressors. If we managed to live up to the advice of countless magazine articles and life style experts, we'd be exhausted - always eating healthy, getting five half- hour sessions of aerobic exercise every week, 8-10 hours of sleep per night, daily quality time for oneself, loved ones, our community, and planet- with weight training, meditation, yoga, fashionable clothes, meaningful hobbies, and excellent sex too. Trying for perfect balance, as defined by others, can keep us running around, filling up our life from someone else's perfect menu. We can get so caught up in living by prescription, we forget about simply being. We end up feeling stressed, and dissatisfied, wanting things we can't change to be different. Another type of balance is an inner state of balance. It's an experience we can find within us. Wanting more awareness in life, is the one arena where wanting something to be different pays off. When we want to change, we can change with awareness practice. Simply turning our focus inward, meditating, and practicing with awareness, we find the deep inner balance we have been looking for. Finish reading this article about balance A Question of InterestHow can I feel compassion for my father when I am afraid of him?*
Family members yell, co-workers throw insults and criticism, and strangers can be sarcastic and threatening. The first thing to do, especially if we are in physical danger, is to make our self safe. Once we have some distance from the situation and can think clearly, we can remember that we cannot change another's behavior, we can only change our response to their behavior. How can we be compassionate with people who act out of confusion, and behave in unpredictable ways that can be emotionally, and possibly physically scary? There is no technique that will work universally. We each feel our way through challenging and painful situations, moment-to-moment, bringing our loving intention into the moment; practicing being aware, compassionate, and clear. Having an awareness meditation practice helps us train the mind to focus in the moment, and to be more easily present throughout the day. Making time in our day to practice guided visualization practices on compassion helps us be compassionate, aware, and find clarity in the face of our fear. After all, we are the perfect person to practice being compassionate with, right here, because we are always right here, breathing, and needing good lovin', even when we are the only one around! Practicing compassion meditations in a quiet, comfortable place, supports an honest, gentle exploration of compassion. The following link connects you to three guided visualization meditations on compassion. Feel free to record them in your own voice, have a friend or family member read them to you, or purchase or download my Uncovering Compassion CD through my website, for your practice. *Growing up with any kind of abuse leaves a need for healing. I assume from your question, there is good reason to fear your father because you have experienced or witnessed abuse. It may be emotional or physical abuse you are referring to. After you read this, please consider personal guidance. I would be happy to meet with you or refer you to a trusted professional. Guided Meditations on Compassion Helping the Body HealWhat you can do for yourself when you feel physically out-of-balance with pain and injury, or any physical dis-ease. This section of The Open Letter provides helpful information for those who are curious about how they can help the body heal on a daily basis and in acute situations. The Six Healing Sounds* Healing the Internal Organs
You can practice seated or lying down. It's good to meditate for a few minutes first and notice, as Ken Cohen, a qi gong master, teaches, "the quality of the breath, and your general sense of bodily ease or discomfort. In each exercise below fresh qi (energy) is inhaled through the nose and old qi is exhaled through the mouth while quietly chanting a sound." It is best to do all six organ sound each time, in the same order, and do more repetitions, with any organs that require more help. The sounds are spelled phonetically and are simple to pronounce. 1. Lungs: focus the mind on the lungs. Locate the lungs with your mind. Inhale, imagine healing qi filling the lungs, reaching all of the air sacs, all of the tissues and lobes of the lungs. As you exhale through the mouth, make a barely audible prolonged sound, See-ahh. Repeat two more times. 2. Kidneys: Become aware of the kidneys. Feel them with your mind. Inhale fresh qi into the kidneys, exhale unneeded qi with the low sound Chrooo- eee. Repeat two more times. * Most of the instructions are taken directly from The Way of Qi Gong, by Ken Cohen, pages 165-166, with a few words and phrases changed for clarity. |
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An excerpt from Nina Livingstone's book Let's Not Call it Meditation: Practical Information for People who Think They Can't Sit Still and Quiet the Mind. 
It is natural to want to stop being afraid, and find a more loving way of being with a fearful situation. This is true whether the person you fear is your mother, father, co-worker, boss, cashier, or bank teller. We have more history and complicated feelings about our parents, but they are, in the end, people; sometimes confused, unhappy, depressed, or angry, and still flesh-and-blood people. Parents want and need to be loved and embraced with compassion, just as we do. Just as everyone does. 