Balance is not something you find but something you create
Sometimes, I feel like I’m finally getting in a good groove. In those times, my studying routine works, my workout routine works, I’m being social and am taking care of myself and the people around me. Then, something happens that knocks me off-balance. This summer, it has been a wonderful vacation to Vietnam that saw me quickly adapt my way of living to this travelling lifestyle, but this sweeping force may also be something a little less enjoyable.
I don’t it when I lose my rhythm in life - after all, life is full of unexpected event - as long as I manage to rebalance myself.
Rebalancing, yeah, that’s one tough cookie to crack. There are some things that I do that usually help me physically, like getting a good night sleep or exercising regularly. As long as I force myself to do these things, my rhythm will restore naturally. The real problem lies in the mental aspect of rebalancing. It can often feel as if there is a certain pressure to get back to your usual rhythm, or like you are not getting there fast enough. For me, this can sometimes take quite some meditation to overcome.
While writing this article, I have just recently managed to get back to “normal”, but my balance is still the thing I meditate on most. During those meditations, the desire to share more of my meditations has come up quite often. This has to do with the way in which I meditate. My meditation comes in two forms. Thought-processing meditation and mind-clearing meditation. In mind-clearing meditation, I try to take my mind off of certain things that I don’t want to focus on (insecurities, bad habits, past mistakes) while steering my mind to think about either as little as possible or specific things that I want to think about. During Thought-processing meditation, I try to make sense of my strings of thoughts. It is in this last type that writing down meditations really helps.
I have found that building up my habits one at a time is another great way to get back to my usual balance. This is just a tid-bit that I came up with, and I don’t really have much else to elaborate on this.
Because I’m getting bored and my thoughts are drifting again, I have decided to close things with a train of thoughts. You need not try to make sense of it, but I think it might be an interesting view into my way of meditation.
Transcript from my mind:
“Ok, starting off, let’s see, I’m currently trying to maintain balance, nothing much else, no other thoughts currently on my mind, then what is it i’m trying to maintain. Is it something that I’m afraid of losing, or more so something that I need to maintain in order to keep myself afloat. Maybe a combination of both or more neither, as I’m not really seeing any reason to maintain my balance other than that it can help me do more of what I want to do in life, time, time is an issue currently, balance creates time. Time for uni, time for work, time for (my girlfriend’s name), time for friends, but to create more time. That is the real issue of balance. Where is my time flowing, too much procrastination? too little direction. Both interesting ideas. Morning. Evening, Heavy, Heaviest, green star. Timing, uncertainty in schedule. It feels like I’m currently balancing on a tight rope of uncertainty in my schedule. That is the point where I have most to gain. Time is lost to me through uncertainty in scheduling and therefore I must create my own scheduling to create my own balance to create my own rhythm to create my own balance. Stillness, thinnking (thoughts drifting elsewhere, but not necessarily anywhere, focussing on typing words, not sure if this should be part of meditation, but I’m typing this as I meditate with my eyes closed, sorry for spelling errors). Time. What creates unbalance? Having to schedule around other people. Appointments. What is my time, what is not my time, what is not mine, what can I do to prevent this/ Wait, think back to principles. Stream has provided the question, now it’s time to find an answer. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. (bunch of incomprehensible thoughts leading to some conclusion) Slowing down to speed up. Last uni period, I wanted to go too fast and stopped enjoying everything. Now, go slow to save time. Take your time, don’t hasten. The wise man does nothing, and in doing nothing, nothing is left undone. The wise man does nothing, and in doing nothing, nothing is left undone. The wise man does nothing, and in doing nothing, nothing is left undone.”
As you can see, it is usually me rambling on about different topics and letting my thoughts wander around a given topic. Afterwards, my thought-processing meditation usually flows into a mind-clearing meditation where I try to internalise the result I have found. The Daoist mantra I came to in my last few lines is an example of something I’d meditate on further, trying to find where to apply this in life (and sometimes what I meant by thinking this).
Anyway, this post is intentionally incoherent, so kudos to you for following (or trying to follow) along. I’m still trying to find my style in written meditation, resulting in this post that is a little longer than usual. I’ll try to maintain semi-daily meditations from today on, but those may be a little shorter than what I wrote here.