Finding Balance in Changing Tides

This week’s blog is in honor of the Fall Equinox that just passed on September 22nd and focuses on finding balance especially when we find ourselves feeling tossed around by life's ups and downs.    

I love the equinoxes because in addition to the marking of the space in between the changing of the seasons (along with the Solstices) the Equinoxes represent balance, the equal balance of day and night - yin and yang energies.  They help remind us to pause between the seasons or rhythms of our lives.  It is also a great reminder that we can influence how we feel when we shift from one moment of our life and creation cycle to the next.  To help us feel balanced and able to meet the next moment, it is beneficial for us to pause and reflect on how we are currently moving and engaging with the different aspects of our lives and what is driving that movement.

What can reflection questions look like: 

• Am I moving through my life with worry and bracing what is? 
• Am I moving in ways that nurture myself?
• Am I walking with the changes with trust and faith that support is always present?
• Am I engaging in movements that are creating choice independently of other aspects of my life throwing myself out of balance to meet one need yet sacrificing another. 

You might have noticed that each question pulls you into looking at your life through two different polarities or dualist points of views - I am either moving with trust or moving with worry.  

Our world is full of paradoxes, two seeming opposing points of view. Trying to act like we are all one or the other is a slippery slope that actually creates more inner division and potential suffering. Our world is full of paradoxes—seemingly opposing points of view. Trying to embrace just one side or the other often leads to more inner conflict and potential suffering. However, when we become comfortable with exploring and engaging with the natural polarities through which we see the world, we can discover a balanced middle ground that honors both perspectives, bringing clarity, support, and choices that serve the highest good of all.

Lao Tsu the author of Tao Te Ching shares about balance in so many of the verses. Verse 29 as translated - Stephen Mitchell - 1988 - helps us explore how we can find balance within the swings of changing tides and the paradoxes of life.

He shares:

Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.

She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

(and in another translation, the last line is Therefore the wise
avoid extremes, excesses, and complacency.)
 

This verse asks us to embrace the idea that the universe is perfect in all the different expressions of it.

The universe of me, my life, the ups and downs are perfect.  It is in our striving to fix, improve, change, and control that we lose sight of natural perfection.

What does this verse look like in motion with our everyday life?   

TONS of pauses before engaging.  

When we can take mindful pauses before we go into motion, it wil help us notice when we are either striving to fix something, avoiding being with what is, or trying to control the shifting of the tides.  

The waves of your life, the tides, are a sacred vessel.  They have an intelligence within them that will bring forward the perfect impulses to move between being, stillness, movement, doing, striving, creating, releasing - all the ten thousand things and rhythms are a part of you and a part of the whole in perfect balance and harmony.  The yin - stillness, reflection, beingness and the yang - the movement, creation, striving, and doing are all coming forward in divine timing - without our input.

Here are a few sample reflection questions you can explore as a way to start working with this verse of the Tao Te Ching:

As you take intentionally and seek to check in with residing in center - ask yourself:

• What do we need right now?
• What and How does my Soul want me to engage in this moment?
• What would be beneficial for me right now?
• What is wanted to awaken or express within and through me right now?
• What is wanting to be unwound, changed, shifted, or released right now?
• AND How - how does this moment want to be experienced and engaged with for the highest good and benefit of all.
• What would bring me balance or support right now?
  

I share more about these concepts within
Episode 19 of Soulful Practices, Welcoming Balance. 

Listen on Spotify | Watch on YouTube

Offering you light, love, and Balance this equinox as you journey from one season of your life to the next. 

- Michelle