Balance

I’ve been working with balance lately.  Well, that’s not entirely true, as I seem to have been working with balance for a large chunk of my time here, but I’ve been particularly focusing on balance in a physical, tangible way lately.  I don’t mean balancing on one leg or something though as I write this I wonder if my bringing in a particular balancing hatha yoga pose into my reflections for 2012 has spurred this expanding awareness.  I guess I can’t really be sure. 

What I’ve been noticing is that I walk differently on both sides of my body.  It seems as though I take a long, confident stride with my right leg and then sort of thud onto my left.  It’s not in a way that’s particularly perceptible to any outside observer but I’ve somehow clued into this and have been taking pains to even it out.

The first long walk I went on after becoming aware of this difference was amazing.  I felt as if there was a whole world available to me in walking that I had previously been in the dark about.   I would take one step, and then another, and another all the while reveling at how my body now knew to remain centered and even.  I’m clearly in the right field if this kind of self-realization is so exhilarating to me; a karma yogi for life, in whatever form that takes.

My mind went off in different directions with different hypotheses.  What effect will this have on balancing the two-selves within me? Or is this the result of previous imbalances that will now melt away as my body awareness shifts my mind into the unity it has achieved.  What exactly do each side of my body represent to me?  Traditionally, the left is artist and creative, able to go with the flow and whatever intuitions arise.  The right is logical, rational and linear.  Is this the place of strength I’ve been coming from?  Perhaps now I’m going to find the strength that exists in my more intuitive side.  Rather than land abruptly onto it I’ll engage my intuition in my life and use it to help me get to where I want to go.

Perhaps an important way to use it will be to see how I am already exactly where I need to be.  It seems like I’ve been so focused on developing and expanding myself that I haven’t always taken into account my personal temperament.  I’ve been focused on balancing my introversion, something that comes naturally to me, with my extroversion.  I do love to be expressive and loud and for some reason thought I needed to be more so.  As if getting over any residual shyness from my youth meant flailing over to the other extreme, being always “on” and ready to respond with energy and enthusiasm.  While I do have energy and enthusiasm within me, there exists a preponderancy to calm serenity.  Sometimes I think I need to pull myself out of that temperance even though it would be more authentic for me to remain so.  I’m learning.  I’m learning who I really am and that I can respond differently to the same situation depending on what’s going on with me.  In my quest for balancing my historical introversion with an extroversion that is sometimes just plain fun I see how I might be taking it to the extreme. 

Balance doesn’t mean responding the opposite way to a situation than I did yesterday, it means taking in the multitudinous layers of influence and responding in a way that is truly authentic to me.  I walk forward knowing all dualities exist and converge within my being, knowing that balance, rather than a goal to achieve, is an ever present reality.