KayaYogini

Finding balance in life is something we all strive towards in some way or another. Personally, I am trying to balance my life by scheduling my time so that I can work, study and practice yoga, and still have time to meet my friends and replenish when I need to.

Balance in life, what does that mean? To me it means that the things you do the most of, like working and studying, are fueling you so that you have energy to do other things besides work and your studies. It also means taking good and healthy choices so that you get more energy from the food you eat, you get enough sleep and healthy uplifting social life. The things you do fuel you. The people in your life fuel you. Your surroundings fuel you. You have energy to do the things you want without pushing yourself to hard.

You can only push yourself so far. If you constantly try to push yourself, you will soon become too tired and you will fall short of your expectations of yourself. Pushing yourself is not constructive. I read somewhere that you only have a certain amount of willpower energy throughout the day. You have a certain amount of energy to make good constructive choices. After that you will make crappy choices. It is wise to see your energy as a whole, and portion it out on the things that are the most important to you throughout the day. If something is not that important, maybe just let it go all together? It is indeed more self loving and also constructive. Do something nice instead that makes you feel better. Maybe just rest on the couch for a bit if that is what you feel like. Maybe you’ll find that after resting a little, you do have the energy to do that thing you wanted to do. But be aware to not make that the reason for resting, as that is more like manipulating yourself. Resting is resting, not another way to make yourself want to do something that takes energy from you.

In yogic terms, making constructive choices like these, would be considered sattvic, which is most often translated to «pure».  Sattva is a healthy state opposed to states that creates imbalance in your life. These states are called rajasic and tamasic states. Rajas means overactive or stressful and tamas means dull or lazy. Pushing yourself to do one more workout session when you need to rest, would be considered a rajasic choice. Resting on the couch when you need to get out in nature and run, would be considered tamasic. We all have tendencies towards one of these. However, to live more balanced, we should increasingly move towards the sattvic options. The option that is actually healthy for you. Take small baby steps in creating a better life. Seek towards balance and be kind to yourself.

Thank you for reading! Hugs ❤