If you are a consistent reader of The Warrior Nation: SITREP, you are probably wondering, “Where is The First Step?” In the last two weeks, the time I’ve spent with my clients and researching social media outlets, I’ve either heard or read a lot about creating balance. Creating Balance is the mantra of today’s holistic practitioners and coaches. This statement is usually used in phrases like: “you seem to be out of balance” or “I help you create balance in your life.” First, let me say, I am guilty of doing this too. It is with this in mind that today’s post is designed to create a moment of discovery for my readers. What I also want you to realize is “balance” is not a judgment statement, as it is usually an observation made by coaches during an interview with a client. When these statements are made, they are usually true, but most of the time, very one-sided. What I’m getting at is, “how do YOU know if you’re out of balance?” Shouldn’t that really be Step One? Well, today I would like to focus on increasing your awareness for understanding and identifying when you or someone you care about are out of balance. Please feel free to respond with your feedback.
Kelly Burris, the creator of Subconscious Restructuring ® (SR®) and my Life Coaching Mentor, has an interesting question that he poses to all potential coaches he trains and clients he works with. It goes something like this…”how do you fix something, if you don’t know how it works?” This statement can usually stand on its own merits, no matter whom you are working with and no matter what the clients’ profession or trade. As an SR® Life Coach, I focus on 4 areas of your life: Love, Health, Wealth, and Self-Image. If you want to know if your life is out of balance, look at these 4 areas in your life and identify where one becomes more important than the other. Let’s take a closer look at how too much or too little these pillars can affect us:
LOVE
Some of you may be wondering, what could be wrong with too much love? My answer would be, actually, nothing. If it is truly the emotion of love we are talking about, then cultivating as much of it as possible could be a lifelong pursuit; and a worthy one at that! It’s the confusion created around love that gives us lust, obsession, and rebounding. Although they may look and sometimes feel like love, they are imposters. Of the 4 pillars of your life, actually love is the easiest to grow and coach because having too much love is a very hard condition to create. It is usually the lack of love that brings us our heartaches and sorrows. The emotion of love will not grow when it is in competition with anger, fear, and guilt. As human beings we are hard-wired to survive. The presence of these 3 powerful emotions will strangle any hopes that Love has of ever blossoming in your life. When we lack Love, we will many times find ourselves sick or not well (Health), we create a sense or feeling that maybe we just aren’t meant to be happy (Self-Image), and many times we never achieve our full potential (Wealth). If this situation reminds you of someone you know or yourself, you could consider this a state of being “out of balance.”
HEALTH
As stated in earlier posts, Health is a choice. How we choose to live our lives, fuel our bodies, and prevent disease and illness can be traced directly to our behavior. Lack of Health becomes apparent as we all fall victim to sickness from time to time. But how could too much Health be a bad thing? Consider the following: I know this person, let’s call her Doris, and she is a naturally gifted athlete. Doris is a competitive triathlete that trains everyday. In a weeks’ time she spends more that 4 hours in a local pool, logs over 200 miles on her bike, and runs more than 40 miles. Additionally, she is a very successful sales executive that travels, on average 2-3 days a week by air. From the outside looking in, Doris has the accessories in life that come from great success: a great condo in the hippest part of town, great clothes, and physique that women envy and men admire. On the inside however, there is a person that just wants to find someone she feels comfortable talking to that likes the same things she likes. It’s easy to spot when someone is chronically ill from a disease or illness, but sometimes too much Health can mask our imbalances because of the effort exerted and activity that surrounds its manifestation. Do you know anyone who’s Health is out of balance? Unless they tell you, it is sometimes very difficult to determine.
WEALTH
Of the 4 pillars, out of balance Wealth is probably the easiest to spot. Wealth, as it is defined in my practice, is the abundance of things we find valuable. Most of our Wealth, however, comes from the labors in our chosen professions. We all know at least one person in our lives that has an imbalance when it comes to Wealth. Maybe we call them workaholics or perfectionists. They like to burn the midnight oil and don’t eat well. They don’t get the exercise they know they need and they find it takes them longer periods of time to unwind and relax. When they do unwind, it tends to be with alcohol or comfort food. This vicious cycle brings on poor self image (due to the shape they take on), health concerns (heart disease and diabetes) and loss of connection with loved ones. Yes, it’s easy to spot those out of balance in the Wealth column, the question is, are you working so hard that you can’t see it yourself?
SELF-IMAGE
If you would like to take inventory of your personal Self-Image, ask yourself this question: What do you believe people think about you? Before you answer that question, consider this first. Your answer is going to be based on everything you’ve ever experienced and any piece of information that has been communicated to you. All of this data is stored in your subconscious mind and it is the most powerful and most developed part of your brain. It is also the part of us that is in control of most everything we do. Now, answer the question. Do you like your answer? Are you being truthful with yourself? Now consider this: If your subconscious is determining what you think about your self, doesn’t it make sense to believe the subconscious also creates your drive for Wealth, your decisions for Health, and most importantly the emotions that allow Love to grow in your life?
Take Away
Kelly Burris is correct when he asks “how do you fix something if you don’t know how it works?” If you identify with any of the above-stated imbalances then your subconscious mind is running your world. Together we can create more balance (see, I'm guilty) in life by establishing Objectives in the 4 major areas outlined in this post. Wouldn’t you like to be in charge of more of your life? Wouldn’t you like to know how to harness the power of your subconscious? The SR® process that I offer through Warrior Life Coach is designed with these questions in mind. It has over 25 years of evidence-based support and is proven to work. Contact me directly through my website at www.warriorlifecoach.com and let’s schedule your complimentary first session.
Warrior, out!