When it comes to wellness, two words that are pretty popular are balance and alignment. A healthy person strives to live a life that is balanced and works to keep all areas of their life aligned. But we need to be careful when setting goals or working to create the ideal life. If our vision or expectations are unrealistic, or truly unachievable, we will experience continued frustration, disappointment, and even anger.
As you stand in one place, your body may appear to be balanced. What isn’t seen is a never-ending contracting and relaxing of muscles that flex and extend your joints on a microscopic level to keep you upright. Your body is making micro-adjustments every millisecond to adapt to whatever environment you are in. While you may strike a true balanced position, it will only be for a brief moment. Your brain is in constant contact with your joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Signals are being sent from these structures to your brain, and signals are being sent from your brain to these structures. This is how everything in the body knows what to do… the brain controls that. This back-and-forth communication allows for never-ending flexion, extension, contraction, and relaxation, allowing you to remain upright.
So, when we say you are balanced, what we mean is that you appear balanced. But the truth is that we are seldom actually balanced, and instead are balancing.
I recently heard someone say that he was working to be aligned with his partner. He was trying to ensure that their values, vision, and long-term plan were similar and congruent enough to warrant moving forward with their relationship.
The word alignment is used in relationships, businesses, churches, and even in personal development. We want everything to be aligned because we know that if not aligned, weaknesses show up, foundations start to crack, and eventually things begin to crumble. Looking a bit deeper, we will see that true alignment seldom occurs, and when it does occur, just like balance, it is short-lived. Why? Because our perspective, beliefs, world view, and philosophies are always evolving. And as we grow, so do the people that we interact with, love, and experience life with. Staying aligned leads to stagnation. So, our goal can’t be alignment, but to always continue to align.
All-things-wellness require ongoing energy, effort, and attention. It is not a destination we arrive at, but a journey we live. Thinking we will achieve balance or alignment is like thinking we will achieve perfection. It is unrealistic. And because it so elusive, if we seek constant and complete balance and alignment at all times, we will continue to be let down, beat ourselves up, and ultimately stop trying.
So, why even try? Because that’s what life… and success.. is all about. It’s about the continued quest for balance and alignment, using those as goal posts, but knowing that we seldom get true balance and alignment. And when we do experience true balance or alignment, it is for just a brief moment.
That desire to achieve balance and alignment is what drives us each day. Having had tastes of balance and alignment is what keeps us striving for more. But it will help to think in terms of action rather than a destination. We are very seldom balanced, but are always balancing. And we are seldom in full alignment, but are continuously aligning. Because life is so complex, and our days are full of so much, the best we can do is put our time, energy, and effort into the ongoing balancing and aligning that are required to live a full and great life.