Where has all the balance gone? Continued…

Yesterday I wrote how, from the evidence I see, times will continue to get a bit tougher for many Americans before they get better. As individuals and as a country, we have forgotten the art of living in balance. We’re spending too much. We’re eating too much. We’re stressed-out. We’re not exercising. Many of us are living on the verge of disaster with very little room between us and the cliff’s edge.

A few years ago, I struggled with life balance. I was having a hard time figuring out how to balance my career and family time. I began working on finding a solution. Interestingly, I found my answer in something I had studied since I was a child – the weather.

All of nature is either in a state of balance or trying to achieve one. For instance, when one part of the country is abnormally hot, another is abnormally cold. When one is unusually dry (as is the case in the Southeastern U.S. where I live), another is generally wetter than normal (the southern Plains are MUCH above average for the year for rainfall. The point is, the weather is seeking it’s own balance. When balance exists, the weather turns calm. When it’s imbalanced, the weather turns stormy. All of our largest outbreaks of tornadoes in this country were the result of a highly imbalanced jetstream. It’s simply the way the weather works.

As products of nature, the same is true for us. When we lack balance in our own lives, stormy emotional times are often the result. Our marriages become strained, our health begins to deteriorate, and our jobs become struggles. Imbalance leads to trouble, just as it does in nature…

I found that when I began focusing on restoring balance into my life, my life became substantially better, almost immediately. I rearranged my schedule, I switched my priorities, I began thinking about my life and where I wanted to go. Looking back, it’s very logical – restore balance and you find peace. I used several principles of weather and followed specific steps under those principles that guided me to a balanced life. A few years ago, I took that information, wrote it down and recorded it into an audio program. I taught a class in my church, located in Nashville, Tennessee, based on the program and saw that it not only worked for me, but also for those who took the class. That’s when I decided to give it a title, expand and update it, and offer it to others. It’s called The Life Barometer. I’m very proud of it and I believe it can work for anyone who is ready to grow and make a change for the better.

If you believe that you’re not living the life you were intended to live, that there’s more to life than you’re currently experiencing, that you’re tired of doing things the same old way with the same results, then I encourage you to begin thinking about how you’re going to make it better. The Life Barometer can help. Whether you decide to use it or not, don’t stay in an unhealthy, unhappy life. It CAN be better. Life’s too short to spend it being miserable.

For more information on The Life Barometer, visit TheLifeBarometer.com.

Where has the all the balance gone?

Times are tough for many Americans right now and I believe they’re about to get tougher. The housing crisis, rising fuel prices and an election year all mean big changes for 2008. I saw a headline just today that the national debt has hit an all time high of 9 trillion. The stock market is down again off of it’s highs. The value of the dollar is dropping astonishingly fast. Oil prices are nearing $100 dollars a barrel for the first time in history. Households that heat with gas or heating oil will likely see substantial increasing in the cost of heating this winter. Retailers are calling for a tough holiday sales season. Many of the headlines are gloomy and there are more likely to come in the next few weeks and months…

Many of us are already feeling the repercussions of these events in our own households. We’re all watching the prices go up nearly daily at the gas pumps. We’re also watching prices rise at the grocery store on items such as milk, vegetables and bread. There are probably houses not too far away from yours that are about to go on the auction block due to a foreclosure.

Here’s the sad part of all of this: it’s due, in large part, to a lack of foresight and planning. We’ve forgotten as individuals and as a country how to seek balance. Balance is ALWAYS better in long term than living in extremes. We lack balance in our finances. We lack balance in our health. We lack balance in our relationships. We lack balance in our careers. It’s all leading to stress and hard times.

There is good news though… Every time this nation has been through a trying time in which things seemed like they would only get worse, at some point, we turned the corner and it got better. I believe this will happen to us again. But for that to happen, we’re going to have to do things differently in the future than we’re doing now…

It’s the same with you. If you are struggling to find peace-of-mind because you’re in massive debt, you’re struggling with your weight, you’re stressed by the lack of order in your household, you’re seeking a more meaningful job, it’s time to do something different. It’s time to change the way you’re living. It’s time to find balance, passion and peace again…  And you CAN do it…

A few years ago, I struggled with some of these same issues. But I began searching for a way out. I found my answers in something I’ve studied for years and about which I’m truly passionate; the weather. Sound interesting? I’ll have more on how I did it in tomorrow’s post…