Balance...the struggle is real

I define optimum health as being in balance. It seems like such an easy concept. A little bit of everything, and lot of nothing. But why is it so hard to put into practice? One of the fundamental principles of Chinese Medicine is balance, yin and yang. You may have heard these terms before. It basically means for everything is life there is an opposite...for example when there is darkness there is light, sadness there is joy, hot there is cold, night there is day etc. This concept makes so much sense, so how do we incorporate this in to our every day lives? I have been trying to figure this out for past 6 years that I have been practicing naturopathic medicine.  My goal has been to achieve balance in my life. I don't believe in restriction or deprivation because that to me puts more stress on our bodies and minds. I believe in moderation. It has been a struggle at times and certainly takes a lot of work and effort on a daily basis.  Running a practice along with raising 3 young children, caring for a household and husband and trying to eat properly, exercise and take all my supplements can definitely be challenging and overwhelming some days.  Those are the days I sit back and really evaluate what I am doing. What are my priorities?  How do I do patient research, cook dinner and listen to my daughter do her home reading all at the same time? How do I clean my floors when my son needs to be nursed? How do I fold laundry and clean up the mess my daughter just made all over the couch? And then I take a deep breath, and realize there is only so many hours in a day and I need to do what I can and know that tomorrow is another day and everything else will get done. My children will only be this age for so long and have certain needs that take priority. I think about what I tell my patients. The negative effect that stress has on the body. And that is worse for your health than anything else. And so I leave my floors until the kids have gone to bed, and I delay cooking dinner for 5 mins to listen to my daughter read, and I take some quiet time when the kids are occupied to do my research or catch up on work. And then I feel satisfaction because I have been able to balance it all out.  I have a great support network (my husband, my parents, my mother in law, my sister, and my friends) which is so important. Accepting help was one of the first lessons I learned once I had children. It wasn't easy to let go of the control and admit I couldn't do it all on my own, but once I did, what a sense of relief. Again that helped me be able to achieve that balance between family time and me time which is so important. And so there you have it, this is a bit about my journey to discover the ability to achieve balance. It is something I have become much better at doing but I still have a long way to go to perfect this concept and I am ok with that. I know that as long as I keep this in my mind as my end goal then I just slowly work at it day by day and always come back to it when I start to feel overwhelmed or lost. Balance....just the word seems to have some sort of calmness and zen to it. I hope today you can find some way to incorporate some balance in to your day!