Happy equinox. It's a day of balance, because the day is as long as the night, and it's also the most triggering holiday of the year, because what the hell is balance?
I know it's very popular to think about balance as a state of peace, of harmony, of stability. That could not be further from my experience.
My spiritual tradition, like many spiritual traditions around the world, is based in the physical reality of our human experience on planet Earth. The equinox is a scientific fact. It's not some woo-woo belief. The Earth goes around the sun, the axis, blah, blah, blah, and at this point in the year the days in the Northern Hemisphere go from being longer to becoming shorter, all the way through the winter solstice.
That's real. What's also real is that the moment of equilibrium is a freaking moment. Time is moving, the Earth is moving, the sun is moving, and there's no snapshot of the universe where we can just say, "Okay, now, hold it in place, here's the balance." It's such a fleeting moment.
So even in the most concrete reality of our natural environment, balance does not exist as a static thing. Everything is always fluctuating, always evolving and changing and regenerating. So this idea of balance as equal parts is very ethereal, and I think the same is true for me as a human.
One of the most popular examples is work-life balance. Sometimes I'm up to my neck in work, and sometimes I'm not doing anything because I really need to pay attention to my personal life. Over time, hopefully, that balances out. But it doesn't mean I'm only gonna work eight hours, then have however many hours in the evening for my family, then have the weekends off, and then I'll have achieved the balance.
If you can pull that off, hats off, man. That's incredible. I am too much of a mess to have that kind of balance, really.
And the same is true for the rest of my life. When I think about what I'm here on Earth to experience and to do, I think about every part of myself: my mind, my ideas and how I communicate; my body, what I actually do physically, how I manifest things on planet Earth, and my own health; my energy, how it's traveling and how it's vibing; and my heart, my emotions.
Sometimes my emotions completely overwhelm me. If I'm grieving, I'm not gonna be hungry. If I'm grieving, I'm not gonna be having the most brilliant ideas. If I'm grieving, I'm not gonna feel super open energetically. Or if I'm sick, that's probably not the time I'm gonna feel most open and most ready to experience all of my emotions, because I'm just trying to keep my head above water physically.
There's an idea in popular culture that balance is perfectly measured equal parts of different things, and that's not how reality works. So I want to name it: my idea of balance is a complete and utter clusterfuck. It goes from zero to a hundred, zero to a hundred, zero to a hundred, all the time.
Sometimes the range is narrower, and those are really great periods. But I don't think they're better than the ones where it's more extreme. It's just life. Sometimes we're gonna be at zero, a hundred, zero, a hundred, and sometimes we're gonna be hovering around fifty, and neither one is better than the other.
However you find balance, search for it, or take care of yourself to have some sort of balanced approach to your existence, that's the right way to do it. Even the sun and the Earth can't get it together to stay perfectly in that position for long.
Nobody ever stops, and if things keep moving, you're gonna have to keep moving with them. So don't beat yourself up because you're not living up to some imaginary standard that's only real in a beige Instagram feed with no relationship to the lives we actually want to be living.
Happy equinox.
Courage, truth, and infinite love,
P.S. Tomorrow, Thursday, September 24, at 4pm Pacific, I'm running the Magic Lab, a free hour on the three foundational elements for your magic to actually work. It's recorded, so register even if you can't make it live. If that's something you're ready for, join us here.
|
|
I don’t believe in magic, but I know that it works!
Magic is not a belief system, it’s a practice that works. Don’t believe me? Come try it out. If it doesn’t work, you lose nothing. But if it does… your dream life is about to begin!
|
Love Liberation Letters? Forward this email to a friend and let them know they can subscribe here.