Life in the modern era is hectic and full of turmoil. Whether it’s multiple deadlines, incessant honking in traffic jams, obligations to your family and loved ones, or the feeling that you aren’t living up to your expectations, there’s plenty to drag your soul down. Inner balance and awareness is a life buoy in these kinds of situations, which is why it’s so important to develop them. Through inner balance and awareness, you’ll gain the resilience to deal with life’s most challenging situations, and still show yourself the kindness you deserve.
Exploring Inner Balance and Awareness
Inner balance and awareness go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Before you can develop inner balance, let’s explore what TheLiven platform has to say about these concepts. Liven offers educational articles in much more depth on the dedicated app.
Awareness
Contents
Awareness is the ability to be present and notice what’s happening around you when it happens, without any judgement. You must be able to notice your thoughts, feel physical sensations around you, be in tune with your emotions, and not be carried away by any of it. In a way, you’re sort of detaching yourself from your being and looking at yourself from an external lens.
Inner Balance
Inner balance means being in harmony with your mind, body, and spirit. A person who has achieved inner balance has a sense of calm about them even if they’re experiencing a stressful period in their life. They’re able to stay grounded and live in the present moment.
How Are Awareness And Inner Balance Linked?
Inner balance requires you to be in tune with your mind, body, and spirit. Awareness helps you recognize and understand everything that relates to these three aspects:
- Body awareness: Taking the time to assess your body from head to toe, noting areas where stress is balling up, and checking for other signs of distress across your body.
- Emotional awareness: Recognizing your emotions, processing them, and allowing them to pass without letting them take control of you is a key aspect of emotional awareness. This helps you become better at communication and show more empathy, improving your relationships, as well as helping you reduce the stress you experience.
- Spiritual awareness: It is the practice of becoming more aware and connected to your inner self and the environment around you. This is achieved through mindfulness, meditation, guided imagery, and self-compassion.
How Does Inner Balance Benefit You?
Achieving inner balance has palpable benefits for your well-being as a whole. When you’ve achieved this state of inner harmony, it’ll reflect positively in both your physical and mental health:
Physical Benefits
- Healthier cortisol levels: Baseline cortisol is measured between 5 to 25 micrograms per deciliter. A person dealing with chronic stress will have elevated resting cortisol levels, which can cause a cascading effect of negative health issues. By achieving inner balance, you’ll experience less stress, which leads to reduced stress hormone production, finally leading to a lower risk of different stress-related ailments.
- Improved immune function: A buildup of stress can reduce your immune system’s capabilities. Achieving inner balance reduces the stress you feel, leading to improved immune defenses.
- Reduced blood pressure: Stress hormones raise blood pressure by constricting your arteries. Through inner balance, you’ll experience less stress, which will lower your blood pressure.
- More energy: When you aren’t weighed down by stress all the time, you’ll find that your mind is clearer and you’ll have more energy throughout the day.
- Improved sleep: High cortisol levels have been shown to impact sleep quality, as well as causing different sleep disorders. Having a peaceful mind will help you fall asleep faster, and sleep deeper.
- Improved digestion: By reducing stress levels, your digestive system will function better. It’ll also reduce the chances of exacerbating issues like IBS and peptic ulcers.
Mental Benefits
- Reduced anxiety and depression: Having a sense of meditative awareness and inner peace helps you challenge negative thoughts, regulate your emotions, and show self-compassion. Together, this reduces your odds of having to deal with anxiety and depression.
- Increased self-esteem: By being true to yourself, you’ll have an emboldened sense of confidence. You’ll care less about the opinions of others, which allows you to accept yourself for who you are and increase your sense of self-worth.
- Improved focus: A room where clothes and papers are strewn everywhere isn’t easy to work in. In the same way, having an organized mind thanks to inner balance allows you to be more focused. You will become more productive, have improved cognitive function, and potentially even be more creative.
- Improved decision-making: Your confidence and uncluttered mind will allow you to make choices based on logic and wisdom, rather than deadlines and fear. You’ll be able to look at the pros and cons of your options with a clear head, allowing you to feel more sure of your choices.
- Increased empathy: Through inner balance, you’ll be more compassionate with others simply because you’ll be more compassionate to yourself. This increased level of empathy will improve your relationships, and draw more people towards you due to your positive aura.
- Improved mood: When you have a sense of inner balance, you’re able to deal with the turmoil life sends your way with much more resilience. Your positive mental attitude will keep you grounded, allowing you to deal with any stressors that you may come across.
How Does One Develop Inner Balance and Awareness?
In order to develop awareness and inner balance, you must first understand that it’s a process. This isn’t something you can achieve in just a week. It’s continuous effort over months until they become second nature to you, requiring lots of introspection and willingness to change. Let’s take a look at a few ways in which you can begin making positive changes:
Mindfulness
Everyday, you deal with a variety of thoughts, sensations, and emotions. Oftentimes, you may dwell on them. Mindfulness is the practice of accepting these things as they come, but not letting them take control of you. You’ll simply observe the different feelings and thoughts as they come without any judgment, and then let them pass. This allows you to live in the moment, and reduces stress, helps identify negative thought patterns, and helps you feel more centered.
Creative Expression
Emotions and thoughts need an outlet, and creative expressions are one way to let it all out. Through activities like painting, singing, dance, and other arts and crafts, you’ll be able to express your emotions in a constructive and healthy manner.
Journaling
The process of awareness and inner balance requires lots of self-reflection. Writing down your thoughts and feelings can help you figure out why you feel the way you do, what triggers different emotions, and help you process them. It also serves as a great way to track the progress you’ve made.
Conclusion
Cultivating a sense of inner balance and awareness is no easy feat, but nothing that’s worth having comes easy. The benefits are many, and the only drawback is that it requires daily effort on your part. Luckily, the modern age makes it easier to achieve thanks to convenient apps like Liven, focused around your wellbeing. By implementing the aforementioned exercises into your daily life, you’ll slowly develop harmony between your mind, body, and spirit.