Walking the High Wire

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

— Albert Einstein

With an estimated 7.4 billion people on the planet in 2016, it can seem as though there can be nothing new under the sun, and yet new discoveries are made every day.  New songs are written, paintings made, books completed, gizmos prototyped, with every passing day.  Humans are a busy lot!  This is possible because genetically, there has never been anyone identical to you in history.  We’re all intrinsically unique, and with so many moving parts, both concrete and intangible—hopes and desires, likes and dislikes, talents and challenges; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual progress and happenings.  Every day is a kaleidoscope of your interacting elements, which never cease to run through their individual cycles; yet those cycles are all timed differently, and rarely align in the same way because of the complexity of the model.  To a certain extent, in trying to maintain our balance with all of our parts, we’re all trying to slog our way across a high wire bucking in a high wind.

One of the great challenges in life is that, because of our uniqueness, no one can create a formula for living that is perfect for more than one person.  We can share our wins and losses with each other, and we can offer the wisdom we feel we’ve acquired, but sometimes others won’t even be able to hear the messages we’re sending let alone duplicate our successes and failures.  We must all tinker with the models that have been passed down to us if our greatest possible success and happiness is what we’re after.  And there’s a sort of catch-22 at play, in that we have to be in a reasonably balanced state in order to make good decisions for ourselves, but without making “good” decisions that suit our needs, it’s hard to find balance.  We start by making decisions that others have told us are good, but whether they will suit our uniqueness and get us where we want to go is always the question.

When how we operate, or what we want, is sufficiently different from those around us, whether in one way or in many, we may feel particularly bewildered about what to do.  Maintaining some semblance of balance is a lifelong endeavor, and there is no “done,” but it’s even harder when you’re young or when you’re striking out in new directions.  Luckily, in this age of information, we have access to guidance from sources well outside our own communities, and that can be incredibly helpful in broadening our horizons.  You still have to put advice into practice and try it out for yourself, and you need the patience to do this over time, as every day is different.  For instance, sometimes your first attempt at something will be disastrous, but with practice you realize its merit.  I once watched a fellow participant in a meditation class, a first-timer, have a full-on meltdown because she was so frightened by the prospect of confronting her internal world in silence.  As soon as she tried to do it, she panicked and essentially ran screaming from the exercise.  In this case, I don’t know whether she ever tried again, but I do know that many people who initially find meditation to be extremely challenging learn to love some form of it with experimentation and practice.  And when I first tried EFT/Tapping, I was not even sure that I felt anything at all, but after several practice sessions, I became more and more astonished with its efficacy and usefulness.  I just had to put it into practice and experiment with it for myself.

I wish I had all the answers and could make everything easier for everyone, but that’s a tall order!  I’ll just have to offer some ideas here for constructing your own tool kit for navigating your own personal high wire:

·      Start simply.  Address your physical needs first:  Eat the highest-quality food you can get your hands on, including plenty of vegetables and fruits grown with the fewest and least possible pesticides (poison to you and me); avoid refined sugars and other empty calories, in other words those foods lacking in nutrition; aim for 7+ hours of sleep per night, and try adjusting up and down to see what works best for you; get some form of exercise on a regular basis—find a way to move your body and sweat at least a little.  These items form the basis of any life lived in some semblance of balance.  You can’t skip them, nor can anyone who wants to remain alive in a physical body, so when you’re out of sorts, come back to these first, always.

·      Ask yourself what your mental and emotional states are generally like, and spend some time noticing.  Find daily practices that support healthy attitudes and emotional expression.  I’ve written other blogs on these issues that you may want to check out, but in short, meditate, do affirmations about your values and your intentions, talk to supportive friends and family, write in a journal, read books about people who inspire you, use EFT or hypnosis recordings, attend meetings of like-minded others; adding a spiritual component to any of these is even better, whatever your tradition of choice might be. 

·      Take a look at the overall shape of your life.  Are you doing work you like, are you making enough money to meet your needs, are your relationships supportive and satisfying, are there activities you look forward to experiencing when you wake up in the morning?  When you answer no, think about baby steps you could take to move toward situations you’d like better.  If you’re stuck, ask for help or find it in a library or online.  Choose a small step to make and put your plan in motion.  It’s ok if you can’t see the whole path to your destination.  Just do something.  Every time you make an attempt, you learn and grow.

·      Do you feel a sense of purpose in life?  If not, it will be hard to stay engaged in life, let alone feel inspired; look for clues in the things you loved to do as a child, in the achievements you feel best about as you think back over your life, and in the kinds of things that move you deeply in movies and books.  If you suddenly had all the money in the world, and you had a year off to rest and travel and regroup, what do you think you could do all day and not get tired of?  (This can take some serious imagination if you’re someone who has lived with a lot of obligations or who is chronically exhausted, but it can also be a lot of fun, and is worth trying.)  You can start with a very basic idea like wanting to “help people,” “motivate others,” or “clean up messes,” and then think about your favorite skills to use to see what might be up your alley.  If you love to cook, you might find that helping others could combine with that so that you envision starting a catering company that donates a percentage of meals to those in need.  If you feel satisfied by cleaning up messes, and your favorite skills are in information technology, you might be able to work as a consultant to people and companies who need to get organized in the digital space.  This can take effort to think through, but having a purpose that feels important and expressive of who you are is an essential component in maintaining your energy levels and your commitment to persisting in the face of difficulty, which we all face every day!

Creating and maintaining good functional balance is never going to be easy, especially in today’s fast-paced world, but if you yearn for a better life, this is unavoidable work.  If you can become fascinated with the process of learning about what you need and what is key for you, that is the best solution.  If you make some noticeable progress in your overall balance, your success stories will likely drive you as you continue learning and experimenting with new ideas.  No one knows you as well as you know you, so trust your hunches, and try not to freak out if something you try goes badly.  After all, every day is different.  If you try the same thing on a different day, you might find that you get a different result.  Keep reminding yourself that this is work that feeds everything you’re able to do and become, and it’s worth a great deal of effort.  Over time, your ability to maintain balance will build naturally if you keep at it.  Confused?  Go back to basics, and as you do this repeatedly, you’ll build helpful habits that make greater flexibility and creativity possible.  Celebrate your successes, learn from both success and failure, and just keep inching along that wire.

Interview with The Feng Shui Guy

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

— Brian Tracy

Ariel Joseph Towne, The Feng Shui Guy

Have you ever been curious about Feng Shui?  You're in luck!  I sat down with Ariel Joseph Towne, a.k.a. The Feng Shui Guy, to talk about this ancient art form:  What it is, how he came to know it, and how it can help to create balance in your life.  Our lively conversation ranged over topics such as how he helps people support good sleep, his secrets on fostering synchronicity, the dynamic connection between inner and outer work, and the importance of inner quiet and gratitude.  Be sure to check out his Web site for more information about his books and coaching services. 

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

“Sleep is the best meditation.”

— The Dalai Lama

Sleep.  S-l-e-e…huh, what?  Were you saying something?

I know, this is not a sexy topic.  Let’s see if we can make it a bit more cloak and dagger, then:  Did you know that extreme sleep deprivation might even be able to kill a human?  I guess it makes sense if you really think about it, but I remember that the first time I heard this, I was taken aback.  I'm guessing that I now have your attention!

According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, “…animals deprived entirely of sleep lose all immune function and die in just a matter of weeks,” so it seems likely to smart people who study this topic extensively that the same fate might await a human deprived of all sleep.  However, the messages we usually hear in everyday life in Western culture suggest that there’s something wrong with us if we need more than a few hours of sleep.  When we’re obviously tired, people make fun of us, rib us about too many nights on the town, act like we’re being whiny little babies, imply that we should be able to man up and walk it off.  There are many factors that can contribute to sleep disturbances, but it can seem self-indulgent to spend time working out what crops up here.  After all, everyone has trouble sleeping sometimes, right?  Is that really a big deal?

Modern life has become a race to get more done, produce more tangible results to prove our worth (which is considered from a very “yang” perspective—what have you done, what can you brag about, how hard are you working?)  We’re unlikely to get much notice or credit for trying to create a balanced lifestyle that sustains time with family and friends and our health, and longevity—unless the attainment of six-pack abs is involved!  While we certainly can choose to live by these standards and leave the popular mindset unconsidered, the updated science tells us that sleep is absolutely necessary to our proper physical and mental functioning.

Inadequate sleep is associated with the following, for example:

• Inflammation, which contributes to issues like high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, and strokes
   
• Impaired memory, attention span and learning
   
• Decreased emotional stability; tendency toward irritability and depression
   
• Less access to creativity
   
• Diminished athletic ability and stamina, as well as reaction times and the ability to make good
  decisions while driving a vehicle
   
• Loss of muscle mass rather than fat while dieting, as well as increased appetite
   
• Increased stress hormone levels
   
• Decreased synchronization of organ systems
   
• Inability of the brain to process and organize our life experiences (neural consolidation)
   
• In the extreme, hallucinations and paranoia, and even brain damage

Not good at all!  The Same Harvard Web site linked above has this to say about sleep and mortality rates: “Data from three large cross-sectional epidemiological studies reveal that sleeping five hours or less per night increased mortality risk from all causes by roughly 15 percent.”  Also not good.  Ignoring the implications of your sleep life is clearly not the brightest thing to do!

Now, while I think that there are examples of high-functioning people throughout history, such as Mozart, Da Vinci, and Margaret Thatcher, who are reported to have slept surprisingly little, you’ll also note that these people had a very strong, passionate sense of purpose in life.  If you’re not currently living a life fueled by passion and purpose, you’re likely unable to hook into the incredible drive it would likely take to sleep for Da Vinci’s reported two whole hours per day.  There are also physical factors that will contribute to our needs; there's at least one gene that has been found to influence how much sleep an individual will require.  Especially given the toxic chemicals that are all around us these days and the pace of modern life, I think that most of us are fooling ourselves when we pretend we don’t need seven to eight hours per night on average.

On the other hand, I’m willing to acknowledge that societal rhythms that mirror the progression of daylight have kept us from experimentation with non-traditional ideas as far as sleep patterns.  For some, a polyphasic sleep model, in which frequent naps replace a single block of sleep, may actually work quite well; for some, two blocks of four-hour sleep might do the trick; when I was in college, for instance, I found that sleeping for several hours in the early evening followed by a period of homework and then getting more sleep really boosted my productivity and positive attitude about getting my work done.  I still find that a mid-afternoon siesta can be really helpful when I want to stay productive all throughout the day.  There are some fun infographics out there, like this one showing what famous historical figures have done with their sleep patterns that might give you some ideas if your work arrangement allows you to experiment.  Ultimately, I think sleep is one of those areas in which the most successful plan for each person might be a highly individualized one.  It’s worth doing some work to figure out how to maximize its restorative function in your routine. 

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the maintenance of adequate yin energy, to which sleep is a big contributor, is understood to be the body’s potential, its ability to create the stuff of your body, like blood and bone, and restore it as necessary.  It’s the ability to stay grounded in reality that balances a hyperactive mind, which the majority of us have in the living of the modern lifestyle.  The equilibrium required between both means that you can’t just run everything on yang energy, which is about activity and doing things with your body and mind.  That will burn you out and shorten your life span in this system of thought, and science is bearing this out.  In cultures that spend very little time in calming activities like meditation and quiet time alone while awake, sleep is one of the only things that we do regularly to build yin energy, especially since most of us don't do a great job with nutrition, another of the main sources of yin.

If you are someone who often feels drowsy or impatient, or is already exhibiting diseases that are influenced by lack of sleep, here are some factors to consider in improving this crucial part of your life:

• Make sure that your bedroom is a restful, clean, pleasant space that feels safe.  You should be able to enjoy being in it, and remove distractions and visual and auditory reminders to get things done.  Don’t work in this space.  Keep it for sleep and intimacy only.
   
• Your bedroom should be dark at night, as light hitting your eyes and skin while you sleep signals the body that it’s time to be awake.
   
• You might want to add a white noise machine or air filter that emits a gentle, constant sound.
   
• Keep your cell phone, computer, Blackberry, and other electronics elsewhere while you sleep.
   
• Develop a wind-down ritual so that you’re going to sleep at the same time each day, like doing some light stretching or breathing exercises, or some enjoyable reading in bed. 
   
• Wake up at the same time each day as well, expanding the amount of time you sleep on a daily basis until you don’t feel the need to “catch up” on the weekends. 
   
• Your body temperature is supposed to drop at night, so don’t exercise or take a hot shower or bath right before you want to sleep.  Allow for a cool-down period and lower the room temperature so you’re not too hot.  I also find that I'm more likely to have nightmares if I'm too warm while sleeping.
   
• If you do have trouble getting back to sleep during the night, don’t lie there feeling anxious about it.  Get up and do something relaxing like some more reading or listening to calming music until you’re drowsy again.  EFT (Tapping) is also great for helping you to relax, unwind, and get back to sleep.
   
• Don’t consume caffeine or nicotine past the early afternoon.  And while alcoholic beverages can help you relax into sleep, they can also disturb the second half of your sleep cycle.  Take note of whether this might be happening for you.
   
• Don’t eat a big meal right before bed.  The digestive process makes it hard for the body to sleep deeply.
   
• If you have a pet that is active at night, consider keeping it out of the bedroom while you’re sleeping.
   
• If you have health challenges that interfere with sleep, do what you can to address them.  If those challenges mean that you need extra sleep in order to heal and restore yourself, make it a priority to get it.
  
  I hope you can see how important it is to achieve a healthy sleep routine for you and your specific needs.  Try not to let anyone else decide for you what you need (unless you have serious issues with your sleep, in which case professional advice on your particular situation may be invaluable).  Instead, experiment and really pay attention to what works for you.  The reward will be more energy, clarity of mind, calmer emotions, enhanced creativity, and more vibrant health.  Hey, maybe this is sexy after all.