How to Find Balance in Life With Yoga and Meditation
A guide to utilising the practices of movement and introspection to improve mental health.
I’ve always had a tendency of being more in my head than my body. Existential questions flow effortlessly through me, as do emotions, contemplations, and other thought patterns.
Sensitive and introverted in nature, I have found being in this world quite challenging at times (as many us of have). It might be said that my mind is both my blessing and my curse, granting both an inner richness and a battleground to navigate.
In my late teens and early adult years, I largely sidestepped my unique composition. I tried to balance life the way everyone else did — getting 8 hours of sleep, studying and/or working during the day, and socializing or drinking during the evening.
I held limited views of what ‘life balance’ looked like, so I took a shot in the dark (literally at times) in an attempt to make the puzzle pieces fit together.
From the outside, I imagine I did a pretty convincing job. However, while it may have appeared to my friends and family that I was balancing life quite nicely, I was gasping for air on the inside. Bouts of anxiety and depression washed through me as I quickly came to realize I could not continue down the trajectory I was on.
The socializing and drinking were too much and the lack of attention to my inner callings were quickly depleting me. I was no longer enamoured with the field I had chosen to study at university and longed for a more meaningful life and way of contributing.
Mindfulness Came First
After a few months of solo travels, I discovered mindfulness, stumbling upon Jon Kabat-Zinn’s ‘Wherever You Go, There You Are’. An inner light was switched on as my heart grew alongside each word.
Each page guided me deeper into myself and the world, the book acting as a catalyst for my meditation and yoga explorations. These two practices — yoga and meditation — would deepen my understanding and experience of life balance as I grew with each breath and each pose.
Mindfulness meditation came first for me. Through simple breathing techniques and body scan practices, I learned how to occupy my body with greater presence and alignment. I gained simple tools to ground myself, easing the stress response through deep breathing and mindful presence.
I also became more aware of my body’s needs, which led me down a long road of exploring my relationship with food and alcohol. As mindfulness became more familiar, I could no longer deny that certain substances were impeding with my experience of wellbeing. A growing capacity for true presence assisted me in hearing the whispers of my intuition, signalling to things that needed to change.
To complement this deep listening, compassion and loving-kindness practices helped me to honour myself — and the needs of both my mind and body.
Certain habits began to naturally untangle themselves from my life, such as drinking into the early hours and eating foods that weighed heavily on body and mind. As I explored the relationship between my consumption habits and my wellbeing, I naturally began to choose activities that enhanced my sense of life balance.
I came to respect the needs of my personal composition, prioritizing silence, writing, time in nature, and meaningful relationships. These were things that balanced me and brought me true contentment.
Yoga Brought Me Into My Body
Though meditation and mindfulness were indeed increasing my experiences of mental peace and clarity, I still felt caught up in my head. I decided to move deeper into yoga as a way of becoming more connected to my physical body. I wasn’t interested in yoga as a workout; I chose it because I sensed it would help me to authentically embody this vessel my soul resides in.
Yoga means union, offering us a way of uniting the individual and the universal. Likewise, it helps us to find wholeness of mind and body. By bridging the gap between seemingly separate aspects of ourselves, namely, mind and body, we deepen our sense of peace and equilibrium.
I studied classical hatha yoga, one of the traditional forms of yoga that many other forms stem from. In hatha asana practice, poses are held for a longer duration of time than in other modern approaches to yoga. Each pose becomes a meditation in and of itself.
Sinking into the stillness of each pose helps us to integrate apparent dualities — mind and body, stillness and movement, form and the formless. Hatha yoga helps us to be both in our bodies but not of our bodies. It is both a physical and spiritual practice, one that brings peace to the restless mind.
Through practicing yoga, I have become reacquainted with the subtle energies within my body. Similar to the attention we bring to the body during a body scan meditation, hatha yoga encourages us to witness what moves within. Whether we observe a contraction, release, resistance, warmth, or any other sensation, witnessing the body in this way enhances self-awareness.
As awareness increases, so too does our ability to navigate the flow of life.
Life Balance is a Dance
My yoga and meditation practices are not fixed. Some days I skip my yoga asana practice and some days I skip formal seated meditation. In fact, one of the insights I have uncovered during my exploration of these practices is that mindfulness is not dependent upon form.
I can take a walk through the woods and practice mindfulness. I can dance freely in my living room, treating each subtle movement as if it were a mindfulness meditation. By permitting my needs to shift gracefully (as they do), I honour the fact that ‘life balance’ looks different from day to day — from moment to moment.
I imagine my mind will always entertain deep thoughts. In one way, I find great peace and inspiration from swimming in that abyss. However, too much of anything can lead to imbalance.
When blown off course, yoga and meditation are two steady anchors I rely on. They bring me back to my centre point, helping me to weave body and mind through each and every breath.
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