At a very early age, most people are taught to go after the things that they really want. The willingness to fight is often a primary indication that something is worthwhile. To fight, compete, and achieve are lifted up as important values. Schools, teachers, and parents usually reward those who are "better than" and shame or correct those who are "lesser than." Managers and Employers usually promote those who provide answers, are aggressive, take risks, and solve problems.



What about you? If you have had such a cultural conditioning, it can come as a real shock to hear that what you need to do is "allow" or "be in the flow" or "let go" or "relax." These can seem like really soft or surreal ideas if you have been successful by doing things, by charging forward, by taking risks.

In my view, it is not such a paradox. Perhaps that is because I do not advocate replacing outward action with inward reflection; I advocate a balance. I more often speak about relaxation, meditation, and being in the flow because I am most often talking with very intelligent, upbeat, tenacious persons who are very successful in their careers. If I spoke mostly to those who are depressed or lazy, I would be suggesting more active and even aggressive strategies. It is joyous balance that I advocate, a condition that is most often achieved by incorporating a pleasant opposite of what is usually experienced.

Generally, here is how I see the human condition: You come into this world eager and lively, tapped into a deep and profound awareness of your magnificence, knowing who you truly are. Then, you are taught to forget who you are by older people who have forgotten who they are. Then, you act in ways that reflect the established culture, creating false images of who you truly are. Then, you must let go of all those manifestations and forms that you have created and remember again who you truly are.

Being, allowing, letting go, being in the flow, and opening are qualities that help you to remember and provide balance for doing whatever you do. Doers already know how to do; doers need to learn how to be, in order to recognize and integrate their wholeness. If every breath is only an out-breath, there is no in-breath to provide more air to sustain the next breaths.

Balance can be elusive if you try to grab it, to take charge of it. So, too, joy can be elusive if you try to grab it, to take charge of it. Therefore, you must be in a receptive mode. Being in a receptive mode makes you more open to vision and to the power of creating from Spirit. As you allow a higher vibration of energy flow through you, you more easily let go of strongly-held human belief in limitation. This higher vibration of energy is the same as that of the new-born who exude eagerness and trust in life.

At any given moment you might feel as though you are "giving up" the familiarity of doing in order to be, or "giving up" being in order to do. The idea is to find balance over time so that you feel empowered in your actions and empowered in your moments of reflection and silence.

Do you live in the consciousness of joyous balance?