When I think of balance, I think of a seesaw in the park, the one where a child sits on one end and another child sits on the other end. One by one, the children prop themselves up and soar themselves so that alternately the two children are sometimes up, sometimes down. If the two are not of the same weight, the lighter of them always remains in the air, and the purpose for which that seesaw was created is not achieved. Only if a third child sits next to the lightest of the children can the scale balance. Or it remains destabilized, this time towards the other end.
As you can see, the balance is not easy to achieve, the seesaw always tilts towards one of the extremes. As much as one would like, no two children are the same weight, so they can play freely, prop themselves up and enjoy the possibility of being sometimes up, sometimes down. Even when they are of similar weight, the heavier child has to exert more effort to reach the top, and the swing immediately tilts back, bringing him to the ground. In order to still play the game, there is another possibility: the third child sits in the middle of the swing, where it is well supported in the ground, at the point of balance. Sure, nothing changes, the swing doesn’t move. But if the third child moves slowly to the side where the lighter child sits, the swing starts to tilt like in a miracle. The balance is reached.
We define balance as the midpoint between two extremes. To be in balance you have to sit between the extremes, as far from them as possible, looking for the point where they are equal. In the dictionary balance is “proportion, just ratio between two opposite things; state of harmony resulting from it”. The bottom line is that harmony is the consequence of balance.
How can you be in harmony with an autoimmune disease?
In our case, those with autoimmune diseases, the seesaw has three sides: body, mind, soul. In an autoimmune disease, the body is destabilized, we experience pain, malaise, weakness, sensations that we do not understand. That’s how we perceive. In fact, all three of our forms are destabilized, even if our attention is focused on the physical body. It takes some effort to notice that our thoughts have changed, and the state of our emotions is no longer the same. We think this happens because we don’t feel well physically, but the reality is just the opposite: the body suffers because the mind and soul suffered first. It’s just that we didn’t pay attention to the mind and soul, we didn’t understand them, so the suffering ended up in the body, where we can no longer ignore it.
Have you noticed that when we have intense emotions, emotions considered negative, we have a flare or our symptoms intensify? Or if we are tired (our mind is tired) we do things that are not good for us: we eat more or worse, drink alcohol or sweet energizing drinks, and we can no longer coordinate our movements well? The body suffers because the soul (emotions) and mind (thinking) are not at optimal levels.
When one side suffers, all sides suffer. We cannot have a harmonious body without a harmonious mind and soul. If the mind is affected, this is reflected in the body and soul. If the soul suffers, the body and mind will suffer too. The trick is knowing how to start balancing.
We are wrong to focus only on the body when we are in pain. We search for the newest drug treatment, the best healing diet, and sometimes we torture our bodies in search of healing. But during this time we ignore that the mind and soul are suffering. Let’s look for the best remedy for the mind and soul as well, not just for the body. Why do we tilt the seesaw called our Being only to the extreme called the body? The body is our visible part, so we can use this attribute to measure the results of our effort to balance and bring our whole Being into harmony, but let’s focus our attention on all three sides of the seesaw: body, mind, soul.
