Dear Anita,

Hello, how are you Anita? It has been one week since we last spoke, and I have thought about what we have spoken about in the last month – daily.

You wrote:

To choose thoughtfully instead of to automatically or habitually react. To choose, moment by moment, all day and tomorrow. It is exhausting sometimes.

Yes, quite exhausting.  In fact, I was thinking about how it takes daily effort.

I think of it like this, a person who has difficulty with weight management, each and every day they have to be mindful about what they eat, if they go too much one way, they feel off balance.  If they find themselves in a scenario where this may be difficult (i.e a party or a buffet) they have to have great self control/mindfulness.  At times when they don’t it may be okay, but adding up – it leads them back down a vicious cycle.

I feel quite similar.  If I make consistent right choices daily (go to yoga instead of engaging in something else, etc) I am able to stay balanced. Yet, life isn’t so straightforward.  So now if I am in a scenario where all of this is tested, it is fine, and I may not always choose the option that keeps me centered (such as speak less, listen more – perhaps I go back to my old ways of talking before thinking) – and that is fine too – to a point.  And that is it, after a certain point you become off balance (whether it is mentally or weight management or whatever it is) and then you feel you have to re-ground and re-start so to speak.

This can feel exhausting, to feel that a fine balance must be maintained to feel healthy, sane, good in your own skin.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Cali Chica.