Balancing Your BE with DO is Key to a Fulfilled Life

And what the heck does that even mean?

In life there are two ways of operating and going about your day. There’s everything that you will DO from one moment to the next. These are the actions you take in a period of time.

For instance, getting out of bed is an action. That’s something you do. Working on your To-Do list (or even creating a To-Do list in the first place). Meeting with clients, prospects, and community members. Taking yourself to work and kids to school and everyone home again. These are a few of the actions you’ll do on any given day.

These are normal parts of life. However, often we get lost in all of the DO-ing side of our day-to-day experience. And we lose track of the essential other component in our lives. The BE-ing time matters in very big and important ways.

Essentially there are two ways you can spend your time. You can do. And you can be.

Notice that you need time for both. It’s in this dance between these two quintessential parts of your life where peace is found. Balancing your BE with DO is the key to a fulfilled life.

What does it mean to “just be”?

The BE side of life is a hard thing to grasp for those uninitiated in the art of meditation or yoga or mindfulness. Eastern philosophy and culture is fluid with the element of be in their daily rituals and practices. But here in the West, where ambition and achievement are the hallmarks of success, we push so hard to be driven and in go mode.

"We drive fast down the road of life, rarely stopping to take in the scenery. Or to enjoy the moment in its fullest capacity."

Sure, we’ll pause here and there to take a selfie and post it all over social media. But do you notice that at concerts more people are watching what’s going on right in front of them from their phones? Believing that the moment is going to be more precious when it’s viewed later online.

We struggle because we don’t understand how to release things from our minds and not carry everything around with us. Stress, tension, frustration, worry, doubt, fear, insecurity, anxiety…….

These are all ingredients to an unbalanced and misaligned life. Their symptoms of mental health issues that are pummeling children and adults across the country. And everyone wants to know what can be done about it.

Change the nature of the conversation. It’s important to understand that doing is a part of life. Yet it’s in the BEing where we experience the transformational power of the universe impacting us with the LOVE that creates and sustains all life. Peace is a part of that.

Whether you’re trying to gain inner peace after experiencing emotional trauma or you want to ease your mind from a long day, meditation is the key to harnessing your BE.

How do you practice this BE?

If sitting alone in a quiet place makes you uncomfortable because you don’t know what you’re supposed to DO, it’s ok. I was there too when I first began trying to understand and practice the art of BEing. My teachers were Wayne Dyer, Abraham Hicks, Don Miguel Ruiz, and Brene Brown. They were also mentors and coaches like Steve Palfreyman, Don Lachance and Rhonda Tournay. 

In different words and methods, they all taught me the same thing. Get away from your computer and electronic devices. Go to a place where you can just sit (preferably upright) and not have any audible or visual distractions. Set a timer (10-15 minutes is good to start). Close your eyes. And breathe.

In other words, meditation is a simple practice. It’s not complicated at all. Just focus on the breathing.

Focus on breathing in. Hold your breath for a few seconds. Breathe out. 

That’s it.

Seems simple, right? But when you’ve spent decades in DO mode, your mind has a ton of stuff it’s carrying around that it wants you to think about. Everything that’s been a stress or unsolved problem. Frustrations and fears. The fight you had with your kids or your spouse earlier in the day. The bills that are coming up that you don’t know how you’re going to pay. And so forth.

It’s to get centered. It’s to BE balanced. So that the time you spend in DO mode can be concentrated, powerful and most effective.

Instead of a ramble down a bumpy road filled with distractions, other things you feel obligated to take care of, insecurities that you’re going to DO it wrong and have to DO it all over again. Pushing you to a point where you don’t know if you can DO anymore to solve the problems and you DOn’t know what you’re going to DO about any of it.

As a result, overwhelm comes in. Which is the gun powder and spark to many of the mental health issues can have run so rampant in our modern world.

I mentioned Eastern cultures having a BE mentality more prevalent in how their lives operate. Dr. David Luden, Ph. D wrote in a 2017 story for Psychology Today that "Anxiety and mood disorders are much less common in China than in the United States. In this country, lifetime prevalence for an anxiety disorder is nearly 30 percent but only 5 percent in China."

Part of this is due to different cultural beliefs about the interconnectedness of our lives, relationships and emotions that Eastern cultures foster, compared to the independence-heavy mantras of the West. In that, is the practice of setting aside specific time to ruminate and reflect. 

However in America we have taken up a practice of journaling and reflection to understand ourselves better. There are some very healthy aspects to this practice. Through understanding your own patterns and behaviors, you can isolate what is unhealthy and remove it from your way of DOing. Which can create different results including fostering peace in your emotions and relationships. 

In addition, it’s also important to incorporate another side of the meditative BE practice. Looking holistically at our lives and seeing the interconnectedness therein. We’re not isolated individuals operating independently of each other. Through our relationships, we have links with people of all kinds. Add your family, friends, business colleagues, community members, and everyone else you know or “follow” on social media.

That’s a lot of connectedness.

Which is why it’s so easy to tip the scales of our emotional and mental wellbeing in an extreme way.  Too far on the spectrum in one direction comes when we DOn’t devote the necessary time to BE. To empty the mind. Let go. To not BE in control. Practice the art of trust in a Higher Power to guide you in the direction of good, love, and wholeness.

For the sake of being a student of life, let’s allow this to be a Definition Of Terms.