What does “living a balanced life mean”?
No matter what we use as criteria when it comes to experiencing living a balanced life, we have certain needs that need to be filled throughout our lives and the more balanced our fulfillment of these needs, the smoother our boat will sail and the closer to balance we will get.
– IIN calls it primary foods
– Maslow called it a hierarchy of needs
– Anthony Robbins called it a wheel
– I call it a pie
Whatever we call it, it all comes down to balance. If our life is not in balance then we are in trouble.
Self actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving, learning, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts
Esteem (self esteem, confidence, respect)
Love and belonging (friendship, family and intimacy)
SafetyPhysiological (breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion)
Everyone can rank these in a different order of importance. At the same time, we may each rank them differently at different times in our lives. What is certain? If one of the above is lacking and another is over emphasized, then we are out of balance.
Anthony Robbins does an exercise with a wheel representing career, physical, spiritual and financial. We have to rank each by “how it is going.” Visually we are able to see, for example, that we are doing great financially and physically, but perhaps not spiritually or career-wise. If we are out of balance, our wheel will not roll.
The Institute for Integrative Nutrition calls it “primary foods.” Outside our triangle of nutrition is a circle that consists of relationship, spirituality, career and physical activity.
The truth is, we can fix what we eat. We can eat more greens and get rid of processed foods, but if we don’t take care of the other areas of our life, we will still not experience balanced health and happiness. You can be completely healthy with your diet yet still feel imbalanced.
In Summary
We will be adding to this and focusing on each topic as total wellness. Look forward to future articles subject for more tips on how to improve the quality of our lives.
