TAKE BOTH THE HIGHS AND LOWS IN STRIDE

You’ve heard it before. You’ve heard there’s always sunshine after a storm, darkness before light, the need for pain to truly know joy…so on, and so forth. 

The idea that in order to thrive, you must persevere in adversity, and while I firmly believe in the notion and appreciate the reassurance it offers one in hardship, I find it all too general and lacking in action. Action to find balance between the highs and lows, the wins and losses, and suffering and pleasure. It suggests a need to tolerate and simply “get through” the suffering as you wait for pleasure’s turn, but what if we embraced them all the same? 

What if instead of enduring pain as we chase fleeting moments of joy we chose to accept the two with equal openness and recognition? What if we saw the beauty in the ugly and vice versa? 

I no longer wait for a day to be perfect just to call it a “good” day, the same way that I refuse to deny myself little moments of joy within a so called “bad” day. I’m learning to take them in all the same and by doing so I allow myself the freedom to feel whatever emotion is true to that moment. I no longer try to deny or mask it in an attempt to change it. I simply acknowledge it and give myself the time that I need to process it. The more I do that, the more accepting I am to both the good and the bad, and fortunately, the more I accept them, the more I’m thankful for them both. 

What are some ways that help you find balance in your day to day?