An excerpt concerning life balance published with permission from the beautiful, newly reprinted Being in Balance, Hay House, Inc. (2016)
The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird sleeps in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities…”
— James Allen
One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have deep within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.
In the quote that opens this [article], James Allen poetically explains that the dream is the magical realm out of which newly created life emerges. Buried within you is an unlimited capacity for creation, what Allen calls “a waking angel” that’s anxious to plant seedlings to fulfill your dreams and your destiny.
True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming, it is fire from heaven.”
— Ernest Holmes
I simply couldn’t resist adding the Ernest Holmes quote describing this dynamic imagination as “fire from heaven.”
They’re both appropriate invitations and reminders that you need to tend to that burning fire, the dream within you, if living a balanced life is important.
How This Imbalance Shows Up in Your Life
This absence of balance between dreams and habits may be very subtle. It doesn’t necessarily reveal itself in the obvious symptoms of heartburn, depression, illness, or anxiety—it’s more often something that feels like an unwelcome companion by your side, which continually whispers to you that you’re ignoring something.
There’s some often-unidentifiable task or experience that you sense is part of your beingness. It may seem intangible, but you can feel the longing to be what you’re intended to be. You sense that there’s a higher agenda; your way of life and your reason for life are out of balance. Until you pay attention, this subtle visitor will continue to prod you to regain your equilibrium.
Think of a balance scale with one side weighted down and the other side up, like a teeter-totter with an obese child on one end and a skinny kid on the other. In this case, the heavy end that tips the scale out of balance is the overweight kid representing your everyday behaviors: the work you do, the place where you reside, the people with whom you interact, your geographic location, the books you read, the movies you see, and the conversations that fill up your life.
It’s not that any of these things are bad in and of themselves. The imbalance exists because they’re unhealthy for your particular life—they simply don’t mesh with what you’ve imagined yourself to be.
When it’s unhealthy, it’s wrong, and on some level you feel that. When you live your life going through the motions, it may seem to be convenient, but the weight of your dissatisfaction creates a huge imbalance in the only life you have now.
You’re perplexed by the ever-present gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction that you can’t seem to shake, that pit-of-the-stomach sensation of emptiness. It shows up when you’re sound asleep and your dreams are filled with reminders of what you’d love to be, but you wake and return to pursuing your safe routine.
Your dreams are also demanding your attention in waking life when you’re petulant and argumentative with others, because in actuality you’re so frustrated with yourself that you…
