7 days of finding your balance
by Glyn Fussell
by Glyn Fussell
How do you find your balance, take a breath and feel grounded and OK? There are so many different ways we chose to do this. For some, it involves physical exercise, tiring out the body so that the mind can fall in line. For others its list making and planning ahead that gives a sense of calm and ease. One thing is clear, that when more is demanded of us personally or professionally, we need to pay attention to our biggest resource; ourselves.
At this current time of unpredictability where the expected norms of our ordered lives are in question, I am often reminded of the advice given around oxygen masks at the beginning of a flight – to make sure your own is securely in place before you seek to help anyone else! Its strange advice, counter-intuitive perhaps, and designed to give you and those around you the best chance of survival in difficult circumstances.
I have often wondered what I would actually do in a situation where I might need to take that advice. On a metaphorical level, we are in that situation now. Life is requiring us to pay attention to our own inner state before we give out to others.
At Oasis, we take an approach that pays attention to the whole of you – your intellectual understanding, your well-being and resilience, your physicality and the ever-changing landscape of your feelings and the ways in which you make meaning of what’s happening.
By paying attention to all of who you are, we have seen over and over again people making small adjustments to their approach that bring more confidence, more resourcefulness and more personal resilience. In effect, learning to put on their own oxygen mask when its needed.
One of the things that always seems to make a big difference quickly is to adopt a simple, daily practice that helps connect with balance, poise and spaciousness.
On all our programmes, whether it be leader development or presentation skills or coaching and facilitating we include exercises and practices that encourage all of us to become more conscious, and more resourceful. This usually involves a focus on the breath, the body and the mind.
None of the exercises require you to be religious or even to consider yourself to be actively spiritual – all of them are about creating the best conditions you can so you can thrive and do all you need to do when under pressure.
We’d like to offer you some of these resources that you can choose to try at home. All you would need for this is 10 minutes of time and somewhere quiet and comfortable to sit where you’re unlikely to be disturbed.
We are calling this series “7 days of finding your balance” and we are offering you 7 of these, one for each day of the week. This kind of thing always works best when it becomes woven into the fabric of our ordinary lives, so you might want to see if you can make it a practice that happens every day - You can try a new one each day, or you could just stick to one you really enjoy. Let us know how you get on.
Glyn Fussell