This is the second and final post in the Establish Equilibrium series.
Establish Equilibrium – Using it to Our Advantage
The end goal of the establish equilibrium principle is the achievement of holistic balance across our mind, body and spirit.
To achieve this holistic balance, we can use the principle inversely. It may sound a bit odd, but the approach centres around the creation of strategic disequilibria to enable the equilibria we want to emerge. Here are three examples:
The Good Wolf and the Bad Wolf
When you deprive something of energy it eventually dies.
This knowledge can be applied consciously to psychological and physical behaviour patterns. It is the process where you create disequilibria to remove something, and establish new equilibria to replace it.
There is an old Cherokee expression:
“There are two wolves that live inside us. One wolf is good and one is bad. They are constantly in battle with each other. The question is, which one wins?”
“The one you choose to feed.”
When applying this theory of disequilibria, one must also be aware that your overall balance must remain. You can’t just not feed the bad wolf; you must feed the good wolf too.
In other words; when you are trying to break a habit, you can’t just stop doing whatever it is (creating disequilibria). This may work in the short term, but for sustainable change you need it to redirect your energy in to something else (creating new equilibria).
The key to this is remembering that unspent energy returns to the bad wolf.
Establish disequilibria but maintain balance.
The Disciplined Habits Paradox
Having a disciplined mindset is essential to achieving anything great. Motivation is important but it is cyclical in nature. As such, it is discipline that you will need to rely on to make up any short fall.
One tactic I have used to develop discipline is using energetic disequilibria to motivate myself to develop disciplined habits. Habits that give you evidence that you are disciplined, which then reinforces the belief that you have disciplined mindset. This is a form of gamification.
It is a game because it is a paradox. How can a habit require discipline? Well, it doesn’t really, what does require discipline is the formation of the habit. Because the habit formation is associated with discipline, you still get the benefit of perceiving yourself as disciplined when you perform the habit.
The paradox does not so much matter, how it works does…
I like to train at the gym; performing resistance training develop my strength and power. It is bloody hard work though, and when you have had a break from training you need to gently ease yourself back in. If you push it too hard, it is easy to hurt yourself and the pain that comes in the following days will remove your motivation to want to keep going back.
In the early weeks of getting back in to training, I have learnt that if I leave myself wanting more by leaving some energy in the tank it makes me excited to go back on my next planned visit. You could call it a matter of unfinished business.
I use this practice to help establish a consistent routine which when practiced for several weeks allows me to habituate my training and condition my body so that I can really start to hit it hard. Once training becomes habit, aching does not matter, you have developed the discipline to get on with it regardless and you have the evidence of consistency that backs it up.
Using energetic disequilibria to create motivation to expend more energy.
The Energetic Flow Principle
The energetic flow principle works inversely to the processes of using calorific deficit to lose weight, and calorific surplus to gain weight.
When we use our life energy (our vitality) by applying ourselves to achieve our goals and engage with the world around us, it creates a void.
A gap or space that exists to be filled with energy. The more energy we use, the larger the void; the larger the void, the more we are given to use.
The universe is a good retailer and we get premium benefits when we are top spenders. It will always give us a little bit more energy than we need. The creation of the void of energy thus achieving disequilibria is what encourages energy to flow in to us and it is the key to increasing your vitality. The more you give the more you receive.
Knowledge of this phenomenon gives you the confidence to meaningfully apply yourself. Knowing that the universe will help balance your energetic state. You can balance this approach with the disciplined habits paradox too.
Remember that equilibria exist in all directions.
Moving forwards
If you adopt the principle of establishing equilibrium, you are acknowledging that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
You are making a commitment to develop an understanding of the balance that must exist throughout your inner world and between you and the rest of the universe.
The awareness required to apply this principle is a skill.
All you need to do is keep the principle in mind as you begin your journey of self-discovery. When you look deep in to your internal world, consider this principle and what it means to you, question how it applies to your internal world.
This is a higher order principle which can become a theme to your whole life.
The more time you spend reflecting on and practicing the application of the tools in The Mountain Pathway, the more you will truly understand and know what this principle means when applied you.
You will develop the skills you need to settle the lake in your mind. You will then reflect a true projection of your actual self sincerely in to the universe.
As with the other higher principles, establishing equilibrium is simple but not simplistic.
The more you apply it, the more you will understand it, and the more you understand it, the closer you will get to accepting that we understand both nothing and everything.
When there is harmonic resonance between, or you could say acceptance of, the known and unknown in your mind, only then you can truly say that you are a master of this principle.
This is the second and final post in the Establish Equilibrium series. The first post can be found here:
Choosing to Establish Equilibrium
Enjoy, for now.