A meditation for inner balance and what the observer has to do with it

What is the cause of an imbalance?

If you are out of balance, just reflect on the cause of your imbalance and correct it gently:

  • Are you drawn between two pairs of opposites?
  • Are you resisting something in the outside world or one of your emotions?
  • Are the your energies of doing and contemplating in balance?
  • Are your yin and yang energies in balance?
  • What else could cause the feeling of imbalance?

The following meditation is from the book “Cutting the Ties that Bind”. There are also a workbook and a card set to support the meditations. The cards are absolutely wonderful and you can order them in different sizes. You can read the text and go through it like in a guided meditation for the first few times. Later you can simply watch the picture and meditate upon it. Pictures talk directly with the subconscious.

Accept pairs of opposites

Using the Black and White Birds to Accept Pairs of Opposites by Phyllis Krystal*

blackandwhitebirds

“This exercise helps to initiate an attitude of acceptance of all the pairs of opposites, such as good and bad, happy and unhappy, pain and pleasure, praise and blame to name but a few.

  • Imagine you are walking across a tight rope, carefully placing one foot in front of the other, and looking straight ahead.
  • Hold your arms out to each side with the palms facing up.
  • Imagine a black bird over to your left that you fear may attack you.
  • Resist the impulse to push it away, which would cause you to fall off the tight rope.
  • Continue to walk ahead, looking to neither the right nor the left.
  • Imagine a beautiful gleaming white bird over on your right side.
  • Resist the desire to reach out to take hold of it, which would again cause you to fall off the tight rope.
  • Continue your way across the tight rope allowing either the black bird or the white bird to alight on your up-turned palm whenever it wishes.

This exercise results in an attitude of acceptance of whatever life brings onto your path, which leads to peace. Practice this technique at least once a day for the best results.” – Source of text and picture in this post: “Cutting for the Ties that Bind” and her workbook “Workbook for Cutting the Ties That Bind” by Phyllis Krystal.

The observer

This exercise trains your inner observer,  who watches your imbalance and accepts it without judgment, preferences, or jumping into correction.

You know, that your observer is active, when you say “I notice, I am feeling really upset.” – instead of “I am so upset!”.

Being with your observer usually brings you back in this nice, calm space. Finally you can choose the right action to come back into balance. But now the correction comes from a place of your inner knowing (as opposed to an unreflected action to fix the problem fast).

In yoga, it is the quality of the inert observer, that you can train in any practice, whether it is watching yourself doing a physical yoga practice, watching yourself in breathing exercises, or if you sit in meditation.

It can be, that you will be watching yourself in daily situations, or when you are doing things and talking to other people.

To summarize, this is what happens, when the observer is in place, and which will either take you out of a place of imbalance, or will simply keep you in your lovely place of balance:

  • You are not impressed by your mind anymore. It is it’s job to think, so accept that it is thinking.
  • You control your mind, so it is your servant and not your master.
  • You willingly surrender your mind to your Higher Self, so that you are acting from your inner wisdom, from your Higher Self, instead from a place of your (human) personality.
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Sandra Veronika Gross is a healer, yoga teacher and medium. She helps people with a busy schedule to engage in a healthy lifestyle in their own pace to be full of joy, follow their intuition and experience inner peace.