How I Use Yoga to Achieve Writing-Life Balance

by Melissa McPhail

When I think of the greatest challenges I’ve had to face,
time is often a factor within them.

Time to finish the manuscript. Time to coordinate a hundred varying logistics. Time to deal with an emergency. Time to write.

Time is one of the greatest hidden stressors of our lives. We often don’t pinpoint that the true reason we’re so stressed over a project or goal is because we have a limited amount of time in which to complete it, carry it through, or pull off a miracle.

Yet time, being time, is rather indifferent to our feelings about it. It clocks its constant regardless of our needs.

Unfortunately, isolating time as the stressor rarely points us to a solution for moderating the stress of our lives.

But balance can.

We Seek Balance in All Areas of Our Lives

The process of living life successfully, healthy and well is an interchange of energies. When those energies are balanced, we feel safe, happy, content. When they’re out of balance, we feel stressed, frustrated, fixated.

In every part of our lives, we make an effort (conscious or not) to create balance. Work/life, career/family, relationship/friends, goals/responsibilities, or perhaps balancing more than one career, such as a day job with a passion for writing.

Time is also a factor in each of these. Too much time at work means not enough time with family, friends or our beloved characters.

Too much time in a writing chair means that at the end of the day we’re trying to compensate for eight hours spent in a relatively static position with a thirty minute run.

I learned the value of balance through my yoga practice.

How Yoga Helps You Practice Maintaining Balance

When you’re on the mat, your focus is on balancing the body’s effort against gravity through the establishment of dynamic tension—that is, by reaching opposing muscle groups in opposite directions to establish an equilibrium of forces.

But you’re also balancing your breath with your movement. You’re finding an equilibrium of tension versus relaxation in every pose.

You’re balancing your effort to achieve a pose against your body’s limitations. You’re balancing a spiritual awareness of self against a corporeal pain or discomfort while holding a pose or stretch.

I learned that all of these equilibriums need to be met in order to fully embrace my yoga practice. And it’s the same in life.

Imbalances Stack Up and Create Strain in Our Lives

Imbalances stack up. Too much time at the office, not enough time spent with our families, no time for relationships, friends or outings.

When our lives are lived with the scales always too heavily weighted in one area of interest or pursuit, the other parts of life become strained. We feel that strain, whether or not we label it correctly for what it is.

Then, when the last straw snaps, our lives are so heavily weighted in one direction or another that we cannot easily correct course back to the mean.

I had many of these imbalances when I first began my yoga practice, but over time, as I began applying yogic concepts to my everyday life—when I began actually balancing each area of my life to give it attention commensurate with its needs for growth—then I began to see how useful this concept can be towards finding health and happiness.

Sometimes All We Need to Find Balance is a Change in Mindset

Perhaps your health is where the greatest imbalance in your life manifests. Ask yourself, “What factors can I change to better balance my efforts in this area?”

Do you need more time to exercise? More time to make healthy meals? More time to rest or decompress?

Instead of thinking of the problem of your health with time as the prime factor (“I just don’t have time for…”), try flipping the card around and asking yourself instead how you can bring balance to that area of your life.

Often, the most life-changing efforts can begin by simply changing our minds about how we think of them. Balance in mind, as well as action.

* * *

Melissa McPhail is a classically trained pianist, violinist and composer, a Vinyasa yoga instructor, and an avid fantasy reader.

A long-time student of philosophy, she is passionate about the fantasy genre because of its inherent philosophical explorations. Melissa loves sailing, skiing and discussing books and philosophy—not necessarily in that order.

Melissa lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States with her husband, twin daughters and four very large cats. She is known for being an engaged author on social media and welcomes your thoughts on her work, the fantasy genre, or independent publishing. Look for her on Twitter or Facebook, or via her website.

Cephrael’s Hand: “All things are formed of patterns…” And within the pattern of the realm of Alorin, three strands must cross: