Living A Whole Life Is A Choice You Make and A Stand You Take
Image by EvaTejado 

Choosing to live and create a whole life in this current overculture is a radical act, one that requires you to consciously, courageously, and consistently make choices that support the whole to thrive — including, at times, taking a fierce stand to longer accept anything less than a whole life. Choosing to cultivate harmony by standing at the center of your life, as the conductor, in relationship to all the parts, opens up the potential for creating a whole life and a greater possibility of feeling in harmony, even during times of intensity.

Look at the glyph for creating a whole, harmonized life — which I call the “Harmony Wheel” — illustrating the realms of woman’s whole life. Think of this as a different way to constellate and design your life. Notice the circular shape. It mimics that of a compass, and it cultivates wholeness and interconnectedness just by its natural design — without you having to do anything to make that so.

The “Harmony Wheel” illustrates the realms of woman’s whole life. (living a whole life is a choice you make and a stand you take)
The “Harmony Wheel” which illustrates the realms of woman’s whole life. Embracing your role as the centered conductor of your life.

Each of the realms holds a specific part of our lives. Just like a compass needs all eight directions to be whole and complete, so too do we need these parts to feel whole and complete. What follows are descriptions of each of the realms of a whole and harmonized life — some of which will sound familiar and others different. This is intentional. Take a read; consider each realm. Get curious about which are in harmony for you right now, and which are clearly out of whack or desiring more attention.

The Realms of a Whole and Harmonized Life

  1. Sacred Work & Career: Your jobs, projects, businesses, missions, and roles and also your mentoring, caretaking, mothering, and parenting. Your career is the path you walk and take throughout your life. Your sacred work is what you are here to cause and create and what you choose to give your life force to. It’s the purposes you serve through your gifts and presence.

  2. Spiritual Practice & Connection: What you do in your daily life to create a consistent and felt relationship with the greater Universe and to sense your part within it.

  3. Creativity & Self-Expression: The ways — tangible and intangible — you express yourself, without needing the outcome to be productive or profitable. Although you can receive financial flow from this, the deeper, more meaningful reward is your free and full expression, feeling your power to create, and the energy and connection you receive as a result.

  4. Emotional Health & Happiness: Your sense of inner harmony, joy, and peace. Your inner foundation of self-love. Your balance, stability, and capacity to respond from a centered place on the inside.

  5. Beloved Relationships: The intimate relationships in which you are seen, supported, and loved unconditionally. They can include life partners, soul friends and family, children, and furry four-leggers. The only rule is that there is a mutual love and respect, which makes it safe to have them close to your heart.

  6. Tribes, Friends & Colleagues: The individuals — relatives, friends, and colleagues — you feel connected to and the groups and communities you choose to be a part of. These support your various interests and the different expressions of you.

  7. Physical Health & Home: The strength of your life force and the overall wellness of your body. This includes your physical body, which houses your spirit, and the dwellings you live in that need to be your sanctuary. This is what gives you the energy and resilience to “do” your life and be radiant within it.

  8. Financial Flow & Wealth: The flow of money and resources that enable you to feel sustained on the material plane, receive what you need, and care for yourself and those you love. This also includes the financial reserves that support you to weather the ebbs and the unexpected, and embrace opportunities when they arise. This is living a lifestyle that is maintainable and sustainable.

Look back at the Harmony Wheel and you’ll notice the following:


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The bottom — Tribes, Friends & Colleagues; Physical Health & Home; and Financial Flow & Wealth — forms your foundation. When these realms are strong and in harmony, you feel supported and connected on the material plane. This gives you the confidence, courage, and space to soar and expand in what you give through your work, creativity, and self-expression. When these are weak or imbalanced, it’s much harder to be open to new possibility, focus on your personal growth, do things that don’t “make money,” give generously, grow new ventures or existing businesses and organizations, or excel in your work and career.

The center — Emotional Health & Happiness and Beloved Relationships (your most intimate relationships) — forms your heart line. When strong and in harmony, these realms keep your heart open and your inner life stable. You feel deeply supported and connected because you are receiving love and acceptance — from others and yourself — and experiencing a sense of belonging. Rooted in the strength of your self-love and self-worth, this heart line keeps you steady and stable when other parts of your life get wobbly or intense. When these are imbalanced, you feel wobbly on the inside.

The top — Sacred Work & Career, Spiritual Practice & Connection, and Creativity & Self-Expression — forms your potential and actual expression, expansion, and elevation. These realms signify what you give, share, and express in the world, which can include your job and what you do for money but encompasses so much more than that. When these are strong and in harmony, you feel present in the world, on purpose, and in alignment. You see your job or business in an expansive way, where it is part of your life’s work — a channel to express your full self; make an impact; and receive an exchange of energy in the form of money, support, connection, and recognition. You feel part of something bigger than you, fulfilled and connected at a soul level.

Release the Jobs of Overwhelmed Juggler, Plate Spinner, or Multitasker

Have you ever said or heard words like “I am juggling so much! I am stretched in a million directions! I am just trying to keep all the balls in the air!”? Every time I hear a woman talk about how she is “juggling” to keep all the parts of her life in order so nothing crashes or gets lost or interrupted, I want to embrace her and say: “No! Don’t do it. You are not a circus act.”

Take a look at the woman standing in the center of the Harmony Wheel, and you can see how you could easily fall under the illusion that you must try to juggle all the realms of your life like balls. Or run around trying to keep the parts all moving like a plate spinner. If you approach your life this way, expect to be full of anxiety and exhaustion: if you pause, slow down, or rest, all the plates and balls come crashing down!

Imagine the amount of mental energy operating this way takes. You can’t sustain this level of focus for days. Even the best jugglers have never been able to juggle more than eleven balls at once. And the person who holds that world record practiced for two years, and he could do it for only four hours.

If you make it your job to juggle or run around like mad so nothing crashes, you will never find respite or serenity. How could you? Constantly tracking the many moving parts, you’ve taken on the exhausting task of keeping it all going for everyone and everything. It’s like living your life in a perpetual sprint from one thing to another. Not sustainable. And not necessary.

Pressing the LIBERATE Button

Here’s the point where we press the LIBERATE button, and you make the choice to “be” in your life differently. Look again at the woman within the Harmony Wheel as yourself. Are you willing to relinquish the role of juggler, plate spinner, and multitasker? To release yourself from the responsibility of having to prevent everything from crashing by keeping it moving? Are you willing to experiment with embracing your role as the conductor who stands balanced in the center, focused on cultivating harmony. I mean, why wouldn’t you, right?

This is not about doing more; it’s about doing things differently. You don’t need to know the how, yet. Let’s start with three self-sustainability principles below — read them, and then choose one to experiment with in your daily life by thinking, feeling, responding, making choices, and moving into action differently. Remember, the first step is just awareness — start to notice what you haven’t seen.

Self-Sustainability Principles for Cultivating Harmony within a Whole Life

1. Be in connection with all the parts, but don’t take responsibility for keeping it all going and moving.

Notice that each realm is symbolized by a spiral shape. This is because a spiral, by nature, creates its own momentum as it grows. As wise women, we structure the realms of our lives to thrive, without all the energy needing to come from us all the time.

See the lines between you and each realm? These are meant to be energetic connections — not umbilical cords. The parts have their own energy and momentum. Notice where you have created codependent connections versus an interconnected dynamic.

2. Vary your focus; do not play everything at the same time.

You can’t give the same amount of life force to eight things simultaneously. For one, you’ll feel like an octopus in a medieval torture device (like when you multitask). Two, if you, as a conductor, directed all sections of your symphony to play at the same tempo and sound level at the same time, you would not create a harmony; you would create a harsh cacophony and chaos.

Your role is to make choices about what to interact with when, at what pace, and for how long. Notice the difference when you act as a multitasking machine, trying to interact with many parts, versus a centered conductor, focused on one or two parts at a time, shifting her attention over time.

3. Cultivate the inner strength — emotionally, mentally, energetically, and physically — to stand at the center of your dynamic life, grounded and balanced, with all the parts moving around you in harmony.

If you stand in the middle, balanced within, in relationship with all parts but not holding all the parts, your feminine wisdom will sense when something is out of whack or needs attention. This empowers you to catch imbalances early on, making it much easier to bring things back into harmony.

For example, think of a relationship or a project in which you had a sense that something was amiss, but you were either so focused in one realm or moving so fast that you missed the subtle signs. Rather than turning to it, you ignored it. Until eventually it got louder and louder so you had to deal with it. Notice and sense the disharmony before it becomes dis-ease in your body or emotions; drama in your relationships, finances, or home; or damage to your work, career, and self. This is where your power is.

©2020 by Christine Arylo. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with permission of the publisher.
Publisher: New World Library.

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Overwhelmed and Over It: Embrace Your Power to Stay Centered and Sustained in a Chaotic World
by Christine Arylo

Overwhelmed and Over It: Embrace Your Power to Stay Centered and Sustained in a Chaotic World by Christine AryloThe tasks and pressures never end in our culture, a culture built for burnout. But there’s a way to stop stressing and start thriving — to wake up to the underlying systems and unsustainable ways of working and living that sap your strength, drain you dry, and fragment your focus. Christine Arylo shines a light on the external forces and internal imprints that push you into overwhelm and self-sacrifice. She then shows you how to access your power to achieve what matters most, including receiving what you need and desire. You’ll learn to release the old approach to working, succeeding, and managing a full life, and embrace a new way that gives you clarity and courage to make choices in your day-to-day and overall life design that support and sustain you.

For more info, or to order this book, click here. (Also available as a Kindle edition.)

Books by this Author

About the Author

Christine Arylo, MBAChristine Arylo, MBA, is a transformational leadership adviser, teacher, speaker, three-time bestselling author, and host of the internationally acclaimed podcast Feminine Power Time. As the founder of the Feminine Wisdom Way, an online wisdom school for women, and Expanding Possibility, a feminine leadership consultancy, she offers teachings, mentoring, retreats, and trainings that have touched thousands of people on six continents. Visit her website at  ChristineArylo.com 

Video/Presentation with Christine Arylo: Crazy Wisdom: Conjuring Up Clarity, Courage & Calm to Chart Your Path Ahead
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