This is Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby, and you're listening to the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast.

Fierre Bentiniu with Loosen My Grip.

I thought that song would be the perfect mood setter for us today as we tackle today's topic,

which is how to find balance in a world and life circumstances that are trying to haul us to the edges

in terms of extremes, extreme ways of being and thinking and feeling, which are all justifiable

and understandable under the circumstances, but not always in our best interests.

In contrast, I am a firm believer in the idea that there is light and dark in all things

and that every perspective and stance has value and has merit.

What starts to create problems for people, though, is when they get pushed so far into

extreme ways of being or wanting certain kinds of relationships or practices or mindsets,

that they run the risk of blocking themselves from the value and strengths

that alternative perspectives and ways of being can provide.

And so I think that for all of us,

part of our growth work is to find and create a healthy balance so that we can draw

from the best practices available to us, that we can take the best of everything and then knit together

a way of being and a lifestyle and a set of personal practices and relational practices

that really strengthen us and nourish us and allow us to be the highest and the best. And in order

to do this, it requires balance. And I think step

one of achieving that balance is to understand what the alternatives are. What are the spectrums,

you know, if we were to imagine that there is like a continuum in many different domains,

how do we all understand what that center is or where center-ish stance is so that we can then

cultivate it intentionally?

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