Balance of Light and Dark

It’s July, but I’ve been thinking of winter.

It has a place in this world and in my life. The earth needs winters, and it needs us to step up and rescue its winters from climate change.

But there are days we don’t or can’t help the earth, we can’t make intentional choices. The days where we just want what we want and we just want to eat junk food or watch tv and not do anything good for society and go shopping and sit on our phones all day.

There is a balance in daily life and it reminds me of Star Wars. I know it’s funny, but I feel we are all in a battle like Luke Skywalker. We are always in a state of flux between the light and dark sides of ourselves.

Think of it like Yoga is the light side and Darth Vader is the dark side. No one can have as much patience as Yoda, but we all aren’t as evil as Darth Vader. We fall somewhere in the middle.

For me this is what my light and dark sides look like:

Light side                                                       Dark side

Peaceful relationships                                      Trying to hold power over others

Using my phone intentionally                           My phone controls me

Use only what I need                           Over-consumption

Eat local vegetarian food                              Eat meat or fast food

Mindful movement (yoga)               Vigorous workout

Take breaks from work Work for hours on end

Take time to get enough sleep Stay up late working or scrolling

On your way to the light side sometimes you fall back and your phone controls you or you use too much energy, or you eat a lot of junk food or you just want to work out like crazy and control everyone around you.

That’s okay. It’s okay to have those days and those feelings.

Accepting that we each have light and dark sides and also being aware of what we want to move toward, how we want to live, who we want to become, how we grow to get there and being compassionate toward ourselves when we aren’t there yet or when we fall off the band wagon.

That’s how we move forward toward a more understanding community, healthy Earth, and compassionate human race.