<strong><span style="color: #000000;">Pain, Pleasure, and Peace: How to Find Balance</span></strong>

<span style="color: #000000;">This sounds like a conflicting topic however the spirit of what you will read is intended make your life more simple and balanced.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">The content of this post came to me while I was in the middle of a two hour workout this morning, and I was possessed to stop short of the third hour to begin writing (the arm balances and headstands will have to wait!)</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">I connected with the idea of pain knowing that I would be a little sore tomorrow but I really wanted to work on some goals. I thought about all of the people I know who are working on their goals, whether they are related to work, weight loss, fitness, anxiety, or other personal or professional struggles. I accepted the idea of pain and thought, "Pain is part of the development of any goal, whether it is physical, mental, emotional, professional, or other." Change brings about disruption, reorganization, and a return to balance. However, the expectations that we build around the perception of the change can hinder our ability to actually be resilient and peaceful. This is where people get stuck, and experience anxiety.</span>

<strong><span style="color: #000000;">Expectations</span></strong>

<span style="color: #000000;">So many times we enter a situation or challenge anticipating either the best or the worst to happen. This is a normal aspect of the human condition since the nervous system and its cascade of thoughts, physical reactions, and emotions are arranged to react to danger, chaos, and enemies, and also to seek out safety, order, control, and love.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">What we must remember is that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system are meant to BALANCE each other out, not CANCEL each other out. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">By the same token, we often have expectations about a situation where we think, "This is going to be terrible and painful" or "this is going to be perfect and wonderful" because we are trapped in the on/off switch of polarized, black or white, all or nothing, pain or pleasure, good or bad thinking. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">We develop expectations that validate whatever has been our most familiar experience (even in terms of how we are accustomed to thinking and perceiving a situation). </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Negative thoughts, although unproductive, are familiar. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Familiar equals predictable which means control. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">However, the cycle of threat/alert/react keeps you trapped inside the loop and you can't get a chance to test the reality of the situation. </span>

<strong><span style="color: #000000;">Breaking Out of the Cycle</span></strong>

<span style="color: #000000;">Acceptance means that we stop struggling with the idea that we must get rid of pain in order to have pleasure, or that we cannot experience pleasure because there is pain. Sometimes we think that we will never experience anything "good" because there has only been an experience of "bad".</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">The body already knows that there will always be both pain and pleasure. The body has a middle ground, a resting point, where there is equilibrium and balance between pain and pleasure. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">The body is already in acceptance. The body knows peace.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">To allow the mind to find acceptance means to expect that there will be struggles and discomfort in life, along with happy times, and exhilarating times.</span>

<em><strong><span style="color: #000000;">Peace is in the middle to balance it all out.</span></strong></em>

<span style="color: #000000;">To find balance in the midst of life's challenges is to observe the landscape of your thoughts, emotions, reactions, and perceptions and discover that there is room for all of the pain, pleasure, and peace in each situation.</span>

<strong><span style="color: #000000;">Finding the Middle</span></strong>

<span style="color: #000000;">Easier said than done, finding the middle takes diligent practice. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">At first, the initial pattern of reaction to a perceived threat will elicit stress responses. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">The idea of calming down will be rejected at first because this is perceived as unsafe, such as lowering your guard in the middle of a fist fight. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Calming down seems too passive and unrealistic. You're not ready to let go of the fight and just give up and let go because that does not seem to solve anything. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Also, if you have been stressed and anxious for a long time, feeling calm and peaceful does not even seem attainable. </span>

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><span style="color: #000000; text-decoration: underline;">Perfection is viewed as a threat because it is unattainable because it does not exist. </span></strong></em></span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Therefore, what is left is failure, pain, and heartache. This has been experienced and validated, and seems real. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">The middle, peaceful place is the balance between the ideas of perfection and failure. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">THE IDEAS of perfection and failure</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">When you can realize that thoughts are just that, thoughts, then they can be transformed at your will to reflect the middle ground of reality which acknowledges and balances out perfection and failure.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">ACCEPT that both ideas of perfection and failure exist, just as pain and pleasure exist. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">ACCEPT that there is also a safe resting point right in the middle that mediates those two polarities. </span>

<span style="color: #000000;">When you let yourself create resilient thoughts that accept both perfection and failure, fear and courage, pleasure and pain, then you become more powerful and see many solutions to solving the problems of life's challenges.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Peace does not magically eliminate pain or pleasure but it gives us a place to find balance between the two experiences in order to cope with the challenges of life.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://dianazilly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/dianazilly.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]by Diana Zilly, MS, MA, LCPC, NBCFCH. Diana is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Fellow in Clinical Hypnotherapy, and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Joliet Junior College. [/author_info] [/author]</span>