Living a Balanced Life - A Spiritual Perspective -

It’s Spiritual Sunday!

I want to share a few uplifting thoughts with you all today. I recently came across this Interview with Dr. Lane Smith, a renowned doctor of medicine specializing in psychiatry. He shares his thoughts on what it means to live a balanced life. He is the grandson of the late President Joseph Fielding Smith. I learned so much from this interview. I hope you get a chance to take a listen, you can listen to it HERE on the Mormon Channel. Here are my thoughts…

*Perspective has an impact on the daily choices we make. I believe there is an eternity after this life. That we will get to live with our Father in Heaven again. With that said I think making choices in this life is easier when I have that eternal perspective. I know that I will want to spend more time on the things that matter most when I focus on who I want to become now and after my time on Earth is done.

*Dr. Smith mentioned the need to feed ourselves physical, spiritually and emotionally. We need to take care of ourselves first, so we can help take care of others. I think this is very important when we are working towards living a more balanced life. We must look at our physical needs, spiritual needs and emotional needs in order to nurture ourselves. What good are we to others if we are falling apart in one of these areas?

*Dr. Smith said: “It’s one thing to know How to live a balanced life, it’s quite another to actually lead it.”He mentioned that living a balanced life is about putting our beliefs into action. This is what I thought was the most important part of this interview: We need to periodically take time to access our lives. Identify where the gaps are between what we believe and what we are really doing. This is the thing I want to work on! And he said if you could graft all the attributes of a human being, you should look at the lowest point first and begin to work on that. “When we are addressing our lack of balance we should go to the thing that causes us the most harm, whether its physical harm, emotional harm, or spiritual harm and address it first.” So that is where to begin. Be completely honest with yourself, yes this means pinpointing your weaknesses! And then go to work. Do your best to improve on your weakest attribute (ask yourself which area of my life am I slacking on the most) I know this may be difficult but I know that where there is faith, incredible things can happen. None of us is perfect but we should all be trying to be better.

*Why we need balance: Dr Smith said, If you focus exclusively on one aspect of life, and neglect other important aspects; something dies when you neglect it, it needs to be fed. So if we focus our lives too much on one thing something else is getting left behind (ex: spending all your time on work could hurt another aspect of your life, like relationships, family, health) That is why balance is so important.

Some of my favorite quotes:

The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.

We are like batteries, we need to recharged. Emotionally, physically, spiritually.

If we aren’t learning new things every day, we become more ignorant.

*At the end Dr. Smith said this: “I have a constant sorrow that I can’t get away from because the worlds wickedness, but I have a constant comfort that balances that , that in the end God will make everything right, whole and corrected.” I have found this statement very comforting. I honestly can’t even watch the news, if I see something or hear something that is really sad (killings, abuse, death), I get so disheartened. I begin to question why these things happen to innocent people and worst of all children. I am grateful for the comfort my Father in Heaven has given me when often I feel overwhelmed with sorrow or grief.

* And finally he said his greatest gift is his “Testimony.”What an incredible statement. To believe in Christ, to know him and to want to be more like him. Christ is our perfect example of how to live our lives. I am so grateful for my own testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that he lives, and loves each of us. That we have a loving Heavenly Father that wants to bless us, is willing to guide us and knows our hearts. This life is a gift from him and we should try our best to do our best!

If you would like to add your thoughts about what you learned from this interview, please share in the comments below. I would love to hear from you!

Happy Sunday Everyone!

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