Balance Life,

Through your Pearls of Wisdom

By Kevin J. Cottam,

Inspirational Coach, Facilitator, Author, Director

Book: Mother’s Pearls…27 Aha Moments of Realization

"We have overstretched our personal boundaries and forgotten that true happiness comes from living an authentic life fueled with a sense of purpose and balance." Dr. Kathleen Hall

When we speak of balance we are generally speaking of how we structure the different areas of our life. We look at family, friends, work, health, finances, spirit and more.  This is a very left-brain activity of logic and methodical process.  It is great to do this and important as this is how the majority of us function.  How can I get more out of my time and energy is often the question in this quick-oholic world?  Yes, we are balancing energy systems.

I would like you to consider and address the spirit realm of your being when creating balance in your life.  This is also another way of supporting and balancing your energy in a very profound way.

To seek an energetically balanced spirit, I suggest that you look at the metaphoric Pearls of knowledge and wisdom that lie behind the stories in your life.  The Pearls are the one-word distillations of the learning points from our decisions, situations and conversations in life, whether they be negative or positive. The stories or locations or situations you may call them the Oyster. The Pearls are behind the stories and are deeply engrained and are quiet reminders of what is important in our lives.

How can you balance and discover these Pearls and then use them in life?  Well, once you have reflected on a particular story or situation in life, ask the question, ‘what have I learned from this story?’ That will stimulate reflection towards  your discovery of the pearl.  Great, now ask yourself, ‘if I was to distill this learning to one word, what would this word be?’.  Now you will get to the Pearl behind the story.  This Pearl is now a resource to focus on in balancing the areas of your life.

What would be a pearl?  A pearl can be anything and generally they are active verbs or nouns.  Examples are Trust, Honour, Curiosity, Smile, Honesty, Love and many more.  These Pearls are getting to the base of what is important to you and once you realize what is important to you, through reflection and meditation of your stories, you are better equipped to ‘logically’ balance the different areas of your life with greater purpose and with more meaning.  Therefore, your success of actually balancing your life in this quick-aholic world will have a great possibility of happening – why, because your decisions are coming from a deeper place of meaning inside of you.  For example, the Pearl Health.  If this Pearl came from a deeper sense of meaning rather than just a mental exercise of ways to become healthy, what do you think your possible result would be?

In my book, Mother’s Pearls … 27 Aha Moments of Realization, I present 27 stories in my life of where I have had ‘Aha’ moments of realization.  These Aha’s are the momentary flashes of wisdom and light and the Pearls are results of the process of life / stories that have been presented to me.  We all have these Aha’s and we all have Pearls if we so wish to discover them in life.  Life is presenting us with learning points or Pearls all the time, as we move along in all our daily activities, decisions, and conversations.

A very simple example is the pearl Smile.  The story where this Pearl appeared took place in Bali, Indonesia.  To put the story into a snapshot, I was wondering why the majority of people in Bali smiled so much and all the time, whether their situation was good, bad or indifferent.  I then began to reflect on how energy enhancing it was to smile when I smiled back from the heart.  There were no motives behind it, simply a smile.  I sensed how it changed my being.  I then reflected on where I came from and how little people smiled where I was from.  I then became to realize that it costs nothing to Smile and the reward of balancing my energy was profound.  This became a Pearl for me. 

In this article I have presented you with another way of looking at balancing the areas of your life.

I encourage you to look at your stories (positive and negative) and discover the Pearls in your life so that you discover the Pearls in your life so that you can balance your life with purpose. Do not hold onto the story, rather embrace the distilled Pearl, as the story is just the process to get to the greater wisdom.  You will then have more potential of success in leading the life of your fully desired potential. 

The Pearls are such great resources. When you discover them, you can then reflect upon them in your decision-making process and much more. This will then create a more inspired intention towards the result and lead you to a balanced sense the being. Seek your Pearls Now to Balance the life you desire. 

Stand on the outside of your life’s stories, i.e. look at the picture from a bird’s eye view.

Reflect on a story (past) in any area of your life that was very profound or life changing for you.  What was the learning from this story?

Now, distill that learning to one word?  This is the Pearl.

Take the Pearl and contemplate a situation (present and future) in your life that this Pearl could be used as a resource for you in creating decisions? 

How has this balanced your life from the inside of you and manifested externally? 

Kevin Cottam, is an inspirational coach, facilitator, speaker, author, event consultant and is a creative director of large scale events, such as Holiday on Ice, the Closing Ceremonies of the 1988 Calgary Olympics, and 2001 World Athletic Championships opening and closing ceremonies.

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