To offer a glimpse of some of the themes and perspective from our work and teachings here are some excerpts from some of our published works including our books: Living in Balance, Wisdom at Work, Luminous Minds: Meditation & Mind Fitness, and The Fine Arts of Relaxation, Concentration, and Meditation: Ancient Skills for Modern Minds:
“In search of balance, it is helpful to think of everything–every quality, action, or object–as inseparable from its opposite: male as inseparable from female; night and day; inside and outside, ad infinitum. No matter how much you might like to have only the positives in life–freedom, peace, love–if that static state is what you are seeking, you will always be disappointed. For every thing also contains its opposite and both sides must be balanced: form and space, creativity and receptivity, activity and rest, growth and decay, manifest creation and the unmanifest source of all creation. The good news is that, as your sense of balance grows, you’ll find it easier to integrate the other side into your life and to discover the clarity in the midst of confusion, the stillness at the center of motion, and the love present behind fear and anger. What it requires is learning to dance with the innumerable paradoxes of your life while anchoring yourself in an extraordinary suppleness and flexibility that will provide the stability necessary to actually find balance in your life.”
— Joel & Michelle Levey, excerpt from Living in Balance (Conari Press, 1998)
“Within each of us, in the ground of our being, powers reside for the healing of our world. These powers do not arise from any ideology, access to the occult, or passion for social activism. They are inevitable powers. Because we are part of the web of life, we can draw on the strength–and the pain–of every creature. This interconnection constitutes our “deep ecology”: it is the source of our pain for the world as well as our love and appetite for life.”
–Joanna Macy
Our search for balance is not a solitary affair, nor one that we need to solely to work out with family members or other intimate relationships, nor even just between our work and home life. For the sense of belonging to a larger whole is a fundamental force in the search for balance, one that begins in our need for connection to a larger community, extending out to encompass the entire human family and, ultimately, to all of nature. Acknowledging our place in the greater whole helps us round out our experience, fostering our ability to see our part in the wheel of life and ultimately, creates a deep sense of balance and peace.”
0.Excerpted from Joel & Michelle Levey’s, “Living in Balance” (Conari Press, 1998)
The Mirror of Relationships: We Are What we Behold
The cardinal rule in bringing harmony to your relationships is to remember that your work is on yourself. It is not about changing, coercing, or manipulating others. Over the course of a lifetime, we have the opportunity to learn from and grow within the context of many different relationships. Lessons learned in one relationship will often offer valuable clues helpful in other relationships. As we learn and grow, we change. As we change, our relationships change. On the other hand, many of us have learned by now that though we may leave a relationship with someone, it is likely that the same difficult issues we had with that person will keep showing up in other relationships until we work it out in a balanced way. That’s because if you have a lesson to learn and you don’t learn it in one relationship, it will certainly keep resurfacing until you get it.
– Michelle and Joel Levey, excerpted from “Living in Balance” (Conari Press, 1998)
“As you continue to inquire into the theme of balance in your life, you may discover, as we did, that everything will become a teacher for you. You will begin to discover lessons on balance in the rhythms of your breath and pulse, in the rising and the setting of the sun, in the cycles of change that weave birth and death, winter and summer, activity and rest, work and play, alone time and time with others into the wholeness of your life. Viewed in this way your whole life becomes a wonder-land in which the on-going inquiry into the nature of balance unfolds.
By learning to be more fully present and aware of this process, your learning will increase and you will recognize many more possibilities and choices. As your insight deepens, you will see more clearly what paths in your life lead you toward and away from the balance you yearn for.”
– Joel & Michelle Levey excerpted from “Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World”
“The only women we’ve seen who really seem to thrive and keep their spirits alive despite the barrage of demands at work and at home, are the ones who have supportive relationships, are doing something they really love to do (at work or outside of work), and stay committed and connected to nurturing their physical and spiritual needs in healthy ways. Although most would appreciate a lighter and more balanced load, they enjoy their work and want to continue to grow in and through it. A study examining career women who successfully balanced career and relationship demands, found that:
• No woman was willing to give up her career entirely;
• Self-esteem appeared to increase with career success;
• They knew how to delegate;
• They found relief from stress by getting involved in their work;
• If they were in an intimate relationship, they tended to have supportive significant others;
• They tended to see their career success as enhancing themselves and their significant-other relationships.
Sustained success in balancing career and relationships is a creative and dynamic process.
It requires at least three primary elements:
• A high degree of personal honesty and self-awareness.
• Skill and willingness to communicate what is true for you to others.
• A willingness to creatively collaborate, explore possiblities, and reach mutually satisfactory compromises with others.
If you are a working woman ask yourself, “What shifts do I need to make to find a greater balance between my work, family, and the rest of my life? What unspoken needs and requests for action do I have that I can communicate to others, to increase their understanding of my search and struggles to find balance in my life?”
If you live or work closely with a working woman, take these ideas to heart and consider talking with your partner to see how you can help her to be more successful at finding balance in her life-work.”
Excerpted & adapted from Michelle & Joel Levey’s book, “Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World”
Living in Balance: A Dynamic Systems View
“The disciplines and principles of living in balance invite us to be attentive, continuously learn, and expand our capacity to live & work with increasing vitality, wisdom, and joy amidst the ever growing complexity and intensity of our lives. These principles apply to us as individuals, teams, and organizational cultures. With practice come to realize that moment to moment our life-work can spin in one of two directions, either enhancing or diminishing the quality of our life and the quality of results and impacts we have on the lives of those we touch.
If we are disciplined in cultivating harmony and reducing dissonance in our outer relationships with the people and the world around us, this will be mirrored by an internal state of increasing harmony, balance, and peace of mind. As inner and outer turbulence subside, we are able to be more focused, mindfully present and sensitive to our current reality—within us and around us. As our mindful presence grows we become more attentive and sensitive to the many dimensional realities and potentialities of our lives. Our capacity to access a deeper wisdom and whole systems view of our lives-work increases. This expands our capacity to make wiser decisions, recognize opportunities, learn from challenges, be effective and compassionate, and create more optimal impacts and results, which in turn improve the quality of our life, work, and relationships. The opposite of each of these principles is also true—i.e., if we are inattentive to the “whispers” in our lives they may escalate into “screams,” and lend a deteriorating spin to this spiral. This dynamic synergy between the “inner” and “outer” aspects of our lives is the laboratory in which the discipline & practices of personal mastery are refined.” (Adapted from the Leaders’ New Work Workbook and Living in Balance, © Dr. Joel & Michelle Levey, InnerWork Technologies, Inc., Seattle)
“On your journey across the changing seas of your life, where do you take refuge and seek for balance? In your work? In your family? In your possessions or investments? In your network of support? In your faith in and communion with the Mystery by whatever name you may call it?
In all the world’s great spiritual traditions the notion of refuge is a universal theme. One of the most beautiful references to it is found in the Holy Koran, “With each breath may we take refuge in the Living Truth alone, released from coarse arrogance and subtle pride. May every thought and action be intended in the Supremely Holy Name as direct expression of boundless Divine Compassion and Most Tender Love. May the exaltation of endless praise arising spontaneously as the life of endless beings flow consciously toward the Single Source of Being, Source of the intricate evolution of endless worlds. May we be guided through every experience along the Direct Path of Love that leads from the Human Heart into the Most Sublime Source of Love.”
– Excerpted from Joel & Michelle Levey’s book Living in Balance
“One day over tea, our friend and mentor the late Paul Reps, shared the following story of his studies in the Orient. At one point back in the early 50s Reps had traveled to Japan, with plans to visit a respected Zen master in Korea. He went to the passport office in Japan to apply for his visa and was politely informed that his request was denied due to the war that had just broken out in Korea. Reps sat down in the waiting area. He had come thousand of miles with the plan to study with this master in Korea. He was frustrated and disappointed. What did he do? He practiced what he preached. Reaching into his bag, he mindfully pulled out his thermos and poured himself a cup of team. With a calm and focused mind, watched the steam rising and dissolving into the air. He smelled its fragrance, tasted its tasty bitter flavor, and enjoyed its warmth and wetness. Finishing his tea, he put his cup back on his thermos, put his thermos in his bag, and pulled out a pen and paper upon which he wrote a Haiku poem. Mindfully, he walked back to the clerk behind the counter, bowed, and presented him with his poem, and his passport. The clerk read it and looked up deeply into the quiet strength in Reps’ eyes. The clerk looked up, smiled, bowed with respect, picked up Reps’ visa and stamped it for passage to Korea. The Haiku read:
“Drinking a cup of tea,
I stopped the war.”
Learning to recognize the outbreak of internal conflict and war is very powerful and profound art. In our work with the Green Berets we spent nearly six months helping the soldiers learn to “recognize and befriend their inner enemies” and to “recognize and stop the war inside” so that they would be able to behold what was really going on with clarity and to be more mindful of their options. (See wisdomatwork.com/—-) Be mindful of the many moments in your day when you have the opportunity to “stop the war.” In this way you too will be able to say walking… breathing… drinking tea…driving… I stopped the war!” – Adapted from Levey & Levey’s book Living in Balance (Conari Press)
“In our own lives, balance emerges through the dynamic interplay of inner and outer forces. In order to get a feel for it, sense or imagine yourself sitting here now at the center of your universe, like an endless ocean of information and inspiration. Within you and around you a myriad of strong and subtle forces dance together in a movement of constant change to maintain the dynamic balance that weaves the amazing fabric of your life. Within you, each pulsing cell and organ maintains its integrity, form, and function by finding an active balance of energy and information flow within and across the permeable membranes that define the realms of “inner” and “outer.” With the inhale and exhale of each breath, we affirm the life-giving flow of “inside” to “outside” and “outside” to “inside.” Breathing consciously with awareness, we begin to sense the flow and change that is at the heart of our experience of life, and each moment, each interaction, each day well lived, we learn that balance is to be found in the flow of life.
As you approach this inquiry into the theme of balance in your life, you may discover, as we did, that everything will become a teacher for you. You will begin to discover lessons on balance in the rhythms of your breath and pulse, in the rising and the setting of the sun, in the cycles of change that weave birth and death, winter and summer, activity and rest, work and play, alone time and time with others into the wholeness of your life. Viewed in this way your whole life becomes a wonder-land in which the on-going inquiry into the nature of balance unfolds.
By learning to be more fully present and aware of this process, your learning will increase and you will recognize many more possibilities and choices. As your insight deepens, you will see more clearly what paths in your life lead you toward and away from the balance you yearn for.”
— Joel & Michelle Levey excerpted from “Living in Balance”
“A reporter once asked Albert Einstein: ‘Dr. Einstein, if you could ask the universe a single question and receive a direct reply, what would you ask?’
His reply came swiftly, as though he had pondered the question for a long time:
‘Is the Universe friendly?’
Pause for a moment to reflect upon Einstein’s question. What do you think? Is your universe friendly? Or not? How would you live if the universe were truly friendly and supportive of you?
Moment to moment, the attitudinal lenses that you choose to wear color your world for better or for worse. Experience the difference between being appreciative or being critical, or between viewing yourself as a victim or holding a more empowered attitude. Adopting an optimistic attitude toward the universe at large and the immediate challenges you face allows you to tap into a greater reservoir of creative energy potential that increase your resilience in the midst of change. The first step is to recognize the attitude you are holding, and notice whether it diminishes or enhances your energy and effectiveness. Then, without sacrificing realism, experiment with embodying a more positive outlook that will keep you buoyant, balanced, and resilient on the sea of constant change.”
— Joel & Michelle Levey, excerpt from our book, “Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World” Conari Press