Today we ask that you give yourself a healthy structure in life.
Life forms thrive when there is a healthy structure. Children feel safe within a healthy structure. Healthy structure is like the foundation and frame of a building. There can be no sturdy building without a solid foundation and frame.
Healthy structure does not, however, mean overscheduling. This is a serious problem for many modern people — that their hours and days are overscheduled, that there is no unstructured time, that they are always running around, exhausted. Overscheduling is especially oppressive for children.
Healthy structure includes unstructured “free time.” Children need time to play. Adults need time to relax, unwind, and explore areas of interest outside of “work.”
A healthy structure is one that is neither too loose, nor too rigid. A loose structure easily collapses. A rigid structure is suffocating, heavy, and airless.
Healthy structure for most humans involves rising and going to bed at roughly the same time each day, making sure there are set times for the preparation and eating of nourishing food, making sure there are set times for exercising the physical body, and creating set times for meditative or spiritual practice. There are regular times to work and create. There is also time to relax, play, and explore.
Such a lifestyle may sound like a vacation to most adults, but it is very possible to live in this way and be exceptionally productive. Much “work” in your society is really quite wasteful — exhausted people blinking at computer screens, and noodling around on the internet. Just because someone is “at work” doesn’t mean work is happening.
Most people exist within unhealthy, overly rigid structures. And because they are forced into rigid structures, as soon as they are given any free space, there is a tendency to collapse. They may turn into couch potatoes, or drink to excess.
A healthy structure gives people plenty of room to breathe. Maintenance of the physical body is integral. The emotional and spiritual bodies must also be attended to. There is a natural rhythm to such a life, like the rhythm of the seasons.
Everyone thrives in a healthy structure. Children grow and learn beautifully in a healthy structure. People are extremely creative in a healthy structure, and there is a dramatic decrease in physical and mental illness.
Even if you live in a sick society — and unfortunately, most of you do — it is possible for individuals to work to create healthy structure within their lives. The rewards for doing so are immeasurable.
wordfromthewell 