Balance the unbalance

Who has complete balance in their lives? Probably not many.  My life was once very unbalanced.  I didn't have sex for 10 years, I didn't leave my house, I didn't socialize, I didn't eat correctly or exercise, I didn't do my art or write. I stopped reading and I spent too much time on the computer. I was afraid to live.

Then one day, I woke up. I started eating better and exercising, I was moving forward, when before I wasn't moving. I met a man who was like me, but I knew he wasn't for me.  Still I hung onto him and he me. Even though he knew he didn't want me.  That was balance, in a way.

However, I was not balanced.  I was exercising, eating correctly and losing weight,  but for him. I still wasn't reading,  doing my art or writing.  I was leaving my house more, still spending too much time on the computer.  I was changing myself every day, but not for me. He being spiritual would tell me what I needed to work on. 

My INNER SELF, would tell me what he said was not correct and I would work on myself the way I needed to.  Still it was his love I continued to crave. I was unbalanced.  I was changing myself for him. During the process I learned to LOVE him unconditionally and without expectations.  That was balance. 

When we parted, I was gaining balance,  but I still wanted someone who was not for me. I learned to forgive myself, in learning that,  I learned to forgive others.  But I still didn't love myself, because I continued to want someone who was not for me.  He wasn't for me because he treated me with disrespect.  I learned how to look INside and address my sadness.  Sadness is repressed anger and there was 45 years and longer built up. I learned to be vulnerable and expose anger and resentments.  I learned to expose my secrets. I cleansed myself of all of those things and I learned about WHO and WHAT I AM.  I was becoming more balanced.

I learned that I was not that man who I thought I loved,  because that was never LOVE.  It was a feeling based upon ALL the HURT that was withIN me.  I learned that I didn't even like him, because in forgiving myself of everything I had ever done to myself and to others, I cleansed myself of that which attracted him to me.  I no longer was that person.  I was MYSELF. 

I learned to LOVE MYSELF.  In learning how to love and accept myself, I learned how to love and accept others. When I learned all of that, I met the man who IS ME. I was becoming more balanced.  By this time I had stopped exercising and wasn't eating correctly again. I was still on the computer too much. I started reading again and doing my art and writing; I still had to address my anger.

It took 6 months, I no longer live in the past. I no longer live in the future.  I may still have anger to work on,  and I'm moving forward slowly, only because moving seems so foreign.  But I have started eating correctly again, I'm exercising slowly getting back into it.  I'm cleaning up my space.  Things I have neglected,  house, studio space, computer, MIND.

As withIN, so without, as above, so below. 
I AM changed. I AM gaining balance every day. I AM moving forward.